Hotel Splendide

Description

In this uproariously funny memoir, Ludwig Bemelmans uncovers the fabulous world of the Hotel Splendide, the luxury New York hotel where he worked as a waiter. With equal parts affection and barbed wit, he records the everyday chaos that reigns behind the smooth facades of the gilded dining room and banquet halls. In hilarious detail, Bemelmans sketches the hierarchy of hotel life and its strange and fascinating inhabitants: from the ruthlessly authoritarian maitre d'hotel Monsieur Victor to the kindly waiter Mespoulets to Frizl the homesick busboy. Illustrated with his own charming line drawings, Bemelmans' tales of a bygone era of extravagance are as charming as they are riotously entertaining.

Ludwig Bemelmans (1898-1962) was an Austrian-born American writer and illustrator of books for children and adults. He travelled from Austria to America in 1914, at the age of sixteen, and worked for three years in the dining halls of what he called, in his autobiographical works, the Hotel Splendide. In 1926, he quit working in hotels to become a full-time cartoonist and made frequent contributions to the New Yorker, Vogue and Town and Country. He is perhaps most well-known as the author of the beloved Madeline books.

'The adventures of the original bad boy of the New York restaurant/hotel underbelly continue. Whether writing about the backstairs misadventures of cooks and waiters or travel to faraway lands, Bemelmans is always funny, insightful and dead on target. No one has ever surpassed the master' - Anthony Bourdain 'Freshness and vitality... wit, humor, pathos, and the inimitable Bemelmans' touch... Here's a feast for Bemelmans' fans' - Kirkus Reviews (1946) '[The] kitchen memoir to end them all' - Slightly Foxed 'One reads Bemelmans not as one reads a serious novelist but for the sheer momentary pleasure given by his evocation of atmosphere and mood' - Punch