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Barr’s prose is lively and his sourcing impeccable…a thoroughly enjoyable look into a defining moment of culinary history

– Publishers Weekly
In a tale replete with scandal and opulence, Luke Barr, author of the New York Times bestselling Provence, 1970, transports readers to turn-of-the-century London and Paris to discover how celebrated hotelier César Ritz and famed chef Auguste Escoffier joined forces at the Savoy Hotel to spawn the modern luxury hotel and restaurant, where women and American Jews mingled with British high society, signaling a new social order and the rise of the middle class.

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Praise for Ritz & Escoffier

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His work is not just a fluidly structured dual biography but a provocative history of a turning point in the evolving hotel and restaurant industry.

– Booklist
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Ritz & Escoffier is a vividly engaging piece of social history about two humbly-born visionaries—one a great hotelier, and one a great chef—and the temples of luxury they fashioned, first at the Savoy Hotel in Belle Époque London, and then at the Paris Ritz.  Filled with intriguing details and fascinating (and sometimes unsavory) characters, Ritz & Escoffier re-creates a certain time and place with the deftest of touches.

– Daphne Merkin
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In this winningly told story, Luke Barr explores the advent of the luxe life through the saga of hotelier César Ritz and chef Auguste Escoffier, whose partnership brought us not only the adjective ‘ritzy,’ itself no small testament, but also such once-novel phenomena as hotel rooms with their own bathrooms, and innovative dishes like Peach Melba. It’s a charming tale of success, scandal, and redemption—complete with an unexpected villain. Trigger alert: It will make you hungry, and a little nostalgic for bygone times.

– New York Times bestselling author Erik Larson
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A thrilling story of how an outsider—a Swiss peasant—instructed 19th century aristocrats, celebrities, politicians, and plutocrats how to live and, in doing so, single-handedly defined modern luxury. Luke Barr’s incandescent narrative is as smooth and seductive as the service at the Ritz.

– Kate Betts, author of My Paris Dream
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