accompanied Catherine de Medici from Italy to France in 1533—when, at age fourteen, she married the Duke of Orléans, later to become King Henry II. While the Florentines were indeed a huge modernizing influence on France, popularizing green vegetables and the separation of sweet courses from savory, La Varenne’s
Le cuisinier françois
reveals a chef working in his own distinct idiom, a creative force in his own right.
* Though Europe has several restaurants that claim to date as far back as the Middle Ages, the restaurant in the modern sense—an establishment that offers waiter service and a varied bill of fare to paying customers—dates back only to the late eighteenth century. The word “restaurant” is attributed to a Paris soup merchant named Boulanger who believed his soups had curative, or restorative, properties. Boulanger’s establishment, which opened in 1765, was said to have been adorned with a sign that read
Boulanger débite des restaurants divins
, which translates, more or less, as “Boulanger provides divine sustenance.” The first fine-dining restaurant of consequence, complete with a good wine cellar, is generally thought to be La Grande Taverne de Londres, which opened in Paris in 1782 under the auspices of Antoine Beauvilliers, who challenged Carême in the cookbook-publishing stakes with his own
L’art du cuisinier
(1814).
† D’Oyly Carte made his fortune as the producer of Gilbert and Sullivan’s operettas. He built the Savoy Theatre first, in 1881, and conceived of the hotel as a posh après-show spot for well-to-do theatergoers. The hotel ended up being a bigger earner than his theatrical endeavors.
* In 1910, the New York Ritz, to which César Ritz had licensed his name, opened on Madison Avenue, with Louis Diat as the executive chef. In 1950, as this hotel was about to close, Diat told
The New Yorker
, “I am not of the school of Escoffier, but of the schools of M. Jules Tissier, of the Bristol, in Paris; of M. Georges Gimon, of the Paris Ritz; and of M. Emile Malley, of the London Ritz”—a curious remark, given that Messieurs Gimon and Malley were presumably following the directives of Escoffier.
* Delmonico’s had begun in 1827 as a café operated by Lorenzo’s uncles, John and Peter—born in Switzerland as Giovanni and Pietro Del-Monico—and by 1831 had upgraded itself to a self-described “Restaurant Français.” The entrepreneurial Lorenzo, the Jean-Georges Vongerichten of his time, extended the brand aggressively, opening a new Delmonico’s location every time New York’s social center of gravity crept northward.
* Wechsberg, too, attempted to capture Le Pavillon’s aroma in words, as “a delicate blend of
beurre noisette
[brown butter] and
sauce homard
[lobster sauce], Périgueux truffles and broiled Chateaubriand, Fine Champagne 1843 and a fine Havana—and the lovely scents of lovely women.”
† Doing his bit for the war effort, that irrepressible boulevardier Lucius Beebe devoted several column inches to the quandary of how men in uniform should be seated at fancy restaurants: Do nobodies of high military rank deserve better seating than somebodies of low rank? Evidently not, thought Beebe: “When Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt, long an ornament of the plushier puddles, turned up in a boatswain’s mate’s uniform, he wasn’t to be discarded, even momentarily, in favor of some provincial colonel who, until the week before, had never encountered a French menu.”
* Chamberlain collected his Clémentine pieces into a book in 1943. Fifty-eight years later,
Clémentine in the Kitchen
was reissued as the first title in Random House’s Modern Library food series, with a new introduction by
Gourmet’s
Ruth Reichl.
† This epithet was first used to satirical effect in a 1995 episode
of The Simpsons
in which the character Groundskeeper Willie, an ever-irate Scotsman, utters the phrase to express his disdain for the French. It was repurposed by conservative
Le cuisinier françois
reveals a chef working in his own distinct idiom, a creative force in his own right.
* Though Europe has several restaurants that claim to date as far back as the Middle Ages, the restaurant in the modern sense—an establishment that offers waiter service and a varied bill of fare to paying customers—dates back only to the late eighteenth century. The word “restaurant” is attributed to a Paris soup merchant named Boulanger who believed his soups had curative, or restorative, properties. Boulanger’s establishment, which opened in 1765, was said to have been adorned with a sign that read
Boulanger débite des restaurants divins
, which translates, more or less, as “Boulanger provides divine sustenance.” The first fine-dining restaurant of consequence, complete with a good wine cellar, is generally thought to be La Grande Taverne de Londres, which opened in Paris in 1782 under the auspices of Antoine Beauvilliers, who challenged Carême in the cookbook-publishing stakes with his own
L’art du cuisinier
(1814).
† D’Oyly Carte made his fortune as the producer of Gilbert and Sullivan’s operettas. He built the Savoy Theatre first, in 1881, and conceived of the hotel as a posh après-show spot for well-to-do theatergoers. The hotel ended up being a bigger earner than his theatrical endeavors.
* In 1910, the New York Ritz, to which César Ritz had licensed his name, opened on Madison Avenue, with Louis Diat as the executive chef. In 1950, as this hotel was about to close, Diat told
The New Yorker
, “I am not of the school of Escoffier, but of the schools of M. Jules Tissier, of the Bristol, in Paris; of M. Georges Gimon, of the Paris Ritz; and of M. Emile Malley, of the London Ritz”—a curious remark, given that Messieurs Gimon and Malley were presumably following the directives of Escoffier.
* Delmonico’s had begun in 1827 as a café operated by Lorenzo’s uncles, John and Peter—born in Switzerland as Giovanni and Pietro Del-Monico—and by 1831 had upgraded itself to a self-described “Restaurant Français.” The entrepreneurial Lorenzo, the Jean-Georges Vongerichten of his time, extended the brand aggressively, opening a new Delmonico’s location every time New York’s social center of gravity crept northward.
* Wechsberg, too, attempted to capture Le Pavillon’s aroma in words, as “a delicate blend of
beurre noisette
[brown butter] and
sauce homard
[lobster sauce], Périgueux truffles and broiled Chateaubriand, Fine Champagne 1843 and a fine Havana—and the lovely scents of lovely women.”
† Doing his bit for the war effort, that irrepressible boulevardier Lucius Beebe devoted several column inches to the quandary of how men in uniform should be seated at fancy restaurants: Do nobodies of high military rank deserve better seating than somebodies of low rank? Evidently not, thought Beebe: “When Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt, long an ornament of the plushier puddles, turned up in a boatswain’s mate’s uniform, he wasn’t to be discarded, even momentarily, in favor of some provincial colonel who, until the week before, had never encountered a French menu.”
* Chamberlain collected his Clémentine pieces into a book in 1943. Fifty-eight years later,
Clémentine in the Kitchen
was reissued as the first title in Random House’s Modern Library food series, with a new introduction by
Gourmet’s
Ruth Reichl.
† This epithet was first used to satirical effect in a 1995 episode
of The Simpsons
in which the character Groundskeeper Willie, an ever-irate Scotsman, utters the phrase to express his disdain for the French. It was repurposed by conservative
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