Escoffier, Auguste (1847–1935)

French maître chef. He began his culinary career in his uncle's restaurant in Nice, France. Later he was in the service of a Russian grand duke, and then chef de cuisine to the general staff of the Rhine Army in the Franco-Prussian War (1871), and to Marshal MacMahon at the Champs Elysées. His career in England began after he had left the Grand Hotel in Monte Carlo to accompany Swiss hotelier César Ritz to the Savoy Hotel in London. The peak of his career was reached at the Carlton Hotel, and to him belongs the credit for inventing the bombe Néro (or flaming ice), entremets fraises à la Sarah Bernhardt, and pêche Melba. The emperor William II of Germany called him ‘the Emperor of chefs’. He wrote the Guide Culinaire (1903) and Ma Cuisine (1934).