Das Café Tortoni in der rue Taitbout, Paris, war Treffpunkt der Dandys und der fashionablen Gesellschaft.

Die Zeitschrift La Mode schrieb am 25. Juli 1843:

»C’est vainement que la concurrence cherche à  enlever la foule élégante qui remplit chaque soir les salons de Tortoni; il y a de vieilles et justes réputations contre lesquelles on ne saurait lutter: celle de Tortoni est de ce nombre; aussi ses salons sont-ils chaque soir trop petits.«

und am 15. August 1843:

»Tortoni est le but des promenades du soir: c’est chez lui que bien des soirées sont closes. Ses excellentes glaces, ses délicieux sorbets, en donnant leur fraicheuret leur parfum, préparent bien au repos de la nuit; et là  on rencontre toujours quelqu’un de connaissance et quelque nouvelle. Les agrémens en ont fait le rendez-vous de la fashion prisonnère à  Paris.«

George Moore erinnert sich 1919 in Avowals an seine Jugend in Paris:

»It is many years since Tortoni passed away, and of its company few are left, but the little circle of chairs round the corner of the Rue Taitbout is fixed in the minds of the remnant, and all of them filled by the great artists of thirty years ago. At five o’clock in the afternoon Tortoni was a pious observance, the fulfilment of the Parisian day; our rule, our practice, and our pride. Manet was often there, Charpentier always, Scholl too. Scholl the terrible chroniqueur, whose wit everyone dreaded.«

und 1906 in seinen Memoirs of My Dead Life:

I had gone to Tortoni, a once-celebrated café at the corner of the Rue Taitbout, the dining place of Rossini. When Rossini had earned an income of two thousand pounds a year it is recorded that he said: “Now I’ve done with music, it has served its turn, and I’m going to dine every day at Tortoni’s.” Even in my time Tortoni was the rendezvous of the world of art and letters; every one was there at five o’clock, and to Tortoni I went the day I arrived in Paris. To be seen there would make known the fact that I was in Paris. Tortoni was a sort of publication.