Tea or Coffee, Mr Wilde?
(Give Me The Wine List)
Eating oysters in Connecticut is a big thing; and when in Hartford, CT, there was only one place to go: Honiss’ Oyster House.
In 1981 the New York Times ran an article about the famous old place, now long since gone:
It isn’t every restaurant in Connecticut that can claim – as the Honiss Oyster House Company does – to have served Mark Twain, Babe Ruth, Andre Previn and Steve Martin, or to have the very booth where Buffalo Bill Cody ate regularly when he was in town with his Wild West Show.
Honiss’s dimly-lit basement walls are crammed with photographs of customers past. There are more than a thousand pictures in all, dating to the 1880’s, when Thomas Honiss and Fred Atchinson purchased the then-40-year-old restaurant downstairs in the United States Hotel.
The New York Times, February 1, 1981, Section 11, Page 19.
What that story did not mention, and possibly because the restaurant also failed to realize it, is that Oscar Wilde was another celebrity who also partook of Honiss’ famous oysters.
In 1882 after arriving from his previous lecture in New Haven, Oscar checked into the United States Hotel in Hartford, and after some deliberation he ordered oysters from the renowned restaurant, which, as we have seen, was downstairs in the hotel where Oscar was staying.
His name may have been absent from the historical list of patrons because, predictably, he ordered room service.
Report of Oscar’s oyster supper from The Osceola Times Mar 11, 1882, 3
© John Cooper, 2024.
Links:
Any Month with an “R” in It: Eating Oysters in Connecticut
FINE SEAFOOD IN UNREFINED SETTING
(New York Times Archive, subscription)
For my money, this is one of the few reports of Wilde’s meals in the US that has the ring of truth, thanks to the champagne (the accurate description of Wilde’s gait also suggests the whole thing isn’t made up). The three types of potato sounds a bit daft, though.
Thanks for noting Oscar’s presence.
I do take exception to the editor’s description of Oscar’s appearance “not being graceful”. Even without the carnation, majestic giants such as Clydesdales are said to display a graceful gate!