Auguste Escoffier - A Legend in a Chef Jacket

Auguste Escoffier - A Legend in a Chef Jacket

Auguste Escoffier - chef, restaurateur, culinary author, and a legendary figure among gourmets and chefs - was born on October 28, 1846 in Villeneuve-Loubet, France. Escoffier was one of the principal figures in the development and popularization of modern French cuisine. Most of Escoffier's technique was based upon that of Antoine Careme, who had codified French haute cuisine; however Escoffier's unique achievement was to simplify and update Careme's ornate and elaborate style. Besides the many recipes which he recorded and invented himself, one of Escoffier's most important contributions was to elevate cooking to the status of a highly-respected profession by introducing organization and discipline to his kitchen with the brigade de cuisine system, each section of which was run by a chef de partie.

After being dismissed from his job at London's Savoy Hotel in 1897 along with his associate, César Ritz, who was accused of stealing over £3,000 in spirits and wine (Escoffier was not implicated in this theft but was accused of receiving gifts from the Savoy's venders), Escoffier went to work in wholesale apron for the Ritz Hotel Development Co. Escoffier set up the hotels' kitchens and recruited their chefs, first for the Paris Ritz in 1898, and a year later for the Carlton Hotel in London, which quickly drew most of the Savoy's high society clientele away. Besides the haute cuisine which the Paris Ritz offered for luncheon and dinner, tea at the Ritz soon became a fashionable Parisian - and later Londoner - institution, although Escoffier found the idea distressing. "How can you eat cakes, pastries, and jam and then enjoy dinner - the king of meals - but an hour or two later? How can you appreciate the cooking, the food, or the wine?" A writer for The London Times once recalled a memorable Escoffier feast at the Carlton for which the chef had ordered table decorations of pink and white roses with silvery leaves, which formed a background for a pink and white dinner: Borscht, Filets de poulet a la Paprika for the entrée, and Agneau de lait for the high note. Escoffier's masterpiece was Le Guide Culinaire, published in 1903 and still being used as a major reference work today both as a cookbook and as a textbook on the art of cooking.

Escoffier met the German Kaiser Wilhelm II in a spa uniform on the SS Imperator, one of the biggest Hamburg-Amerika ocean liners, in 1913. The Imperator's kitchen was run by Ritz-Carlton, which had created an exact reproduction of Escoffier's London Carlton Restaurant on board. Escoffier personally supervised the Imperator's kitchen during Kaiser Wilhelm's visit to France, and he served 146 German dignitaries a large, multi-course luncheon in the afternoon, and a monumental banquet that evening. Dessert was the Kaiser's favorite strawberry pudding, which Escoffier named fraises Imperator for the occasion. The Kaiser was very impressed, and insisted on meeting Escoffier the next day after breakfast. According to legend the Kaiser said to Escoffier, "I may be the emperor of Germany, but you are the Emperor of Chefs." This remark was frequently quoted by the press, which further established Escoffier's reputation as France's undisputed pre-eminent chef. After Ritz's retirement in 1906, Escoffier ran the Carlton until he retired himself in 1920. He continued to supervise the kitchens through the end of the First World War, in which his youngest son was killed in action. Escoffier died in Monte Carlo on February 12, 1935, just a few days after his wife had died. The French press referred to Escoffier in his time as the Emperor of The World Kitchens; and he was the pre-eminent man in chef jacket in France in the early twentieth century and forerunner of the current fervor for haute cuisine. Escoffier's many recipes, his techniques, and his approach to kitchen management are highly influential to this day, and have been adopted by restaurants and chefs throughout the world.