Connecticut western news., 1886-07-28
QUEER RESTAURANTS
Two of New YOrk'S Odd Eat
 ing Houses Described.
Places with National Reputation Whose
 Surroundings are Unsavory.

Places with National Reputation Whose
 Surroundings are Unsavory,
 A New York letter to the Troy Times says: Moretti's is restaurant that has achieved a national reputation, although as unpretentious as Oliver Hitchcock's beanery. It is on Fourteenth street, near Third avenue. You enter a narrow and dirty hallway, ascend dusty flight of stairs and are ushered into a dining room filled with tables covered with linen any thing but snowy in color. The chairs are rickety, there is little ventilation and the rooms are usually filled with the fumes of garlic, coffee and tobacco. The walls are lined with pictures of illustri- ous Italians, from Cavour down to Cam. panini and Cristadoro. The portraits are rusty and musty, the restaurant is stuffy, the plates and cups are nicked and cracked, the walters are slovenly and out ward appearances are far from appetizing. Yet some of the most noted men and wo- men of New York dine there. Moretti himself does the cooking, and everybody praises and apparently enjoys it. The proprietor frequenly leaves his stew pans and chafing dishes and wanders out among his guests in his shirt sleeves. He usually has cigar in his mouth. He always wears soiled apron and invariably looks as though he had just come out of a stable. Yet millionaires and literati press his hand with delight, and the ladies of the haut ton greet him with their sweet est smiles. He has been the rage for years. The artist Page first discovered him nearly thirty years ago. William Henry Fry, Charles A. Dana, William Stuart, George Arnold, Fitz Greene Hal leck, William Cullen Bryant, Henry Ward Beecher, William Henry Hurlbet, Joseph Howard, Jr., and men of that ilk quickly recognized the importance off the discovery and tho cook began to get on his feet. Politicians, merchants, brokers and men about-town took the cue and followed suit, and Moretti became famous. His place has been thronged for years. It is almost impossible to secure seat at a table at the 6 o'clock dinner hour. All the dishes are Italian in concoction and decoction. To the uneducated American palate they are simply nauseating; yet bon vivants revcl in them. You get soup, fish, meats, game, maccaron, salads and desserts, all favored with oil and garlic, and to farmers boy all tasting alike. Half the native Americans who drop in there masticate the food with an imagin- alive relish, and arc sick for days after ward. Yet all vie with the bon vivants in praising Moretti's provender. Each man wants to be thought an expert in testing cookery, and therefore eats and commends everything set before him. Men eat cheese and game birds at Moretti's tables who would pitch them out of the window if they were served at home. Moretti is as shrewd in a business way as he is in the gastronomic line. He makes
  nifcence like Martinelli and Moreli. He sticks to his original plant and lets his cooking speak for itself. He enjoys his squalid surroundings, and makes no effort to gild them. He takes no vacations. He spends no money in pleasure. His life is bounded by his cook shop; beyond its confines there is no happiness for him. Morning, noon and night, both summer and winter, you will find him stewing and sweating in his Italian kitchen and ladling out his dollar meals. How much himself. The figures must run up among the hundred thousands.
 Lately, however, competition has reared its head. A bcetle-browed little Span iard of the name of Pedro, some years ago started a small restaurant in Duane street. It is in little squatty wooden building, within a stones throw of O'Don- ovan Rossa's den on one side, and of the Five Points on the other. Pedro de- votes his attention to Spanish dishes. His table linen is rarel y clean, and his crockery looks as though it had just come out of a tenement house. Untutored stomachs would declare the cooking to be execrable. The smell of garlic is about suffocating, the bread is the color of ma i hogany, and the wine as sour as clder vinegar; yet William Stuart, Charles Gaylor and other veteran gourmands assert that the cooking is perfection it. self, and go into ecstacies over his din ners. Stock brokers give select dinner parties in his shanty, and armies of flies welcome them. Tom-cats scattered among the tin cans littering the yards near by furnish class music, and Pedro himself, arrayed in badly soiled garments, dishes olla podrida and other choice Spanish dishes, streaming with onions and garlic Ladies frequently grace the swarthy Spaniard's gastronomic sactum, and Pe- dro is on the highway of fame, gathering in fortue. He already sells more cham. pagne than Moretti, but whether this is owing to the digestible or indigestible nature of his dinners is question: One thing is certain. It takes we'll trained stomach to appreciate his cooking. A thorough Western cowboy would probably shoot him on sight if confronted by one | of his dishes