Monsieur Timothée/Timothie Louis Benoît Cheval, and his family, wife Honorine and son Timothée Edouard, arrived in Sydney in April 1853 (Empire, 14 April 1853).[1] Before the end of May, Cheval, and his travelling companion Captain Alexandre de Mars, had set up a business grandly called the Café Restaurant Français at 521 George Street, near the corner of Hunter Street in premises previously occupied by Cohen and Co., auctioneers (Sydney Morning Herald, hereafter SMH, 20 May 1853, p. 1; SMH, 15 March 1887, p. 8). What either Cheval or de Mars knew about running a restaurant, and why they had chosen to come to Sydney is unrecorded but possibly they, like many others, were lured by the promise of opportunities associated with the discovery of gold in the colony.[2] Their café/restaurant went on to be the first sustained French presence in the Sydney dining scene.
De Mars was granted a publican’s license for the premises (SMH, 21 May 1853, p. 3) and the Café Restaurant Français offered patrons oysters, tea, coffee, chocolate, soups, breakfasts, luncheons, dinners (all meals served “a la Parisienne”), French ice creams and pastries, in addition to taking in weekly and monthly boarders. How well Cheval and de Mars knew one another is another unknown but their partnership did not last long. By July 1853 they had parted company (SMH, 13 July 1853, p. 5). Alexandre de Mars subsequently spent a short period as the publican at Parker’s Family Hotel (SMH, 7 September 1853, p. 2; 10 December 1853, p. 9) before joining another Frenchman, Alphonse Barbier, at the London Hotel and French Café in Bathurst (Bathurst Free Press and Mining Journal, 14 January 1854, p. 4). This proved to be another short-lived arrangement (Bathurst Free Press and Mining Journal, 20 May 1854, p. 3). What happened to de Mars subsequently is unknown.
Meanwhile Timothée Cheval took on the license for the Café Restaurant Français and lost no time in opening his “new rooms” designed for “the accommodation of those who wish to combine comfort and economy with good cuisine” (SMH, 29 July 1853, p. 3; Empire, 9 September 1853, p. 3). He advertised breakfast from 9 to 12 consisting of one dish of meat or fish with bread and potatoes, and one cup of French coffee for 1s 9d, while lunch, of one bowl of soup, two dishes of meat or fish, one dish of vegetables and bread was available from 12 until 3 for 2s 6d.
The interior of the Café Restaurant Français, Illustrated Sydney News, 11 February 1854, p. 1. By February 1854 Cheval had formed another partnership, this time with John Poehlman (or Poehlmann), and had expanded by taking on the adjoining premises so that he now operated a French café and an adjacent restaurant. The establishment offered a bit of everything. In a city with hotels on every corner offering food and accommodation it was hard to establish a point of difference. Paragraphs published in the leading newspapers at the beginning of 1854 (with details no doubt provided by Cheval) emphasised the Frenchness of the restaurant, an “attractive temple to the genius of French cookery” where diners could expect the best of French and English cookery, “a variety of dishes such as cannot be obtained elsewhere in Sydney”, and attendants “who speak all the European languages” (Illustrated Sydney News, 11 February 1854, p. 2; Empire, 23 February, p. 3). The café promised the availability of café noir and café au lait, access to a billiard table, dominoes, chess draughts, the latest newspapers and writing materials, and a bar serving “the various kinds of American drinks now so much in vogue”. These offerings hint at the need to cater for a more diverse and perhaps more transient clientele now that Sydney was a point of transit for gold prospectors. It was American gold seekers who brought with them the fashion for American drinks – sherry cobbler, mint julep, brandy smash and the like, made all the more popular by the availability of ice. In October of 1855 Cheval and Poehlman announced they had ice available (SMH, 6 October 1855, p. 8) and could supply all parts of the city (SMH, 12 February 1856, p. 4. See also Goulburn Herald, 3 February 1855, p. 2).
Cheval appears to have been ambitious to take advantage of whatever opportunities trading in food and beverages might offer. In August of 1854 he opened the Australian Larder in Pitt Street, a “Charcuterie et Boucherie Française”, a “superior cook’s shop where all kinds of cooked meats may be purchased, ready for use” (SMH, 1 August 1854, p. 8). In this, another short-lived venture, he was aided by M. Massinot, a butcher who was also employed at the Café Français (see also SMH, 16 October 1854, p. 1). Why this endeavour failed is not clear, perhaps Sydney was not ready for boudins and andouilles, but by October Cheval and Massinot had also parted company.
Cheval then turned the former charcuterie into the Maison D’Orée “a restaurant and supper room for the refreshment of gentlemen leaving the Victoria Theatre” (which was opposite) where he intended to introduce the “elegance and refinements” of the Parisian establishment of the same name, and provide a bill of fare both “recherche and sumptuous” (Empire, 4 November 1854, p. 1). Unfortunately, he had omitted to apply for a publican’s license and was subsequently fined having been found with a stash of alcohol on the premises (SMH, 12 January 1855, p. 4). Things at the Maison D’Orée went from bad to worse. In October Cheval was in court again, fined for knowingly allowing the Maison D’Orée to operate as the resort of prostitutes which was “a great nuisance to the neighbourhood” (SM, 25 October 1855, p. 2). Cheval’s defence was that he was only the manager for the owner, one Pierre Le Pouce/Lepouce/Lepousse, but the judge was not impressed by the argument.
The premises were then transformed into the “Patisserie Parissienne”. The mysterious M. Lepouce advised the public that the restaurant connected to the confectioner’s shop would be supplied “with the same variety of dishes as the French Restaurant, in George Street” (Empire, 6 March 1856, p. 1). Cheval continued to get into trouble as a result of his dealings in Pitt Street – for selling alcohol illegally (Empire, 15 April 1856, p. 4), for non-payment of wages (Bell’s Life in Sydney, 3 May 1856, p. 2; SMH, 24 July, 1856 p. 2), for trading on a Sunday (SMH, 24 April, 1857 p. 3), for keeping his house open at an illegal hour (Empire, 20 June 1857, p. 4; SMH, 18 July 1857, p. 6) and finally for keeping premises open for the entertainment of “promiscuous persons” after midnight (SMH, 20 February 1858, p. 4). Cheval eventually severed all connection with the “supper rooms” in Pitt Street in June 1858 (Empire, 3 June 1858, p. 1).
Meanwhile John Poehlman was now the licensee of the Café Français (Empire, 16 December, 1854, p. 6) and he and Cheval kept that business ticking over. In March of 1855 they took on a Mr William Dunkel who, it was claimed, had “trained in the palace of King Louis Phillippe where he remained until 24 February 1848, when the revolution broke out. He then worked for the English Ambassador to the court of Persia and then to London as chef cook at Maurigg’s first-class hotel Regent Street” (The People’s Advocate, 31 March 1855, p. 5; see also Dunkel seeking employment SMH, 5 March 1855, p. 1). How long Dunkel remained at the Café Français is not recorded but the establishment appears to have flourished.
Englishman Frank Fowler recorded his experience of the Café Français when he visited:
The Café Français … is much frequented by the young swells and sprigs of the city. They hold here a chess club, a billiard club and a stewed-kidney club. Little marble tables, files of “Punch” and the “Times”, dominoes, sherry-cobblers, strawberry ices, and entertaining hostess, and a big, bloused, lubberly, inoffensive host, are the noticeable parts of the café left on my recollection. They serve eight hundred dinners a day at this house, for which they pay a yearly rent of 2400 pounds.[3]
A review of Fowler’s Southern Lights and Shadows in Freeman’s Journal, described it as “a very ill-woven tissue … of exaggerations” (2 April 1859, p. 2). Mr Cheval was not apparently ‘lubberly” but “active and affable”, he never paid as much as 2400 pounds rent and served around 250 meals a day rather than 800. Similarly, the establishment was not frequented by “swells and sprigs” of which there were none in Sydney.
Cheval styled himself the proprietor of the Restaurant Café Français (Empire, 21 September 1857, p. 1) but the details of his arrangement with Poehlman are unclear. Who the “entertaining hostess” was and whether the “big, bloused, lubberly, inoffensive host” was Poehlman, is open to speculation. Even if Fowler’s figures are not to be believed he did single out the Café Français as the premier venue in the city but whether its success was due to Poehlman’s steady management or Cheval’s entrepreneurship and Gallic charm is another unknown.
What precipitated Cheval’s departure from the business in Pitt Street was not stated but shortly afterwards the partnership with Poehlman was dissolved (partnership dissolved 1 July 1858, NSW Government Gazette, 23 July 1858, p. 1164) and Poehlman advertised he was selling the license for the Café Français (SMH, 15 July 1858, p. 6). In September Poehlman was granted a license for Poehlman’s Hotel in George Street, opposite the Bank of NSW. At the same licensing meeting Hippolyte J. Cheval, Timothée’s younger brother, who had arrived in February 1857 (Empire, 16 February 1857, p. 4) was granted the license for the Britannia Arms (SMH, 15 September 1858, p. 3). Again, the trail is somewhat murky but it seems the license of the Britannia Arms may have been transferred to the restaurant in George Street, and certainly Hippolyte held the license for the Café Français in 1859.
Poehlman’s move to go into business independently, on the opposite side of George Street and only a short distance from the Café Français, was the beginning of a long legal battle between him and Timothée Cheval. Cheval first sought an injunction to restrain Poehlman from continuing in business on the grounds that Poehlman’s setting up of a similar business was a breach of the terms of the dissolution of their partnership, requiring that Poehlman not carry on any such business as he had carried on with Cheval. The injunction was refused on the grounds that the similarity between Poehlman’s enterprise and Cheval’s had not been established (SMH, 25 December 1858, p. 4).
Cheval then brought a case against Poehlman for operating illegally, allowing internal communication between his licensed premises and an adjoining business. Originally found in Cheval’s favour, this decision was subsequently reversed after the legislation which the charge rested on was itself called into question. (SMH, 23 March 1859, p. 3; SMH, 7 April 1859, p. 4; Freeman’s Journal, 23 April 1859, p. 3)
The satirical journal, Bell’s Life in Sydney and Sporting Reviewer, made light of the proceedings intimating that Cheval had become Poehlman’s “implacable foe” because the latter had dared to open rival premises in close proximity to the Café Français (26 March 1859, p. 3). Cheval defended himself – it was not jealousy that had motivated him but his belief that Poehlman had committed a breach of faith. Cheval claimed he had paid Poehlman 600 pounds on the understanding that he “would not open, either in George St or Pitt St within a period of eighteen months an establishment that resembled in any way the Café and Restaurant Français” and accused Poehlman of opening “an exact copy of the Café Français”. (SMH, 5 April 1859, p. 8). Poehlman responded to Cheval’s rejoinder denying any breach of faith. He claimed the 600 pounds was less than half the value of the “furniture and effects” in which the pair had an equal interest. He also gave the lie to the idea that the partnership had been dissolved amicably:
Mr Cheval is the last person who should complain of [a breach of faith] – for after we had entered into partnership he took a lease on the premises and subsequently renewed it in his own name alone, and so acquired an advantage over me which eventually enabled him to force me to a dissolution (SMH, 6 April 1859, p.2).
Next Cheval tried to bring a case against Poehlman for breach of the Licensing Act (having insufficient accommodation available), which was dismissed on a technicality (SMH, 16 April, 1859, p. 5).
But Cheval was not done with the charge of breach of covenant. In August 1859 the pair were in court again, Cheval demanding 1000 pounds damages from Poehlman. The details of the covenant were that Poehlman would not within the period of eighteen months of the dissolution of their partnership, so long as Cheval carried on his business on the premises they had shared, “conduct or assist as manager, waiter or servant for any person or persons or establish or set up, take, or carry on, on his own account either alone or jointly with any other person or persons, or take any share or interest in any café or restaurant in George Street or Pitt Street”. Provided that nothing in the covenant should prevent Poehlman from keeping any inn, public-house or hotel with a table d’hote for lunch or dinner "after the manner in which Petty’s Hotel and the Metropolitan Hotel were carried on" at the time of the execution of the deed. (Empire, 23 August 1859, p. 5).
The case was reported in detail. Once it was accepted that Cheval continued to run the Café Français, even though the license was in his brother’s name, proving the charge hinged on determining to what extent the two business were the same. A café was defined as “a place where a person could go in for refreshment – as well coffee and tea as stronger drinks – at any hour of the day”. A restaurant was described as “a place where a person could at any time of the day order what refreshment (in the nature of food) he might need, from a list to which the price of each article was affixed, paying for what he had”. The practice at a restaurant differed from that at places like Petty’s Hotel and the Metropolitan, where “the meals were served at fixed hours, at a table d’hote, and each person who partook paid a fixed price for each meal. Meals were not served at any other times except under very peculiar circumstances” (SMH, 23 August 1859, p. 8). These definitions were well understood in the Sydney dining scene and had been articulated as early as 1843 when Mr Sparke advertised the new arrangements at the Royal Hotel (SMH, 14 March 1843, p. 2)
The character of Poehlman’s business was dissected. He had kept a table d’hote but had also occasionally supplied coffee. Although coffee was generally only served to persons who had eaten lunch or dinner there and was thus part of the meal itself, coffee had been supplied at other times. Service of coffee had also been refused at times. Poehlman admitted food had sometimes been supplied later than the hours fixed for meals, but the menu was that used at the table d’hote and the charge had been fixed.
According to the newspaper reports “there was other evidence as to the fittings of the respective houses, and as to the mode of conducting business in each, for the purpose of showing that Poehlmann’s [sic] management resembled that of Cheval: but none of the evidence was of a very distinct or positive character, except as to the general supply at both places of American drinks and the fitting up of the front room with a number of small tables.”
Cheval claimed that his takings had declined by an average of 10 pounds per day since Poehlman had opened his rival premises. The court must have been impressed by the arguments over the finer details of café/restaurant versus table d’hote and awarded Cheval 200 pounds damages, significantly less than he thought he was entitled to. The crucial difference would appear to have been the choice available in a restaurant and the different prices for menu items, but the distinctions could easily be blurred. Most hotels in Sydney at the time professed to serve a table d'hote but also to have food available at all times for all comers presumably, like Poehlman, serving the table d’hote menu at a fixed price. Cheval’s determination to pursue the case, and the sums of money involved, indicate that the success of the Café Français owed much to the fact that it operated as a restaurant providing customers with not just convenience but, most importantly, choice.
Poehlman was not happy with the result but an attempt to have the verdict overturned was unsuccessful (SMH, 10 August 1860, p. 4; Empire, 10 August 1860, p. 8). He continued in business in George Street at Central House/Central Café/Poehlman’s Hotel until March of 1862 (SMH, 21 March 1862, p. 11) when he moved to “more commodious premises close to the Herald and Empire offices” in Pitt Street (Empire, 3 July 1862, p. 1) and Central House passed into the hands of a Mr Scrivener. This enterprise, Poehlman’s Hotel, lasted just shy of 12 months (Empire, 3 July 1862, p. 1) and John Poehlman disappears from the record.
Running a successful restaurant required a well-run kitchen, and the Café Français had benefitted from the expertise of Alphonse Courvoisier and “his practical knowledge of the duties of a restaurant” almost since its inception (SMH, 3 December, p. 7, 1859). In January 1860 Courvoisier also set himself up as a rival to Cheval, advertising the Restaurant Français at the Custom’s House Hotel in Macquarie Place (SMH, 31 January 1860, p. 1). Perhaps Courvoisier was aware that changes were ahead since, despite having proved his case against Poehlman, Timothée Cheval’s future plans did not include the Café Restaurant Français.
In November 1861 he was granted 1500 hectares of land in New Caledonia.[4] What prompted Cheval’s interest in New Caledonia is unknown. Why he should contemplate leaving behind a successful, lucrative business and swap the comforts of Sydney for the privations of the new French colony, where the civil European population amounted to only 432 persons in January 1860, is hard to fathom.[5] The terms of Cheval’s land allocation required that he bring with him, at his own expense, European settlers, farming equipment and livestock making it an expensive undertaking, and not one to be entered into quickly or half-heartedly.[6] Finance was presumably no problem but finding Europeans to join him in the new venture may have been more difficult if not for family connections.
Hippolyte married Ellen O’Donoghue (O’Donohue) from County Clare in 1861.[7] In April 1862 her family - parents, James and Mary, and siblings John, Maria, Ann and Timothy - arrived in Sydney as assisted immigrants, sponsored by Timothée Cheval (Freeman’s Journal, 12 April 1862, p. 7). In June 1862, Timothée Cheval, the O’Donoghues, and James Daly, his wife Honora (the sister of Mrs O’Donoghue) and their four children, left Sydney on the Gazelle for New Caledonia (SMH, 25 June 1862, p. 4).[8] The Sydney Morning Herald of 14 January 1863 (p. 5) recorded the visit of the recently arrived Governor of New Caledonia, Guillain, to the holdings of Cheval, James Paddon, and Didier Joubert.[9]
Once established on his land “dans la plaine de la Tontouta” Timothée Cheval wound up his business affairs in Sydney (SMH, 20 May 1864, p. 6; NSW Government Gazette, 25 May 1864, p. 1277).[10] Madame Honorine Cheval wanted nothing to do with the New Caledonia venture and returned to France (Empire, 27 April 1864, p. 4). Hippolyte and Ellen O’Donoghue remained in Sydney with their two young daughters until they too sailed for New Caledonia in 1864.[11] The Café Français was taken over by a Mr. J. F. Maloney and started on its own new life (SMH, 21 September 1865, p. 10).
Hélène Laine, a grand-daughter of Hippolyte Cheval, recounts that the once in New Caledonia the settlers encountered a number of setbacks in their attempts to grow corn and coffee and to farm cattle – plagues of locusts and floods and unsuitable soil hampered their enterprise. At some stage, possibly around the time Hippolyte arrived, the group split, with the Donoghues and Hippolyte taking up land at Saint-Vincent on the Tamoa river and the Dalys moving to Naniouni. Laine is coy about what precipitated the breakup suggesting that the difficulties they encountered were only part of the cause, there being “other unhappy circumstances” which led to the breach. She has Timothée battling on until “merciful death brings to an end his fruitless labours” (p. 60). But Timothée was not released from his labouring until 1881 by which time he had fathered five children with Louise Tatati/Tatate.[12] Perhaps his relationship with a local indigenous woman almost forty years his junior was the cause of some dissention within the colonists. Laine makes no mention of this liaison but does note that Timothée’s miserable existence was relieved by the arrival of his son, Timothée Edouard, who had been taken back to France by his mother. Timothée junior remained in New Caledonia after his father’s death.
Hippolyte was appointed to the head of the Customs Office in 1871 and the family moved to Nouméa. He and Ellen had thirteen children in all and their descendants remain proud of their connection to “une des plus anciennes familles de colons libres de Nouvelle-Calédonie”.[13]
Meanwhile at the Café Restaurant Français in George Street Sydney ……….
[1] Timothée Cheval was born in Paris in 1814. He married Honorine Romain Barré in Paris in 1846. Details of Cheval’s life and family are derived from a number of sources: the family tree compiled by Hélène Derrien-Cassat available at https://gw.geneanet.org/lion4?lang=en&pz=louis+joseph+timothee&nz=cheval&p=thimothee+louis+benoit&n=cheval; Patrick O’Reilly, Calédoniens: Répertoire bio-bibliographique de la Nouvelle-Caledonie (Publications de la Société des Océanists, no. 3, Musée de L’Homme, Paris, 1953); Hélène Laine, Pioneer Days in New Caledonia: A Story of Pacific Island Settlement, ed. and trans. H.E.L. Priday (Nouméa: Imprimeries Réunies, 1942).
[2] Laine and O’Reilly both claim Timothée and Hippolyte arrived in Australia together and came with 50 thousand francs. Laine describes the building in George Street having “a ground floor and two stories” with the restaurant on the ground floor and accommodation for Timothée and family on the first floor, and for Hippolyte on the floor above.
[3] Fowler was in Sydney 1855-1857, Southern Lights and Shadows (London: Sampson, Low, & Co., 1859), p. 14.
[4] According to Laine, Cheval was among the first to apply for and obtain concessions and was granted 1500 hectares on Tontouta Plain, 40 miles from Port-de-France (Nouméa), by imperial decree of Napoleon III dated 28 November 1861.
[5] Patrick O’Reilly. “Chronologie de la Nouvelle-Calédoniens, 1774–1903”, Journal de la Sociète des Océanistes 9 (1953): pp. 25–53. Laine gives the European civilian population of New Caledonia at 1060 in 1866, rising to 1300 in 1869 (p. 31).
[6] The exact requirements were 6 to 8 European colonists, 11 horned cattle, 16 horses and a stallion, and that he bring equipment to clear 50 hectares. In all the colonists on the Gazelle brought with them 13 horses, 92 oxen and 46 cases of agricultural equipment (O’Reilly,Calédoniens). Timothée Cheval was granted final title in June 1866 (SMH 28 July 1866, p. 6.)
[7] Ellen and her sister Maggie had arrived in 1856. According to Laine they arrived with their aunt Honora MacMahon, their mother Mary’s sister, but I have been unable to substantiate this. The brother of Mary and Honora, Patrick MacMahon was already successfully established in Sydney (The Catholic Press, 10 March 1910, p. 23).
[8] Honora MacMahon married James Daly in Sydney in 1857. For the Dalys see Helen Litton “The Dalys of New Caledonia”, History Ireland,https://historyireland.com/the-dalys-of-new-caledonia/ Laine also has Annie Maloney, niece of James and Mary O’Donoghue, as a member of the party. The Daly children were John, Patrick, Michael and Honora. O’Reilly includes other colonists: Hofford, O’Connel, Patrick Munnen, E. MacMahon, J. Hogus, Ralph and Mme Unger and her two children. The Sydney papers list only the Dalys, the O’Donoghues, Mrs Unger and her two sons, a Miss Delany (who may be Annie Maloney?), Captain Stafford, Cheval and “3 in steerage”.
[9] For Paddon see https://www.isfar.org.au/bio/paddon-james-1811-1861/; for Joubert see Karin Speedy, “Toppling Joubert,” Shima 40, no. 2 (2020): pp. 186–213, https://www.shimajournal.org/issues/v14n2/13.-Speedy-Shima-v14n2.pdf.
[10] Timothée Cheval’s land is where the airport at Tontouta is situated today.
[11] Hippolyte and Ellen had two daughters born 1862 and 1863. O’Reilly has them arriving in New Caledonia in June 1864 (Calédoniens).
[12] The family tree compiled by Hélène Derrien-Cassat lists Louis Benoît Tatati dit Cheval born 1869, Clémence born 1874, Jules born 1875, Laure born 1878, and Louis born 1881. The “dit Cheval” indicates that the family used the name Cheval or were known as Cheval, but suggests that Timothée and Louise Tatati/Tatate were not formally married, given that Timothée was still married to Honorine.
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