Dining in Chicago

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WIECHMANN & GELLERT'S
Bear, Caribou, and Moose

It's a lucky thing that nature up in the New Brunswick country in Canada is ever bountiful and replenishes her woods and streams with new wild life each year, for if this were not the case Herman Wiechmann would have cleaned out the country long ago in supplying Chicagoans with the popular game dishes -- bear, caribou, and moose. Annually, for thirty years, he's been going there with his rifle and returning home with a loaded bag, so to speak. As a result, his restaurant at the south end of the Loop is a rendezvous for all lovers of venison and other game dishes.
And what a restaurant it is! You know that game is featured here as soon as you step inside, for the walls are decorated with sprig-like antlers and other trophies of the hunt. And Herman Wiechmann did not buy them, either; each antler comes from a deer that he brought down with his own hands in the north country. The walls are hung with big black turtle shells, indicating that this is a place of sea foods too. But the feature that strikes you most in this South Wabash Avenue restaurant is its old-style atmosphere, reminiscent of a dining room of the nineties -- long, rangy, and with a highly ornate Victorian ceiling.

[Dark Saint Alaick]

This ceiling, by the way, is of interest to old-timers because it is all that is left of the famed Kuntz-Remmler restaurant, which occupied the premises before Wiechmann & Gellert took it over six years ago. "Honest John" Kuntz, who died in 1928, attracted many prominent people to his place, among them Theodore Roosevelt, Enrico Caruso, John Drew and John L. Sullivan. Harry Hansen, the literary critic, writes of John Kuntz's place: "In my college days, 1905-1909, I often ate a fine steak at Kuntz-Remmler*s. They served a grand steak for fifty cents, with potatoes and coffee. We paid twenty-five at the University Commons, so you can see that we were lavish."
Meanwhile, over in the Standard Club Building in South Dearborn Street, Wiechmann & Gellert 's was making history and vying with the Kuntz-Remmler establishment in catering to the epicures of the city. There came venerable judges from the United States district courts in the Federal Building nearby -- Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis, Judge James Wilkerson, Judge Carpenter, and such other celebrities as Charles ("Old Roman") Comiskey, Ban Johnson, Armour, Swift, and many of the mayors of the city. Wiechmann & Gellert were in this location for twenty years and when the old club building was torn down to make way for a new one, the restaurant moved over to Wabash Avenue and took over the vacant Kuntz-Remmler premises.

[Dark Saint Alaick]

Today, Wiechmann & Gellert's is the most popular restaurant in the city for game. Sea foods and German dishes are also featured. What a treat to observe the waiters hurrying back and forth among the tables with all the fish and game -- turtle soup, prepared from green turtles (shipped alive from Louis Bay, Mississippi) , and with a dash of sherry wine in it; partridges; bass and stuffed lobsters; perhaps a saddle of venison requiring two waiters to carry it; bear meat; opossums, raccoons, beaver, Alaska mountain goat and Watertown goose. The game, of course, is served only in season. Among the German dishes, the pork shanks and sauerkraut and the Beef a la mode with potato pancake are outstanding for their palatableness.

Wiecbmann & Gellert German- American

424 South Wabash Avenue

Open for luncheon and dinner

Both table d'hote and a la carte -- and reasonable

[Dark Saint Alaick]

LA LOUISIANE
A Night In New Orleans

Gaston Alciatore, handsome as a collar ad, and with the ends of his mustache waxed, animatedly welcoming new arrivals with typical French -- or is it Southern? -- cordiality; French waiters lighting silvery alcohol lamps to make crepes Suzette; murals of scenes in the old French quarter of New Orleans decorating the walls; Ferdinand Alciatore, father of Gaston, looking down benevolently from an oil painting to the left of the entrance; diners gazing over the list of Creole hors d'oeuvres, trying to decide between salade d'anchoix or escargots a la bourguignonne; everybody, however, ordering Creole gumbo and that fish which is New Orleans' gift to the world's edibles, pompano papillotte.
Truthfully, here is a night in old New Orleans! Atmosphere, food, the service and the waiters, and Gaston himself, give you the impression of dining in that famed rendezvous of New Orleans' gourmets. La Louisiane, where Gaston's father once was proprietor. As a matter of fact, the interior of the Chicago restaurant is an exact replica of the establishment in the Mardi Gras city. Or you could easily imagine that you were eating in the parent restaurant of both, Antoine's, one of the oldest and most noted restaurants in America. Antoine's was founded by Antoine Alciatore, grandfather of Gaston. Julian Street, writing in the Saturday Evening Post, points to Antoine Alciatore and his two sons, Jules and Ferdinand, as outstanding men around whom the names of great restaurants have been built.

[Dark Saint Alaick]

Chicago epicures and epicuresses thank the stars that there is a member of this great family of restaurateurs in town, for nowhere else can they indulge their passion for delectable viands with greater zest and enjoyment than in this one-story restaurant among the auto salesrooms of South Michigan Boulevard. All the great dishes of Creole cookery, which is the most original school of cookery in the United States, combining as it does both French and Spanish influences, are served here with such skill and palatableness as to draw people not only from all parts of Chicago but from other cities as well. The chef, Arnold Pfeffinger, was trained in New Orleans kitchens and knows how to prepare these dishes in the true Alciatore tradition.
Now, messieurs et mesdaTnes, if you wish a typical New Orleans dinner, we would suggest salade d'anchoix -- anchovy salad with beets, chopped Q'g and capers -- for your hors d'oeuvres. It's perfectly grand. Among the oysters, there is that culinary masterpiece first oflFered to the world in the old Antoine restaurant -- namely, oysters Rockefeller. You may order it here, but you may not order the recipe of its incomparable sauce, for that remains a secret of the Alciatore family. Creole gumbo, of course, is your soup in any Maison Alciatore, for only the Alciatore chefs know how to prepare this noted New Orleans concoction in just the proper manner.

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And now we come to the piece de resistance -- pompano papillote. We could write letters home to mother, we could wax poetic, we could shout from the house-tops, over the delicious pompano that Max Manus, oldest of the Alciatore waiters, lays before us; we could go into a long dissertation over its virtues, describing the savory fish, the method of baking in oiled paper (the word "papillote" refers to this process), the history of this scaleless fish, which is found nowhere else in the world but in the blue waters of the Gulf of Mexico -- we could, in short, make ourselves ridiculous in our ravings over the delectableness of this American member of the finny tribe, but our suggestion is that you try it yourself. We're sure you'll feel the same way we do after once tasting it. And don't forget to order souffle potatoes, asparagus tips and Southern alligator pear salad -- which are the conventional accompaniments to New Orleans pompano.

In case you don't care for fish, however, there are lamb chops a la Louisiane, another specialite de la maison, served with livers and mushrooms and the whole drenched in claret wine sauce. This is truly a gastronomical delight and something you'll not easily forget.

[Dark Saint Alaick]

At La Louisiane, almost any evening, you'll find both local and nationally-known celebrities. Maurice Chevalier, the French comedian, dined here when he was in town; such society personages as Count and Countess Minetto, Michael Cudahy, Jr., and Mrs. Frederick Countiss come in often as do those two Randolph Street theatre executives, John J. Garrity and Ralph Kettering. Tito Schipa, Chicago's favorite opera singer, is another patron, as is R. R. Donnelly, whose printing firm makes the telephone books. P. M. Goodv/illie, the box manufacturer and about-towner, and his wife, are regulars and may be seen here often with their friend. Chief Michael Corrigan, of the fire department.
But celebrities are not the factor that counts in La Louisiane. It's the food -- and what food! This place is a culinary landmark of Chicago and you shouldn't miss it. Gaston's vivacious French manner will charm you and he will gladly assist you in the selection of dishes. You may dance at La Louisiane, without cover charge, from 7 P.M. until 1 A. M.

La Louisiane French-Creole

1341 South Michigan Boulevard

Open for luncheon, dinner and after the theatre

[Dark Saint Alaick]

KAU'S

The Wineless Weinstube

We feel sad every time we enter Henry Kau's place. To think that this quaint and charming weinstube, redolent of old times and with a tavern-Hke interior more interesting and picturesque than any you'll find in Chicago -- or Berlin, for that matter -- should be without the juice of the grape! What a pity! It fills us with the sort of wistful sadness we feel upon beholding in a museum some delicate old wine glass, now, alas, empty and unused, from the cupboard of a princely household. How many times have we longed, while dining here, for a schoppen of one of those rare old EJiine Valley vintages that Henry Kau used to purvey in the old days -- a Scharlachberger or a Riidesheimer -- wines that would be so much in keeping with the dark and medieval atmosphere of this restaurant in South Wells Street.

Thinking these thoughts, we should pine away and die if it were not for the new lease on life we take when the waiter sets before us that which we have ordered. A faint bouquet charms our nostrils; our eyes begin to glisten; and our palate awakens with anticipation. For there before us lies the object for which we usually come to Kau's -- fricasseed chicken. It is a culinary masterpiece. Only a woman could prepare it in just this way and we thank the gods for Mrs. Mueller, chef for Henry Kau for thirtyfive years, who is responsible for making diners feel no regrets at the absence of wines. English mutton chops, special steaks, Iamb chops, roast lamb, fowls and game in season, are other dishes of the house that are especially notable.

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Small wonder, then, that Chicago's kings of finance, captains of industry, merchant princes, and millionaires of all sorts have sat -- and still continue to sit -- at the tables in this old German weinstube, which is located just around the corner from the La Salle Street financial district. The wholesale district is also nearby.

That world-renowned Chicagoan, General Charles Gates Dawes, at present ambassador to the Court of St. James, dines here frequently when he is in town; here came the late Albert B. Kuppenheimer, clothing manufacturer; it was the favorite eating place of James Simpson, chairman of the board of Marshall Field & Company and head of the Chicago Plan Commission; Louis Eckstein, founder of the Ravinia Opera, has his fricasseed chicken here, as does John J. Mitchell, the banker (the younger) , and Charles Netcher, head of the Boston Store; and you're likely to find those two friends, Ludwig Plate, local manager of the North German Lloyd offices, and Dr. Hugo Simon, the German consul, at one of the tables almost any day. Here also came the late Charles Wacker, the city planner, after whom Wacker Drive is named.

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That Kau's was built as a temple of wine and food is evidenced on all sides; the white-tiled fagade is carved with designs of lobsters and game and monks drinking wine; the leaded windows of colored glass are covered with culinary symbols; the interior walls are of mahogany panelling and hung with old German color prints of scenes along the Rhine; and back of the service bar is a large painting of the vineyard-covered hills of Bingenon-the-Rhine, where Henry Kau spent his boyhood.
In 1914, upon his return from a tour of Germany, Henry Kau built this weinstube, embodying in it the best features of the weinstuben he had studied in Berlin. Henry feels that you won't find anything to compare with it in the German capital. It was designed by the late Peter J. Weber, a noted architect who also designed the Ravinia Opera Pavilion and some of the World's Fair buildings in 1893.
All of which is to say that if you are looking for genuine old-time tavern atmosphere, combined with food of the highest excellence, we recommend Henry Kau's without reservations. And you will quickly forget that this is a wineless weinstube.
Kau's German- American
127 South Wells Street
Open for luncheon and dinner
Table d'hote only -- and a bit steep