The Hotel Restaurant Is Becoming the Main Event Again

Photo Credit: The Baldi Bar in the Waldorf Astoria Beverly Hills. Jakob Layman When César Ritz and Auguste Escoffier took over the Savoy hotel in London around 1890, they made its dining room the place to be seen. High-society women rarely ate in public then, but Ritz set out to make it irresistible. He fussed over lampshades until the light turned a flattering apricot, hired an orchestra for weekend nights, and insisted on evening dress. On the food front, Escoffier supplied the reasons to come back, creating Peach Melba for Nellie Melba and getting frogs' legs past the Prince of Wales by calling them nymphs' thighs. New money soon rubbed elbows with dukes, actors and the occasional prince. For eight years, the dining room was the reason the hotel stood out. Success went to their heads. The Savoy fired them in 1898 over missing wine and supplier kickbacks, with its owner, Richard D'Oyly Carte, complaining that they had "forgot they were servants." Three months later they opened the Hôtel Ritz in Paris, and the man's name