The names Ritz and Escoffier have lived on in culinary schools and hotels across the globe, but less known is how they built their towering reputations. Ritz and Escoffier is a great read, drawing attention to two major pioneers of the hospitality industry. Author Luke Barr has a knack for bringing the past to life in an engaging, page-turning way while backing up his words with detailed research. In the process of learning about the life and dreams of hotelier César Ritz and restaurateur Auguste Escoffier- whose partnership would change hotels as we know them- the reader learns about life and travel for those at the turn of the 20th century, French cooking, high of the day, and walks away far more educated than they began. I enjoyed the experience, and Barr has opened my eyes to interests in reading other nonfiction works regarding the time period.

I absolutely loved this book - such a fun read. Ritz and Escoffier were ahead of their time, and their creation of the Savoy Hotel spawned a new era and type of hotel.

This was a very fun read telling of the early "fancy food" world. It is interesting to look at it through the prism of food that is done now in places like Alinea where the envelope continues to be pushed!

When the Savoy Hotel opened in London in the late 1800s, it quickly rose to fame as the most luxurious experience in the world. Well known hotelier Cesar Ritz was hand-chosen for his attention to detail and his devotion to his guests to run this largest and most opulent hotel by financier Richard D’Oyly Carte. And Ritz then hand chose the finest chef he knew to accompany him, Auguste Escoffier.

Ritz ran an impeccable hotel, and Escoffier ran the most organized, professional kitchen that existed at that time. In fact, you can still go into any luxury hotel and see the details of perfection that were handed down from Ritz, and you can go into any modern professional kitchen and see the imprint of Escoffier’s pristine attention to detail and organization. Their ideas birthed an industry and brought a level of luxury to the middle class that most people had never been able to experience before.

Luke Barr, author of Provence, 1970, is back with another flawlessly researched book that takes a look at a moment in history that changed everything that came after. In Provence, 1970, he showed how American cuisine came to be, and Ritz and Escoffier shows how two men taught us all how to live our best lives, lives where the details make the difference between an average experience and one that make us feel like royalty.

With stories of history and scandal, royalty and wannabes, romance and betrayal, Ritz and Escoffier shines a light on a time in history where decadence became a lifestyle and modern luxury became a tangible reality for almost anyone. The pages of this book are filled with lavish dinner parties, rumors of love affairs, scandalous spending, backstabbing, double-crossing, stealing, egotism, entitlement, lawsuits and disgrace.

A fascinating look at a unique time in history, Ritz and Escoffier takes you back in time and shows you all the hard work that goes into the extravagance of the hospitality industry from the opening of a hotel to running it like clockwork through all the surprises and challenges that come up during its operation. Luke Barr’s exquisite prose, audiobook melodically narrated by Stephen Rudnicki, brings the city and the time and the hotel to life in a way that makes you feel like you can see the flowers right in front of you and smell the amazing aromas of Escoffier’s kitchen. I know that I will never see the hotel industry the same way.

Galleys for Ritz and Escoffier were provided by Crown Publishing through NetGalley, with many thanks, but I bought the audiobook myself, thanks to Audible.

A captivating and well-researched slice of Gilded Age life. Ritz and Escoffier are legends in the worlds of service, luxury, and style. The book captures the moment that the Savoy hotel became the place to be seen by London's elite. The details on Escoffier's famed elaborate menus, gossip at the time, and the tidal shift in wealth made this a fascinating read.

I loved this dual biography of two men who, as partners and friends, changed the way we look at restaurant kitchens and at luxury hotels.

Focusing mainly of their most productive decade, we learn how they took the idea of a luxury hotel, The Savoy in London, and brought it to fruition. By concentrating on this period the author was really able to show us in detail why they are still renowned for the work they did. It's written so that it's both readable and authoritative. I loved it and all I learned from it.

This fascinating, well-researched book read like a novel. I devoured it like one of the meals described within.

By Luke Barr, author of Provence, at the Savoy Hotel in London. Cesar Ritz, Swiss hotelier, and Auguste Escoffier, chef, come together just before World War I and change the industry. Famous clients, a luxury hotel and fine dining. Fascinating book.

Ritz Ana Escoffier is well-researched and written in the style that a reader might expect from a travel and leisure writer. Much attention is given to the particulars of Escoffier’s kitchen and to the details of Ritz’s luxurious accommodations. There is lots of name dropping relating to famous guests and less given to the overall big picture of this historical time. This would, I think, be most intriguing to fans of food memoirs and to folks involved in the service industry. For me, however, it was too bogged down in detail for me to be fully invested.

The stories of both a legendary hotelman and an exemplary chef make for a great read in Luke Barr’s “Ritz & Escoffier.” The late 1800s into the early 1900s was the period of the European grand hotel and two men, Cesar Ritz and Auguste Escoffier, were largely responsible for the proliferation of many fine hostelries at that time.

Hotelier Cesar Ritz became famous as his travels around the world of hospitality took him through ever-increasing levels of responsibility as he created and maintained the highest levels of service in many fine hotels all over Europe. He met master chef Auguste Escoffier in Switzerland in 1873 and their tandem career of creating fine hotels with exquisite food preparation began. Some small accomplishments started a long and prosperous relationship.

Their first major venture was the renovation of the Savoy in London in 1890. The transformation was an immediate success creating a major change in aristocratic lodging and dining. Ritz was able to exercise his managerial magic to attract the moneyed to the hotel’s swank confines and Escoffier created many famous dishes at the Savoy. Despite their success, both Ritz and Escoffier were fired in 1897 by the board of directors for improprieties with hotel properties and supplies as well as conflicts of interest as they attempted to expand their vision of fine hotels throughout Europe.

Their reputations were not damaged, however, as they successfully opened Hotel Ritz in Paris and, in subsequent years, the Carlton and Ritz hotels in London. These, along with the Savoy, are still operating as first-class hotels today. Escoffier went on to oversee food preparation aboard the super liner SS Imperator and so impressed Kaiser Wilhelm II that the Emperor proclaimed him to be the “Emperor of Chefs” further establishing him as the pre-eminent French chef at the time. Several international culinary schools operate today under the Escoffier name. His cookbook is legendary and still in print.

Luke Barr is an editor at “Travel+Leisure” magazine and author of “Provence 1970” His great aunt was M.F.K. Fisher, a prominent American food writer, giving him some foresight into the world of cooking. He is a great writer, presenting a complex biography of two complicated men and their lives in the hospitality business. I found the book to be fascinating and written in a style that provided the reader with details about a business that is full of intrigue and abstract ideas. Innovative ideas about managing hotels and the staffs and the creation of magnificent food are provided. Aside from absence of bedbugs and impeccable cleanliness, it’s hard to define what’s necessary in the hospitality world but Barr succeeds with great insight.

It’s difficult to place a label on what it is that provides comfort and taste to those who eat and travel, or, for that matter, those who are merely away from home when its time to have a meal. The author has done that with great competence. This might be my favorite book of the year.

Have I mentioned lately how much I miss teaching the World of Food class? Before Ritz and Escoffier, "hotels" were either the house of someone from whom you could wrangle and invitation, or a crummy inn where you might sleep with strangers and bedbugs, or maybe an exclusive spa that refused to admit nouveau riche Americans or Jews. Cesar Ritz and Auguste Escoffier has begun their quiet revolution in hotels in Switzerland and along the holiday coast of France, but their paths crossed at the whim of Richard D'Oyly Carte in his new London Savoy hotel. D'Oyly Carte might know musical theater, but had no sense of the hospitality industry--giving Ritz and Escoffier the chance to institute the modernized kitchen brigade system, teach guests how to use flush toilets, put unaccompanied elite women in the dining room (in full view!) and invent the gentle art of celebrity management (Sarah Bernhardt has taken too much chloral in Room 473!).