Menu dated 13th December 1903



Dinner at the Belém Palace, Lisbon, hosted by Their Most Faithfull Majesties King Carlos I and Queen Amélie of Portugal in honour of a visit by His Most Catholic Majesty King Alfonso XIII of Spain.

This was a dinner full of fun, laughter and jovial toasts as the two Iberian monarchs cemented their friendship. Four days earlier the seventeen-year-old – yes, 17-year-old – King of Spain had arrived in Portugal as the esteemed guest of His Most Faithful Majesty King Carlos I. Together the two Kings had gone hunting, dined on a battlecruiser,enjoyed a 200 seat State Banquet and, earlier on this day, whiled away the afternoon watching the bullfights.

This dinner was held at Lisbon’s Belém Palace, where Alfonso XIII of Spain had been given royal lodgings, and was the final night before he and his mother, Queen Marie Christina, returned home. The King of Portugal put on a mighty farewell spread including woodcocks smothered in creamed watercress and fillets of beef topped with cockscombs, truffles and braised lamb' sweetbreads before being drowned in Champagne and ham sauce. For dessert came pineapple custards and almond praline ice-cream.

Unfortunately for King Carlos I however, his name will be forever associated with regicide instead of royal dining. Five years after this dinner the King along with his eldest son, and heir-to-the-throne, would be gunned down by Republicans as their carriage made its way across Lisbon’s large public square, the Terreiro do Paço.

King Carlos’s chef was the Alsatian-born Victor Hirtzler who had trained in the kitchens of Tsar Nicholas II under the tuition of the Emperor’s Chef-de-Cuisine, and fellow Alsatian, Eugene Krantz. It was in the Russian Court that Hirtzler also undertook the health-hazardous task of food-taster to Russia’s Imperial Majesty. Hirtzler had also perfected his royal culinary skills during a stint in Germany when serving in the kitchens of the Grand Duke of Baden.

In his post-royal service, Hirtzler would set sail across the Atlantic and later find fame as a celebrity chef in New York and San Francisco. There he would tease newspapers with snippets on the workings of the Tsar’s kitchens; let slip the odd recipe that had received the imperial nod of approval; or blab a little gossip, arguably exaggerated, about the Imperial Family’s daily life.

Of his royal service in Portugal he claimed King Carlos enjoyed his preparation of pheasant breasts dressed in a Champagne and Madeira sauce; and stuffed with minced woodcock flavoured with truffles. It was a dish, evidently, Don Carlos wasn’t keen to show-off to his Spanish royal guests.

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This dinner was truly royal with two kings, an heir to the throne and three Queen's in attendance. Carlos's wife, Queen Amélie, along with his mother, Queen Maria Pia, joined Alfonso XIII and his mother Queen Marie Christina along the Prince Royal of Portugal, the 16 year-old Luís Filipe.