“A MAN’S CITY”

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 874, 18 January 1930, Page 28

“A MAN’S CITY”

PARISIAN LOOKS AT LONDON MORE RESTAURANTS NEEDED Life in London has a spaciousness, a dignity, a suavity very impressive to Frenchmen, and almost overwhelming to Americans. It is in particular a man’s city, eloquent of modern effort in industry, a stern and splendid background for the adventure of politics, of commerce, of banking and exchange. But will a Parisian be pardoned if he suggests that when all is said, London is slightly dull? asks “A Parisian” in the “Evening Standard,” London. No city in the world has more magnificent opportunities. The climate of London is no more severe than that of Paris. In winter it is frequently warmer. And in spring and summer, and even in the rich slow autumn, London is an infinitely pleasanter place to linger in than either Paris or New York. But how little artistic idliug is done out of doors in London! Its streets seem made to be hurried through. The spectacle of a man or woman seated on a canvas stool and painting calmly an aspect of London’s haunting landscape would immediately, 1 suspect, provoke the appearance of a policeman and an agitated jostling crowd. Not until some liquor commission has revolutionised that stolid old British institution of the Public House will the Trade attempt, or the L.C.C. tolerate, the charming Continental feature of au open, wide-windowed cafe, with a many-tabled terrace on the pavement. And not until then, I suppose, w'ill the shuttered, warm, but conventional interior life of the Londoner spread out and overflow- into the street. But much might be done, as it is, to introduce something- of the ease,

colour, and simplicity of Continental life in London. Mr. Lansbury Is doing heroically obvious things in Hyde Park. Why does he not go one better and establish a large, bright and popular cafe In Hyde Park, open all the year round and providing good music, food and drink at reasonable prices ? 1 would like to prophesy that no act of the present Government would be more immediately popular with the people of London. And I suggest that the leading London caterers, if properly appealed to, would pool their resources in brains and experience to aid the experiment. Small Restaurants This brings me to the vital question of food, which for tourists and for Londoners is a daily and sometimes a harrowing problem. In one of the largest and best-known restaurants in London recently, I ate a meal which was one of the best I had even known in my life. Not one of the first six restaurants in Paris could have surpassed it in range, quality, or cheapness. What is chiefly lacking in London, to the critical eyes of a foreigner, is an abundance of small restaurants. There are over 10,000 in Paris, many of them extremely cheap, and almost all extremely good. There are hardly a hundred in London, if tea-shops are excluded. In my experience, people will pay anything for first-class food, properly cooked and served. In how many small London restaurants can a meal be found to equal that obtained in a third-class restaurant in Paris, or even in the numerous startingly named little restaurants i»i the Gi-eenwich village of New York? And why are there not more hotels, clubs, and restaurants with roof gardens? At present, I think, there is only one hotel in London with a roof garden, and only one night club, but that amazingly successful. Paris, it is true, has only one restaurant roof garden, in Montparnasse, and that of but recent origin. But then it has all the splendid open-air restaurants of the Bois de Boulogne, and all the thousands of little restaurants which put out white-topped tables on the pavements in the summer. If I were, for a week, a combined dictator of fine arts and public happiness in London, I would carry out the following bold experiments in the brightening of London: The flood-lighting of great public buildings at night, or at least on special occasions. Cafes with music in all the public gardens, squares, and parks. Restaurants with terraces overlooking the river on the now scandalously neglected Victoria and Chelsea Embankments. Root gardens on all great hotels. Floating swimming baths in the Thames, brightly painted, like those in the Seine opposite the Louvre and the Chamber of Deputies. Small, fast pleasure launches plying in summer between the Tower of London and Richmond. In the suburbs of London, more inngardens, like that attractive place in Hampstead, where bowls are played, and beer and sandwiches consumed, in the open air.