Luke Barr. (2018). Ritz and Escoffier: The Hotelier, The Chef, and the Rise of the Leisure Class. Clarkson Potter/Ten Speed.

Luke Barr. 2018. Ritz and Escoffier: The Hotelier, The Chef, and the Rise of the Leisure Class. Clarkson Potter/Ten Speed.

Luke Barr, Ritz and Escoffier: The Hotelier, The Chef, and the Rise of the Leisure Class. Clarkson Potter/Ten Speed, 2018.

Luke Barr. Ritz and Escoffier: The Hotelier, The Chef, and the Rise of the Leisure Class. Clarkson Potter/Ten Speed, 2018.

OverDrive Product Record

images

• cover:
  • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-100/0111-1/{93B8F577-5366-46AA-A266-26D2ABF3A0B6}Img100.jpg
  • type: image/jpeg
• thumbnail:
  • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-200/0111-1/{93B8F577-5366-46AA-A266-26D2ABF3A0B6}Img200.jpg
  • type: image/jpeg
• cover150Wide:
  • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-150/0111-1/93B/8F5/77/{93B8F577-5366-46AA-A266-26D2ABF3A0B6}Img150.jpg
  • type: image/jpeg
• cover300Wide:
  • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-400/0111-1/93B/8F5/77/{93B8F577-5366-46AA-A266-26D2ABF3A0B6}Img400.jpg
  • type: image/jpeg

formats

1. • identifiers:
     1. • type: ISBN
        • value: 9780804186308
     2. • type: PublisherCatalogNumber
        • value: 241143
   • name: Adobe EPUB eBook
   • id: ebook-epub-adobe
2. • identifiers:
     1. • type: ASIN
        • value: B073QZPSL3
     2. • type: PublisherCatalogNumber
        • value: 241143
   • name: Kindle Book
   • id: ebook-kindle
3. • identifiers:
     1. • type: ISBN
        • value: 9780804186308
     2. • type: PublisherCatalogNumber
        • value: 241143
   • name: OverDrive Read
   • id: ebook-overdrive

mediaType

eBook

primaryCreator

• role: Author
• name: Luke Barr

title

Ritz and Escoffier

dateAdded

2018-04-13T15:53:00-04:00

contentDetails

1. • href: https://link.overdrive.com/?websiteID=141&titleID=3587220
   • type: text/html
   • account:
     • name: Sacramento Public Library (CA)
     • id: 1151

sortTitle

Ritz and Escoffier The Hotelier The Chef and the Rise of the Leisure Class

crossRefId

3587220

subtitle

The Hotelier, The Chef, and the Rise of the Leisure Class

id

93b8f577-5366-46aa-a266-26d2abf3a0b6

starRating

4.3

OverDrive MetaData

isPublicDomain

False

formats

1. • fileName: RitzandEscoffier_9780804186308_3587220
   • partCount: 0
   • fileSize: 1890374
   • identifiers:
     1. • type: ISBN
        • value: 9780804186308
     2. • type: PublisherCatalogNumber
        • value: 241143
   • rights:
     1. • type: Copying
        • value: 0
     2. • type: Printing
        • value: 0
     3. • type: Lending
        • value: 0
     4. • type: ReadAloud
        • value: 0
     5. • type: ExpirationRights
        • value: 0
   • name: Adobe EPUB eBook
   • isReadAlong: False
   • id: ebook-epub-adobe
   • onSaleDate: 4/3/2018
   • samples:
     1. • source: From the book
        • formatType: ebook-overdrive
        • url: https://samples.overdrive.com/?crid=93b8f577-5366-46aa-a266-26d2abf3a0b6&.epub-sample.overdrive.com
2. • fileName: RitzandEscoffier_3587220
   • partCount: 0
   • fileSize: 0
   • identifiers:
     1. • type: PublisherCatalogNumber
        • value: 241143
     2. • type: ASIN
        • value: B073QZPSL3
   • name: Kindle Book
   • isReadAlong: False
   • id: ebook-kindle
   • onSaleDate: 4/3/2018
   • samples:
     1. • source: From the book
        • formatType: ebook-overdrive
        • url: https://samples.overdrive.com/?crid=93b8f577-5366-46aa-a266-26d2abf3a0b6&.epub-sample.overdrive.com
3. • fileName: RitzandEscoffier_9780804186308_3587220
   • partCount: 0
   • fileSize: 1889904
   • identifiers:
     1. • type: ISBN
        • value: 9780804186308
     2. • type: PublisherCatalogNumber
        • value: 241143
   • name: OverDrive Read
   • isReadAlong: False
   • id: ebook-overdrive
   • onSaleDate: 4/3/2018
   • samples:
     1. • source: From the book
        • formatType: ebook-overdrive
        • url: https://samples.overdrive.com/?crid=93b8f577-5366-46aa-a266-26d2abf3a0b6&.epub-sample.overdrive.com

keywords

1. • value: London
2. • value: Biography
3. • value: Food
4. • value: royalty
5. • value: cookbooks
6. • value: Oscar Wilde
7. • value: Cooking
8. • value: Provence
9. • value: non-fiction
10. • value: autobiographies
11. • value: European History
12. • value: World History
13. • value: world war one
14. • value: chef
15. • value: British History
16. • value: biographies
17. • value: cookbook
18. • value: History
19. • value: World War I
20. • value: Paris
21. • value: nouveau riche
22. • value: royals
23. • value: British aristocracy
24. • value: Boutique Hotels
25. • value: food history
26. • value: prince of wales
27. • value: turn of the century
28. • value: belle epoque
29. • value: Emile Zola
30. • value: Sarah Bernhardt
31. • value: food writing
32. • value: American Jews
33. • value: gifts for history buffs
34. • value: Luxury hotels
35. • value: auguste Escoffier
36. • value: cooking history
37. • value: Gilbert and Sullivan
38. • value: chef biographies

creators

1. • role: Author
   • fileAs: Barr, Luke
   • bioText: LUKE BARR is the author of the New York Times bestselling Provence, 1970. Raised in the San Francisco Bay Area and Switzerland, Barr attended Harvard College and was formerly the features editor at Travel + Leisure magazine. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife and their two daughters.
   • name: Luke Barr

imprint

Clarkson Potter

publishDate

2018-04-03T00:00:00-04:00

isOwnedByCollections

True

title

Ritz and Escoffier

fullDescription

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 the modern luxury hotel and restaurant, where women and American Jews mingled with British high society, 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, which included Auguste Escoffier, the chef de cuisine known for his elevated, original dishes. The result was a hotel and restaurant like no one had ever experienced, run in often mysterious and always extravagant ways—which created quite a scandal once exposed.
     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 riches and gauche industrialists convened in London to show off their wealth. In their collaboration at the still celebrated Savoy Hotel, where they welcomed loyal and sometimes salacious clients, such as Oscar Wilde and Sarah Bernhardt, Escoffier created the modern kitchen brigade and codified French cuisine for the ages in his seminal Le Guide culinaire, which remains in print today, and Ritz, whose name continues to grace the finest hotels across the world, created the world's first luxury hotel. The pair also ruffled more than a few feathers in the process. Fine dining would never be the same—or more intriguing.

reviews

1. • premium: False
   • source: Erik Larson, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Dead Wake and Devil in the White City
   • content: "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."
2. • premium: False
   • source: Dorie Greenspan, James Beard Award-winning author of Dorie's Cookies and Baking Chez Moi
   • content: "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."
3. • premium: True
   • source:
   • content:

     January 15, 2018
     A new perspective on the rise of the leisure class.In his latest book, former Travel + Leisure features editor Barr (Provence, 1970: M.F.K. Fisher, Julia Child, James Beard, and the Reinvention of American Taste, 2013) dives into the many aspects of the restaurant industry during the belle epoque era that laid the groundwork for today's fine-dining experience. The author focuses on the unlikely union of two entrepreneurs: Swiss hotelier Cesar Ritz (1850-1918) and French chef Auguste Escoffier (1846-1935). The two men shared an insatiable appetite for culinary success, but it wasn't just the food they were concerned about. By working together to bring the now-renowned Savoy Hotel to its current glory, Ritz and Escoffier introduced epicurean principles to a general public that had no point of reference to understand such lifestyles. "The nouveaux riches had arrived," writes Barr, "but until now, there had never been anywhere for them to go to announce their arrival. They had rarely been invited to the exclusive dinner parties or private clubs of high society. But now there was the Savoy. The restaurant may have served the most refined, daring, and sometimes shockingly expensive food in the world, but it was not exclusive....The Savoy offered a new and democratic kind of luxury, and cooking was very much at the center of it." In this process, Ritz and Escoffier created a whole new breed of city dwellers dedicated to "a life of pleasure, a theater of luxury." The two would later go on to create the Hotel Ritz in Paris. As in his previous book, it's clear that Barr has done extensive research to master his topic, and the book serves as an expansive resource for those interested in learning more about the turn-of-the-century leisure class. However, the never-ending name-dropping becomes distracting and tiresome. The story would have benefited from more social and cultural analysis and fewer fabulous cameos.A well-researched, glitzy, and flawed history of conspicuous consumption.

     COPYRIGHT(2018) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

4. • premium: True
   • source:
   • content:

     January 29, 2018
     In this entertaining culinary history, Barr (Provence, 1970) narrates the lives of the two men responsible for democratizing high-end dining at the turn of the 20th century. In 1889, Richard D’Oyly Carte, an impresario known for his work with Gilbert and Sullivan, opened the Savoy Hotel in central London. The Savoy was intended to fill a new niche: luxury available to anyone who could pay for it, as opposed to being confined to the aristocracy. To this end, D’Oyly Carte hired César Ritz, a fashionable hotelier, and the renowned chef Georges Auguste Escoffier. Barr follows Ritz and Escoffier through the years of their professional partnership, during which the Savoy redefined both hotel service and French cuisine (Escoffier established a new kitchen ethos: “respect for the chef, respect for the ingredients, respect for the artistry of cooking”). Financial scandals (D’Oyly Carte kept from the shareholders the high salaries paid to his staff) and personal squabbles lend drama to the narrative, and nearly every celebrity of the era plays at least a bit part. Barr’s prose is lively and his sourcing impeccable, even if he takes liberties in ascribing thoughts and feelings to his characters. Barr offers a thoroughly enjoyable look into a defining moment of culinary history.

5. • premium: True
   • source:
   • content:

     March 15, 2018
     

     César Ritz (1850-1918) and Auguste Escoffier (1846-1935) first met in the mid-1880s while working together in Monte Carlo. Both had grown up poor; throughout his life, Ritz cursed his "peasant hands." Temperamentally, they were polar opposites. Ritz was extroverted and a natural showman, while Escoffier was calm and introverted. But together, they fashioned an enduring, creative partnership that still resonates today. Ritz was already an hotelier when, in 1890, Richard D'Oyly Carte needed to revitalize the Savoy, his fashionable London hotel. D'Oyly Carte recognized that only Ritz could perform this task, and employed him at a significant salary. Ritz then hired his own team, including Escoffier as the chef de cuisine. Undeterred by a scandal that saw Ritz and his team dismissed from the Savoy, he and Escoffier went on to create new establishments that are still synonymous with luxury. Barr (Provence, 1970) 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. VERDICT Barr's highly enjoyable and well-researched book carries the reader into the intimate heart of Ritz and Escoffier's philosophy.--Penelope J.M. Klein, Fayetteville, NY

     Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

6. • premium: True
   • source:
   • content:

     March 1, 2018
     At the end of the nineteenth century, a chef and a hotel manager collaborate to create what will become one of the most famous hotels in Europe. This lively, gossipy account, by the author of Provence, 1970: M. F. K. Fisher, Julia Child, James Beard, and the Reinvention of American Taste (2013), follows ambitious C�sar Ritz, raised in relative poverty in a little village in Switzerland, and aspiring chef Auguste Escoffier, a disciplined and scientific Frenchman, as they are recruited by Richard D'Oyly Carte, who financed Gilbert and Sullivan productions, to take the helm of his new Savoy Hotel in London's theater district. Barr revels in the details of menus and hotel management, indulges in anecdotes about guests such as Sarah Bernhardt and Oscar Wilde, and traces the scandal that developed when D'Oyly Carte's observant wife, Helen, noticed that Ritz and Escoffier were skimming considerable profits from the hotel. His work is not just a fluidly structured dual biography but a provocative history of a turning point in the evolving hotel and restaurant industry.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)

7. • premium: True
   • source:
   • content:

     March 15, 2018
     

     C�sar Ritz (1850-1918) and Auguste Escoffier (1846-1935) first met in the mid-1880s while working together in Monte Carlo. Both had grown up poor; throughout his life, Ritz cursed his "peasant hands." Temperamentally, they were polar opposites. Ritz was extroverted and a natural showman, while Escoffier was calm and introverted. But together, they fashioned an enduring, creative partnership that still resonates today. Ritz was already an hotelier when, in 1890, Richard D'Oyly Carte needed to revitalize the Savoy, his fashionable London hotel. D'Oyly Carte recognized that only Ritz could perform this task, and employed him at a significant salary. Ritz then hired his own team, including Escoffier as the chef de cuisine. Undeterred by a scandal that saw Ritz and his team dismissed from the Savoy, he and Escoffier went on to create new establishments that are still synonymous with luxury. Barr (Provence, 1970) 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. VERDICT Barr's highly enjoyable and well-researched book carries the reader into the intimate heart of Ritz and Escoffier's philosophy.--Penelope J.M. Klein, Fayetteville, NY

     Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

popularity

534

links

• self:
  • href: https://api.overdrive.com/v1/collections/v1L1BWwAAAA2I/products/93b8f577-5366-46aa-a266-26d2abf3a0b6/metadata
  • type: application/vnd.overdrive.api+json

id

93b8f577-5366-46aa-a266-26d2abf3a0b6

starRating

4.2

images

• cover:
  • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-100/0111-1/{93B8F577-5366-46AA-A266-26D2ABF3A0B6}Img100.jpg
  • type: image/jpeg
• thumbnail:
  • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-200/0111-1/{93B8F577-5366-46AA-A266-26D2ABF3A0B6}Img200.jpg
  • type: image/jpeg
• cover150Wide:
  • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-150/0111-1/93B/8F5/77/{93B8F577-5366-46AA-A266-26D2ABF3A0B6}Img150.jpg
  • type: image/jpeg
• cover300Wide:
  • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-400/0111-1/93B/8F5/77/{93B8F577-5366-46AA-A266-26D2ABF3A0B6}Img400.jpg
  • type: image/jpeg

isPublicPerformanceAllowed

False

languages

1. • code: en
   • name: English

subjects

1. • value: Biography & Autobiography
2. • value: Cooking & Food
3. • value: History
4. • value: Nonfiction

publishDateText

04/03/2018

otherFormatIdentifiers

1. • type: ISBN
   • value: 9780804186292

mediaType

eBook

shortDescription

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 the modern luxury hotel and restaurant, where women and American Jews mingled with British high society, 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, which included Auguste Escoffier, the chef de cuisine known for his elevated, original dishes. The...

sortTitle

Ritz and Escoffier The Hotelier The Chef and the Rise of the Leisure Class

crossRefId

3587220

subtitle

The Hotelier, The Chef, and the Rise of the Leisure Class

publisher

Clarkson Potter/Ten Speed

bisacCodes

1. • code: BIO029000
   • description: Biography & Autobiography / Culinary
2. • code: CKB041000
   • description: Cooking / History
3. • code: HIS015070
   • description: History / Europe / Great Britain / 20th Century