O n Friday, 22 May 1896, guests of Queen Victoria at Windsor Castle had a lot on their plates. A handwritten menu shows “Her Majesty’s Dinner” offered soup with vermicelli, trout meunière, boudin (black pudding), quails, ducklings and spinach with croutons followed by peaches and cream, then cheese. For those still peckish, hot and cold meats including pork tongue and beef were laid out on a side table.
The finely decorated card is one of 4,600 menus in a unique collection being sold in Paris on Friday, spanning 150 years of high-society dining from the late 19th century. They were collected by 56-year-old chef Christophe Marguin, and date from a banquet given by the Lord Mayor of London at the Guildhall in 1862. From there, they range from a dinner hosted by France’s last monarch, Napoleon III, in 1868 to the dinner for King Charles hosted by President Emmanuel Macron at Versailles in September last year.
“It is a beautiful collection and is unique. Many of these menus are works of art in their own right,” Marguin said. “History is also written at the dining table.
” Marguin, who runs Le Président restaurant in Lyon, France’s culinary capital, is the fourth generation of chefs in his family and began collecting menus aged 19 when working in the restaurant of the five-star Hotel Lutetia in Paris. “I was told there was a chef who was going into a retirement home and had no family. He didn’t want his collection to go in the bin,” Marguin said.
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