The Café Tortoni was a real place, posh and successful for most of the 19th C. Martial’s etching shows the Morris column or advertising kiosk that Robbie pretends to be perusing when Jeanette, Cousin Effie, and Emily arrive expecting to be treated to its famous ice cream.
For this and other hand-tinted etchings by Jules Adolphe Theodore Martial-Potémont of Paris Boulevards, click here.
For a French Wikipedia article about the café, including a list of its appearances in fiction, click here.
For a modernized version of an 1898 recipe for a dessert called a Tortoni and assumed to have originated at the café, click here.
For this and other hand-tinted etchings by Jules Adolphe Theodore Martial-Potémont of Paris Boulevards, click here.
For a French Wikipedia article about the café, including a list of its appearances in fiction, click here.
For a modernized version of an 1898 recipe for a dessert called a Tortoni and assumed to have originated at the café, click here.