Ritz and Escoffier
The Hotelier, The Chef, and the Rise of the Leisure Class
(Sprache: Englisch)
Now in paperback, the critically acclaimed Ritz and Escoffier. In a tale replete with scandal and opulence, Luke Barr, author of the New York Times bestselling Provence, 1970, transports readers to turn-of-the-century London and Paris to discover how...
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Now in paperback, the critically acclaimed Ritz and Escoffier. In a tale replete with scandal and opulence, Luke Barr, author of the New York Times bestselling Provence, 1970, transports readers to turn-of-the-century London and Paris to discover how celebrated hotelier César Ritz and famed chef Auguste Escoffier joined forces at the Savoy Hotel to spawn a scandalously modern luxury hotel and restaurant, signaling a new social order and the rise of the middle class.In early August 1889, César Ritz, a Swiss hotelier highly regarded for his exquisite taste, found himself at the Savoy Hotel in London. He had come at the request of Richard D'Oyly Carte, the financier of Gilbert & Sullivan's comic operas, who had modernized theater and was now looking to create the world's best hotel. D'Oyly Carte soon seduced Ritz to move to London with his team, along with Auguste Escoffier, the chef de cuisine known for his elevated, original dishes. The two created a hotel and restaurant like no one had ever experienced, in often mysterious and always extravagant ways, where British high society mingled with American Jews and women.
Barr deftly re-creates the thrilling Belle Epoque era just before World War I, when British aristocracy was at its peak, women began dining out unaccompanied by men, and American nouveaux riche and gauche industrialists convened in London to show off their wealth. In their collaboration at the still celebrated Savoy Hotel, the pair welcomed loyal and sometimes salacious clients, such as Oscar Wilde and Sarah Bernhardt; Escoffier created the modern kitchen brigade and codified French cuisine in his seminal Le Guide culinaire, which remains in print today; and Ritz, whose name continues to grace the finest hotels, created the world's first luxury hotel. The pair also ruffled more than a few feathers. Fine dining and luxury travel would never be the same--or more intriguing.
Lese-Probe zu „Ritz and Escoffier “
1The Hotelier and the Impresario
In early August 1889, César Ritz left Cannes on an overnight train, the 8:43 p.m. bound for Calais. He was en route to London, ensconced in a private cabin, traveling alone.
He wore a suit with a high-collared shirt, a tie and waistcoat, and a bowler hat. As usual, he was dressed impeccably, a white carnation in his lapel, his moustache carefully waxed. Ritz was a young man, but his hairline had begun to recede above his high brow and intelligent, watchful eyes. He looked around the compact cabin: it was wood-paneled, with brass coat hooks, a mirror, and a number of storage compartments for his personal items. (His trunk had been taken by a porter when he boarded the train.) Now Ritz hung his jacket in the small closet and placed his hat on the rack. The weather was hot, and he was glad to be traveling at night.
Ritz loved to travel, the thrill and speed of it, the trains rushing toward the future. The Calais-Mediterranean Express train he was on now, for example, had launched a few years earlier, in 1886, and was state of the art, with a restaurant car and onboard lavatories, precluding the need for rest stops at stations along the way. The train ran slowly along the French Riviera, stopping at resort towns like Menton and Monte Carlo before speeding north through Lyon and Paris and on to the English Channel. From there, Ritz would board a ferry and then another train, to London. The trip would take a full night and day.
It was remarkably fast, Ritz thought. The express trains were transforming European travel and, especially, the towns along the Mediterranean. The English had been coming to the Côte d Azur for a century already, traveling by carriage and on boats. Rail lines had made the trip far easier. There were numerous competing train companies using the tracks--the long-established Marseilles-to-Nice
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service along the coast dated back to the 1860s, which was when the Cannes station had been built, a small white building with a roof covering both tracks. But the express trains heralded a new era, bringing throngs of visitors from all over Europe. This was good for Ritz: he was in the hotel business.
Why was he going to London, anyway? He hated London. Well, he d never been to London, actually, but he hated the idea of it: the gloom, the fog, the dour English propriety and cool reserve. The mediocre food. He was Continental, in every sense of the word. His business was pleasure. Ritz was a hotel man, welcoming guests with well-practiced charm at his two small properties, one in Cannes, the Hotel de Provence, the other in Baden-Baden, Germany, the Hotel Minerva, where he also ran the Restaurant de la Conversation.
He was thirty-nine years old and had been working in the business his whole life--in Lucerne, Paris, and Vienna; in San Remo, Monte Carlo, and Trouville; all over Europe, following the glamorous trail of vacationing aristocrats and wealthy tourists as they took their cures and baths and sought mountain air in the summer and Mediterranean sun in winter. They were an international tribe, increasingly mobile--the Orient Express, with its luxurious sleeping cars, had just launched the first nonstop train between Paris and Constantinople--and Ritz had cultivated a following among them. The dapper young Swiss hotelier was effortlessly multilingual (if heavily accented), and never forgot a name or a face. Not only that, he also made careful note of his clients whims and desires: who preferred what for breakfast, who required a carafe of water on his bedside table at night.
Ritz was also a showman, an orchestrator of evening entertainments and gala dinners. Indeed, it was because of one such grand dinner that he now found himself, however reluctantly, on the train to London.
It had be
Why was he going to London, anyway? He hated London. Well, he d never been to London, actually, but he hated the idea of it: the gloom, the fog, the dour English propriety and cool reserve. The mediocre food. He was Continental, in every sense of the word. His business was pleasure. Ritz was a hotel man, welcoming guests with well-practiced charm at his two small properties, one in Cannes, the Hotel de Provence, the other in Baden-Baden, Germany, the Hotel Minerva, where he also ran the Restaurant de la Conversation.
He was thirty-nine years old and had been working in the business his whole life--in Lucerne, Paris, and Vienna; in San Remo, Monte Carlo, and Trouville; all over Europe, following the glamorous trail of vacationing aristocrats and wealthy tourists as they took their cures and baths and sought mountain air in the summer and Mediterranean sun in winter. They were an international tribe, increasingly mobile--the Orient Express, with its luxurious sleeping cars, had just launched the first nonstop train between Paris and Constantinople--and Ritz had cultivated a following among them. The dapper young Swiss hotelier was effortlessly multilingual (if heavily accented), and never forgot a name or a face. Not only that, he also made careful note of his clients whims and desires: who preferred what for breakfast, who required a carafe of water on his bedside table at night.
Ritz was also a showman, an orchestrator of evening entertainments and gala dinners. Indeed, it was because of one such grand dinner that he now found himself, however reluctantly, on the train to London.
It had be
... weniger
Autoren-Porträt von Luke Barr
Luke Barr
Bibliographische Angaben
- Autor: Luke Barr
- 2019, 320 Seiten, Maße: 13,1 x 20,3 cm, Kartoniert (TB), Englisch
- Verlag: Penguin Random House
- ISBN-10: 0804186316
- ISBN-13: 9780804186315
- Erscheinungsdatum: 06.01.2020
Sprache:
Englisch
Pressezitat
Notable Press & Accolades: Best Cookbooks and Food Books of 2018 Huffington Post
Best of 2018: Non-Fiction The Los Angeles Public Library
"Ritz and Escoffier, Luke Barr s entertaining narrative history, reads like a novel Mr. Barr has done a fine job evoking fin-de-siecle London and the characters of the two odd men who played such a pivotal role in that exhilarating time. -Wall Street Journal
In this winningly-told story, Luke Barr explores the advent of the luxe life through the saga of hotelier Cesar Ritz and chef Auguste Escoffier, whose partnership brought us not only the adjective ritzy, itself no small testament, but also such once-novel phenomena as hotel rooms with their own bathrooms, and innovative dishes like peach Melba. It s a charming tale of success, scandal, and redemption complete with an unexpected villain. Warning: It will make you hungry, and a little nostalgic for bygone times. Erik Larson, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Dead Wake and Devil in the White City
"When you eat a Peach Melba, or drink a Grand Marnier, you have these men to thank; they coined the names, then popularised the concoctions. Ritz himself became not merely a byword for luxury but the actual word for it." -The Economist
Barr s prose is lively and his sourcing impeccable...a thoroughly enjoyable look into a defining moment of culinary history. Publishers Weekly
Bar...vividly captures the moment when Ritz and Escoffier conceptualized and created a new type of luxury establishment in which the aristocracy, the nouveau riche, and the beau monde mingled freely and easily. Barr s highly enjoyable and well-researched book carries the reader into the intimate heart of Ritz and Escoffier s philosophy. -Library Journal
The book is as much a celebration of luxury as it is the tale of two scrappy, high-achieving men, and Barr
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intertwines their biographies with the lush social environs they created [ ] It s difficult not to drool on the pages at the thought of foie gras, truffles, Escoffier s legendary Pêches Melba (named for the famed Australian soprano Nellie Melba), or timbales of crayfish mousse. The book goes down light as an aperitif, and lays down the work of crafting luxurious dreams in spare, workmanlike prose. -The Village Voice
[A] lively, gossipy account . . . not just a fluidly structured dual biography, but a provocative history of a turning point in the evolving hotel and restaurant industry. Booklist
Was César Ritz the first influencer, as goes the sobriquet these days? A merchant of dreams during the final gasp of the Victorian age, he was not only the sirer of a new cosmopolitanism, as depicted in a saucy just-out double-biography Ritz & Escoffier: The Hotelier, The Chef, and the Rise of the Leisure Class, but also the harbinger of something we almost take for granted now: hotels as lifestyle and food as pop culture. -Toronto Star
If ever a book should be picked up and produced for Masterpiece Theatre, this is it. In the meantime, readers can feast on this delightfully written, entertaining book. -The Florida Times-Union
Luke Barr s delightful and engrossing book is a gripping story of rags to riches to scandal and back, and also a trenchant study of how our materialistic society formulated the idea of luxury. It s written with wit and charm, seducing the reader just as deftly as its subjects once seduced international society.
Andrew Solomon, National Book Award winning author of Far and Away and Far from the Tree
So very much of what is exciting in food and hospitality today, started with Ritz and Escoffier. They were modern for their time; they are modern for ours. Barr s book is fascinating from beginning to end. Dorie Greenspan, James Beard Award-winning author of Dorie s Cookies and Baking Chez Moi
"Luke Barr tells the remarkable story of how César Ritz built a world-class hospitality empire, and his esteemed chef Escoffier, took fine dining to new heights. Ritz & Escoffier is an entertaining account of how they adapted to and even changed social customs, helping the world modernize, and leaving behind an impressive legacy. David Lebovitz, New York Times bestselling author of L'appart and My Paris Kitchen
Such a fabulous couple of characters and such glamorous, dicey cosmopolitan milieux that Luke Barr depicts with such verve and lucidity. Ritz & Escoffier is a case study of the birth of branded luxury that reads like a dark, delicious urban spinoff prequel to Downton Abbey. Kurt Andersen, New York Times bestselling author of You Can t Spell America Without Me and Fantasyland
A thrilling story of how an outsider a Swiss peasant instructed 19th century aristocrats, celebrities, politicians, and plutocrats how to live and, in doing so, single-handedly defined modern luxury. Luke Barr s incandescent narrative is as smooth and seductive as the service at the Ritz."
Kate Betts, author of My Paris Dream
Ritz & Escoffier is a vividly engaging piece of social history about two humbly-born visionaries: one a great hotelier, and one a great chef, and the temples of luxury they fashioned first at the Savoy Hotel in Belle Epoque London and then at the Paris Ritz. Filled with intriguing details and fascinating (and sometimes unsavory) characters, Luke Barr has re-created a certain time and place with the deftest of touches. Daphne Merkin, author of This Close to Happy and The Fame Lunches
[A] lively, gossipy account . . . not just a fluidly structured dual biography, but a provocative history of a turning point in the evolving hotel and restaurant industry. Booklist
Was César Ritz the first influencer, as goes the sobriquet these days? A merchant of dreams during the final gasp of the Victorian age, he was not only the sirer of a new cosmopolitanism, as depicted in a saucy just-out double-biography Ritz & Escoffier: The Hotelier, The Chef, and the Rise of the Leisure Class, but also the harbinger of something we almost take for granted now: hotels as lifestyle and food as pop culture. -Toronto Star
If ever a book should be picked up and produced for Masterpiece Theatre, this is it. In the meantime, readers can feast on this delightfully written, entertaining book. -The Florida Times-Union
Luke Barr s delightful and engrossing book is a gripping story of rags to riches to scandal and back, and also a trenchant study of how our materialistic society formulated the idea of luxury. It s written with wit and charm, seducing the reader just as deftly as its subjects once seduced international society.
Andrew Solomon, National Book Award winning author of Far and Away and Far from the Tree
So very much of what is exciting in food and hospitality today, started with Ritz and Escoffier. They were modern for their time; they are modern for ours. Barr s book is fascinating from beginning to end. Dorie Greenspan, James Beard Award-winning author of Dorie s Cookies and Baking Chez Moi
"Luke Barr tells the remarkable story of how César Ritz built a world-class hospitality empire, and his esteemed chef Escoffier, took fine dining to new heights. Ritz & Escoffier is an entertaining account of how they adapted to and even changed social customs, helping the world modernize, and leaving behind an impressive legacy. David Lebovitz, New York Times bestselling author of L'appart and My Paris Kitchen
Such a fabulous couple of characters and such glamorous, dicey cosmopolitan milieux that Luke Barr depicts with such verve and lucidity. Ritz & Escoffier is a case study of the birth of branded luxury that reads like a dark, delicious urban spinoff prequel to Downton Abbey. Kurt Andersen, New York Times bestselling author of You Can t Spell America Without Me and Fantasyland
A thrilling story of how an outsider a Swiss peasant instructed 19th century aristocrats, celebrities, politicians, and plutocrats how to live and, in doing so, single-handedly defined modern luxury. Luke Barr s incandescent narrative is as smooth and seductive as the service at the Ritz."
Kate Betts, author of My Paris Dream
Ritz & Escoffier is a vividly engaging piece of social history about two humbly-born visionaries: one a great hotelier, and one a great chef, and the temples of luxury they fashioned first at the Savoy Hotel in Belle Epoque London and then at the Paris Ritz. Filled with intriguing details and fascinating (and sometimes unsavory) characters, Luke Barr has re-created a certain time and place with the deftest of touches. Daphne Merkin, author of This Close to Happy and The Fame Lunches
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