Hotel Bemelmans

Ludwig Bemelmans author

Format:Paperback

Publisher:Ebury Publishing

Published:10th Oct '02

Should be back in stock very soon

Hotel Bemelmans cover

Humorous and generous tales of kitchen life behind the scenes at the Ritz in 1920s and 1930s New York

His evocative tales of grand hotel life have a reporter's eye for sensory detail, yet he always manages to bathe his world and it's lovable characters in the mood of a fairytale. Meet the girl-hungry hotel Magician, Kalakobe the African cook, Mr Sigsag, Monsieur Victor, Mespoulet and an unforgettable cast of down but not yet out hotel employees.If there is such a thing as a comfort food book, Bemelmans' stories are it. His evocative tales of grand hotel life have a reporter's eye for sensory detail, yet he always manages to bathe his world and it's lovable characters in the mood of a fairytale. Meet the girl-hungry hotel Magician, Kalakobe the African cook, Mr Sigsag, Monsieur Victor, Mespoulet and an unforgettable cast of down but not yet out hotel employees. A feast of food writing. And once you've read one Bemelmans' tale you fall in love and want to read the lot.

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
A complete original * Saturday Review *
An artist in both line and words ... with talents of gold * Observer *
Very entertaining ... an excellent story-teller * Sunday Times *
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 *
A note of expensive cosmopolitan is brilliantly sustained. There are stories here that could hardly be done better * New Statesman *
The singularity of Bemelmans, whether he draws or writes, is his double capacity to see freshly like a child and comment shrewdly like a grown up. The product is an awry wisdom, the wisdom of a reflective innocent who is surprised at nothing and delighted with everything * Clifton Fadiman *
Mr Bemelmans is always pricking bubbles, discreetly, appreciatively, out of a sense of duty rather than a desire to shock, and the process is delightful * The Times *

ISBN: 9780091887872

Dimensions: 198mm x 130mm x 19mm

Weight: 226g

320 pages