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Cesar Ritz and Auguste Escoffier vs the Savoy Hotel Company
Int. J. Hospitality Management Vol. 15 No. 1, pp. 29-39, 1996 Copyright (~ 1996 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd Printed in Great Britain. All rights reserved 0278-4319/96 $15.00 + 0.00
Pergamon
0278-4319(95)00054-2
Cesar Ritz and Auguste Escoffier vs the Savoy Hotel Company Derek Taylor 4 R o w a n Walk, London N 2 0 Q J , U K
When the Savoy Hotel Company dismissed Cesar Ritz and A uguste Escoffier in March 1897, it was a cause celebre. Ritz had a European reputation as a great Hotelier and Escoffier as a Master Chef. The paper explains how the dismissals came about and how and why the whole affair was hushed up. Copyright (~ 1996 Elsevier Science Ltd
Key Words:
Ritz
Escoffier
d'Oyly Carte
Savoy Hotel
On April 15th 1898 the monthly issue of the Caterer and Hotel-Keepers' Gazette tersely told its readers "Actions are pending against the Savoy Hotel Company at the instance of Messrs. Ritz, Echenard, and Escoffier, for 'wrongful dismissal and breach of c o n t r a c t " . 1 It was old news by then but the timing of important events often shows scant regard for publishers' copy dates. On March 7th Cesar Ritz and Auguste Escoffier had been dismissed from their positions as Manager and Chef, respectively. They were not allowed any period of notice and Marie Ritz, Cesar Ritz's wife, wrote later that the family were fortunate that "Mr. Newshwander, of the Charing Cross Hotel, immediately turned over to our use the pleasantest apartment available there". 2 The full story of this illuminating episode in the lives of two of the major icons in the 19th century international hotel industry has lain in four box files in the Savoy archive room for the last 100 years. It has been hidden by an agreement between the parties, dated January 29th 1900, that the facts would never be given to the press. Only now, nearly 80 years after the death of Cesar Ritz and 60 years since the death of Auguste Escoffier, is the complete story available. Some information about the events appeared a short time ago in "The Observer" newspaper in Britain and the Savoy Directors decided that it was pointless, and indeed wrong, to seek to deny the facts after all this time. This was a generous decision, for the plea of every historian is that facts should be considered sacred and should, when they can no longer hurt those involved, be allowed into the public domain. The material in this paper has all been taken from the Savoy Hotel archives and from books and press comment which have appeared on the hotel. The importance of the events lies, first, in their historical accuracy. When the effort is made to recreate the bygone world of hotels, writers are usually restricted to secondary sources, like newspapers and popular magazines, which can easily be inaccurate. The bare bones of company reports, statistics and records of births and deaths, tell little of real life. 29
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Here, in those archives, there is a time capsule; letters written by Ritz to d'Oyly Carte in his own hand, the original reports of auditors and lawyers, the day-to-day comments of the participants themselves. This is so important because, as an industry, the traditions tend to be taken for granted. Whether they are based on fact or fiction, they are accepted almost without question. Only careful historical research can identify whether the events on which present attitudes are based, really happened in the way imagined. In considering the story which will unfold, it is necessary to get the figures into perspective. To translate 1898 figures into those applicable to the present day, it is necessary to multiply by 40. Although somewhat simplistic, this is, roughly, correct. The appropriate 1995 figures are, therefore, in brackets.
Dramatis personae It is difficult in these days of faceless multi-national chains of hotels, to fully appreciate the status of the protagonists involved 100 years ago. Richard d'Oyly Carte, the Chairman and President of the Savoy Hotel Company, was the impresario who had presented the wildly successful Gilbert & Sullivan operettas. A sort of 19th century Cameron Mackintosh. Like many another successful businessman, he had become fascinated by hotels and determined to build a veritable palace to outshine all the competition. The result was the Savoy, which opened in 1889, though only after d'Oyly Carte had had to complete its financing with the help of some wealthy friends. It had been possible, he wrote, that he and his original supporters "might have found ourselves bankrupt" before it opened, and the time "it was the most difficult and dangerous of my life". Neither was the hotel successful when it began trading. There was a glut of hotels, a serious financial crisis in 1890 and the well-to-do were pulling in their belts; never a happy sight for hoteliers. The £10 shares slumped quickly to £6. Ritz had been recommended to d'Oyly Carte by Sir Arthur Sullivan and was brought to London as Restaurant Manager. H e was little known in Britain but he impressed d'Oyly Carte. The strong willed impresario swiftly dismissed the existing Manager, Mr Hardwicke, to give the job to Ritz. As the Caterer and Hotel Keepers' Gazette reported in January 1890 "The Directors and Management are by no means in perfect accord" .3 The ex-Manager's unexpired contract term had eventually to be paid in full and it cost the company £3125 (£126,000). The experience probably explains d'Oyly Carte's caution when faced with a similar decision 7 years later. Ritz was to work for 6 months in London every year but was allowed to follow other interests outside Britain out of season. (Effectively, during the winter months.) He was to become the epitome of the great Hotel Manager; a genuine legend in his own time. Very few men ever achieve an adjective made from their name, but "ritzy" comes from Ritz. In the Concise Oxford Dictionary it means "High class and luxurious" but also "Ostentatiously smart." and that sums up Ritz and also the way the public saw the early Savoy. "Ostentatious", however, applied in those days to such innovations as a large number of bathrooms when the hotel was constructed. So, in many of its Victorian attributes, it is not a criticism today's public would endorse. Ritz brought the 43 year old Auguste Escoffier with him. Escoffier was acknowledged to be the master Chef. As is well known, his "Guide to Modern Cookery", published in 1907,
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remains the bible of thousands of chefs all over the world to this day. His reputation with the monied public and with his fellow chefs was immense. Although he retired in 1914, when he died in 1935 at the ripe old age of 88, the lustre of his fame was undiminished. The President of the Swiss Culinary Association spoke for the entire international hotel industry when he said "We looked upon him as the king of chefs, and all nationalities unite in paying homage to the master". 4 To help Ritz run the Savoy, there also came a Maitre d'Hotel, Louis Echenard, who stood in for Ritz as Deputy Manager in his absence. The three executives set to work in 1890 to make the Savoy the finest hotel in London.
Terms and conditions They were well paid for their work. Ritz, as the Manager of the Savoy and the company's Grand Hotel in Rome, received £24,287 (£971,480) in the 6 years between the end of 1890 and the end of 1896. In addition, d'Oyly Carte gave him 2000 shares in the Savoy Company out of his own pocket in 1893. By 1895 these were worth £30,000. (£1.2 million). A considerable proportion of Ritz's remuneration came from a sliding scale of commission when the Savoy made profits which resulted in the shareholders getting more than a 5% dividend. In 1896 the dividend rose to 12½% and the profits to £27,057. (£1,082,280). In addition, Ritz received many benefits in kind from the Savoy, including 4 rooms in the hotel for his family. Echenard over the same period received £10,937. (£437,480) and Escoffier was paid £1000 a year (£40,000). Because the hotel had been built by a theatrical manager, and because his friends and supporters were considered somewhat raffish, it took time for the Establishment to come round to the idea of using the hotel. It was as if somebody would build a Las Vegas hotel in the middle of Geneva today. For some years the hotel continued to survive with difficulty. In 1890 the £10 shares stood at 6. In 1891 at 5, 1892, 2~6 and it was not until 1895 that the profits brought the stock to a peak of 15, a figure it was not to reach again for very many years. In 1897 a combination of unconnected events created a very different situation from the earlier years of the decade, when d'Oyly Carte, the Managers and the Chef were working relatively harmoniously as a team. First, d'Oyly Carte fell seriously ill. "I am not allowed to walk. I have to be wheeled or carried everywhere". H e was not permitted by his Doctors to take charge at Directors' meetings or to make speeches. Robert Clay, the Vice Chairman, deputised in his place. By 1897 he really wanted to retire altogether. There was a ready made fall-back position if he stayed in harness. H e had married a second time in 1888. Helen Couper-Black had been his assistant before their marriage and was an able woman. According to one friend, George Edwards, the theatre manager, "The whole foundation of the Savoy business rested upon her" at the beginning, d'Oyly Carte remained ultimately in charge of the company, but his ability to supervise was now severely limited, and he relied on his wife for much of the day-to-day Head Office work. The impact of Ritz's arrival must have bruised Helen d'Oyly Carte's ego considerably. Ritz would not consult her on anything, would not tolerate any interference, but made it clear that he was perfectly prepared to listen to his wife. Marie Ritz was only 23 in 1890, much younger and less experienced than Mrs d'Oyly Carte. Marie Ritz recalled " ' Y o u r
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taste is good' RRz said to me 'so go ahead and choose colours and fabrics at once. I trust you. '''5 The energy which Helen d'Oyly Carte was to show in investigating Ritz's m a n a g e m e n t record in 1897 was probably fuelled by this lengthy period of humiliation. Second, the renegotiation of Ritz's contract in 1895 had shown the Manager just how much he was valued by the Directors. Always possessed of a mercurial t e m p e r a m e n t , he had been kept in check in his early days, as Manager of the G r a n d Hotel National in Lucerne, by a Chairman even more authoritarian than he; Colonel Pfyffer d'Altishofen. No such restraint now existed. Admittedly, he had always been difficult to control. In January 1892 at a Board Meeting, Carte said "a very unpleasant and unsatisfactory scene occurred" and Ritz apologised in writing later "having lost control of myself in a m o m e n t of excitement, a thing which will not occur again". Yet, although he ran the hotel largely independently of the Directors, he was energetically looking after his m a n y outside interests as well. For the monied men about town were also anxious to have a hotel as successful as the Savoy in 1895, and Ritz would have been the ideal person to operate it for them. H e was brought any n u m b e r of offers to diversify his interests. H e took to delegating the responsibility for running the Savoy more and more to his old friends and colleagues, Echenard and Escoffier. Third, Escoffier now needed m o n e y badly for his own outside catering interests and, it was said, for his debts to bookmakers. H e lived lavishly, his salary was inadequate for his life style and, as a consequence, he succumbed to temptation and started to take regular bribes from his suppliers. The Savoy Directors must have been aware that their m a n a g e m e n t were likely to live well off the company. That friends might be entertained, presents accepted, and some items of personal expenditure put down to company business. D ' O y l y Carte, from his background in theatrical m a n a g e m e n t and his wide international experience, was not naive. As long as the profits were flowing in, the Directors were probably prepared to put up with a lot. T h e r e was, however, a limit. The Directors were not content to see Ritz create competition for the Savoy. Their original agreement with him specifically excluded him from involvement in any other British hotel except Claridges, a fine hotel in Mayfair in which the Savoy also had an interest. The difference between the two operations was that Ritz only had the 2000 shares d'Oyly Carte had given him in the Savoy. At Claridges he and his friends owned 50% of the issued capital. Claridges would do better if it could take the Savoy's clientele. Worse, the Directors were well aware that Ritz was approaching his clients and suppliers to back his new Ritz Hotel D e v e l o p m e n t C o m p a n y , which was to be launched in N o v e m b e r 1897. As they noted some 2½ years later " T h e intention . . . in forming such syndicate being, as soon as their agreements expired, and without letting their intention be known previously, to leave the employ of the Defendants (The Savoy), taking Mr. Escoffier with them, and . . . start a business opposition . . . to the injury of the Defendants". Ritz brazenly arranged that the original meetings of the syndicate were held free at the Savoy.
Investigation To m a k e the situation even less acceptable, by the s u m m e r of 1897 the profits from the kitchen had fallen disastrously. The gross kitchen profit in previous years had been
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between 32% and 36%. It fell to 24.5% in the first half year of 1897. In the A u t u m n the Savoy Directors had had enough. They resolved to have a full investigation, which Helen d ' O y l y Carte had been advocating since the end of 1896, and they called in the Auditors, Deloitte, Dever, Griffiths & Co. Helen d ' O y l y Carte joined in the investigation enthusiastically. The examinations undertaken were exhaustive. They even included full reports on the daily movements of Ritz and Escoffier. It all became rather melodramatic. At one stage a private detective met one of Escoffier's business partners in the 1st Class waiting room at Broad Street railway station. He was there to find out whether Escoffier had used this Charles Liddell as a gobetween with wine and cigar companies. The latter selling their goods to Mr. Liddeli, who sold them on to Escoffier at the Savoy at a higher price and shared the profits. From the Auditor's investigations there also emerged an unbelievable catalogue of staff corruption. A m o n g the earliest documents which helped them find the skeletons in the catering cupboards was 9 foolscap pages, identifying in great detail malfeasance in the kitchen and restaurant. It was by an author who simply described himself as "One who knows". (Called henceforth "the A u t h o r " ) Although we d o n ' t know the writer, many of the allegations were to be echoed in the Auditor's eventual report. On the other hand, some of the accusations could have been explained in different ways than the writer chose. The A u t h o r dealt with the management style and the manner in which business was conducted in the kitchen and restaurant. He found Ritz too excitable and nervous. The real explanation for this was that Ritz was driving himself much too hard for the good of his own health. The A u t h o r continued: "Ritz, Echenard and Escoffier are all masters and they have no power over one another. The Savoy Hotel is like a house without any master. Escoffier has climbed to such a height that nobody dare approach him, not even Ritz, when it is a question of the supply of food to the kitchens; in fact he does what he likes, and does it how he likes and when he likes... Messrs Ritz and Echenard seem afraid of Escoffier". In view of the future cooperation of Ritz and Escoffier at the Ritz in Paris and the Carlton in London, it seems more likely that Ritz indulged a colleague he respected and liked. He was far too involved with other hotel schemes to have the time to supervise the Savoy kitchen and he trusted his chef not to stray too far from the straight and narrow. This was a serious mistake.
What's yours is mine and what's mine's my own The A u t h o r went on "There is no doubt, however, that the Chef at the Savoy does insist upon and extort commission all round. This is notorious." He quoted a supplier, Bellamy's cashier, who said it was difficult to allow 5% offthe Savoy account, give 5% to the chef and supply Ritz and Echenard's private homes for nothing. Ritz had a home in Hampstead in North London. So Ritz was accused of benefiting in kind and the A u t h o r further suggested "Outside his business capacity as a Maitre d'Hotel, he is ignorant of the serious duties of a manager of a large hotel", d'Oyly Carte's later comment, in a letter to the Prince of Wales, is probably nearer the truth; He said Ritz was "discontented--always discontented---and there is no doubt that later his head became turned with success". Nevertheless, he acknowledged
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"there is no doubt that he was of the greatest service to our hotel, and worked at first and for a long time, extremely hard". Ritz craved to be a great man; when he returned from his first interview in London with d'Oyly Carte in 1889, Marie Ritz wrote "Never had he seen a more brilliant audience, never had he seen so m a n y diamonds or so m a n y beautiful w o m e n " .6 Ritz wanted to be part of that glittering society. Born in a small Swiss village, starting as a wine waiter in Paris in 1867, he always wanted to escape his humble origins. From the terms of the contract he tried to negotiate in 1894, it was obvious he felt that he was ill rewarded for the success of the Savoy. H e asked for the balance of the unissued share capital, valued at £5750 (£230,000) to start with. The Directors rejected his outrageously high demands and he stayed for far less. Nevertheless, his friends, who wanted him to spend his time on their ventures, would have found a ready ear if they had told him he was being poorly recompensed by the Savoy. Thus he must have rationalised when he improved his life style at the expense of the company who employed him. It wasn't just the suppliers' goods going to H a m p s t e a d . Large quantities of food went to his house from the hotel, particularly on Sundays. The bill for his washing in H a m p s t e a d came to over £80 (£3200) in 6 months. The laundry charged it at a rate of £3 (£120) a week, even if he wasn't in Britain. Free carriages were provided for him by the Savoy jobmaster. H e c o m m a n d e e r e d free meeting rooms at the hotel when he wanted to discuss new ventures with his backers. These meetings were followed by free lunches and drinks. He got free passes for the trains in exchange for entertaining railway executives. H e gave his friends credit in the hotel. His stockbroker ran up a £281 (£11,240) bill but was never pressed to pay it. What Ritz was taking, probably convincing himself that it was his right, Escoffier knew he was stealing. One later affidavit from a supplier described his shifty method of visiting their firm and just talking aimlessly until his commission was forthcoming. In return, he not only allowed the suppliers to overcharge but to provide short weight. The goods were signed in by a new controller, Mr. Darbilly, from 1896. Darbilly was, in fact, a m e m b e r of Escoffier's family. H e was also an employee of a supplier who was among the worst when it came to short deliveries. Where orders had previously been signed by Ritz, they were now signed by Escoffier. The size of the shortfall was as much as 30-40%. H e n r y Mann, former H e a d of the Egg D e p a r t m e n t at Hudson Bros., claimed in an affidavit that he had been ordered to deliver only 450-500 eggs when the Savoy kitchen ordered 700. H e had been promised two suits by his Manager for arranging this, but he never got them. H e was dismissed instead when the scandal broke. Hudsons eventually accepted judgement against them of £3179. (£127,160) A n d that was with the young Rufus Isaacs, a future Lord Chief Justice, acting for them. The A u t h o r also itemised a n u m b e r of scams operated by the restaurant staff. There were 70 waiters in the restaurant and they lived off the tronc. Only the most senior received any wages. The tronc, however, did not only consist of tips from the customers. All the profits from the flowers on the tables went to the waiters' tronc. They provided the flowers, charged the guests, and the hotel paid them the difference. It was worth about £1000£1500 (£40,000-£60,000) a year. At the same time, the cost of flowers brought by the hotel to enhance its own decor came to about £700 (£28,000) a year. Not surprisingly, the A u t h o r was able to report that flowers were charged to guests who
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hadn't ordered them. Correspondence in the archives confirms that there were such complaints. The head waiter was allowed to buy all the fresh fruit for the restaurant and banqueting. H e was paid 2p (80p) for each table d'h6te meal taken and 3p (£1.20p) for each banqueting cover, whether the guest ate the fruit or not. The waiters also got a 20% commission on cigar sales. The H e a d Waiter, who was paid £200 (£8000) a year plus £10 (£400) a week from the tronc, was the executive permitted to decide who should be granted credit to sign their bills. The A u t h o r suggested that if you gave the waiter a good tip, you could always have credit. The amount of credit outstanding in June 1897 was said to be £13,000 (£520,000). Sir William Neville and D r Coall (Ritz's Doctor) were n a m e d as guests who were even allowed to sign cheques for cash. Dr Coall for £200 (£8000). A n o t h e r source of income for the waiters, which was later confirmed by the auditors, was a tip to get a table in the restaurant on popular nights. A n d Ritz and Escoffier had made the restaurant very popular indeed. The going rate was said to be £1 (£40) every night of the week except Sunday, when it was £2 (£80). With tips, there was a lot of m o n e y to be gained. The coal porter might earn 70p (£28) a week, but the cloakroom attendant could expect £7 (£280). The systematic larceny in the kitchen and restaurant operations was further exacerbated by the liquor stock losses. In the first six months of 1897 the auditors identified sales of £37,549 (£1,501,960). They found that the receipts were only £34,073. (£1,362,920). A shortfall of £3476 (£139,040). In these days of 4 weekly Liquor Stock takes, it is perhaps significant that Ritz's policy at the time was to only have the stocks checked twice a year. Ritz m a d e many excuses when confronted with these facts. H e said that competition had forced down the selling price of wines. It hadn't. He said that the contrast in kitchen profits was with the D i a m o n d Jubilee year figures. But the overall turnover had not declined very much. Just the profits. H e said he'd had to pay the waiters more to keep them, because other hotels were trying to poach them. But there was no evidence of sizable wage rises. H e also complained that the auditors were asking the staff questions without him being present, even though he had offered to cooperate in every way. The questions continued. The C o m p a n y Secretary, Charles Munro, replied brusquely that the auditors were employed by the shareholders and, by implication, not the Manager. The auditor's work was not made any easier by the fact that the H e a d Checker, Mr. Gottlieb, had been told by Ritz to destroy the invoices when there were too m a n y to fit into his box! This the controller duly did. Ritz was told at one point " Y o u have latterly been simply using the Savoy as a place to live in, a pied-a-terre, an office, from which to carry on your other schemes". That seems a pretty fair summary. These other ventures now involved him in Directorships of hotels and hotel companies in Frankfurt, Monte Carlo, Paris, Egypt and Maidenhead. H e had also been trying to raise m o n e y for the Ritz Hotel D e v e l o p m e n t Syndicate in order to build the Carlton Hotel. This would open in competition with the Savoy in the H a y m a r k e t , a mile or so away, a few years later. Escoffier protested at the investigation as well. H e said he would resign if he hadn't been bound by his contract. H e was asked to explain why some suppliers sold their goods to him and then he sold them on to the Savoy. H e said that their companies were based overseas,
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they knew he was creditworthy but they didn't know if the Savoy was. So they would only deal with him direct.
Imperative duty The Savoy Directors were faced with a terrible commercial, if not ethical, dilemma. Both Ritz and Escoffier had a tremendous following, both among the monied public and in the hotel industry itself. It was manifested almost immediately when d'Oyly Carte tried to find a replacement for Escoffier. H e offered the job in February 1898 to Charles Harbensreithinger, an able French Chef. The salary was to be £600 (£24,000) a year, a considerable saving on Escoffier's, but still a great deal of m o n e y in Victorian times. M. Harbensreithinger accepted the job with alacrity on February 27th and then retracted on March 4th. H e said it was "impossible for me to be so ungrateful to M. Escoffier. I should lose the esteem of all my friends". The public following included the leader of all British society, the Prince of Wales, who loved the food Escoffier p r e p a r e d so well. Would anybody believe the Directors if they took action? Never a man to do things by halves, d'Oyly Carte retained a team of barristers, headed by one of the most eminent counsel in the country, Sir Edward Carson. The advice they received on February 28th 1898 was crystal clear. Sir Edward told them that "it is the imperative duty of the Directors to dismiss the Manager and the Chef". The Directors, even when so clearly instructed, wavered. They asked Sir Edward whether they should give Ritz and Escoffier a last chance to explain the deficiencies. Sir Edward was blunt. "Certainly not" he said.
Dismissal H e might have added the words of his contemporary, Lord A c t o n - - " P o w e r tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely". The Directors did as they were told. They issued a statement. "Acting under the advice of eminent counsel, the Directors have found it their imperative duty to dismiss the two managers and the chef from the service of the company". Echenard went too. The departure of Ritz, Echenard and Escoffier was accompanied by many less senior staffwho were loyal to them. As the shareholders learned on March 15th at the 9th Annual General Meeting, " O n Monday the 7th, after the changes had been effected, the kitchen staff agreed to do their duty that evening but expressed their intention of leaving after midnight . . . . Of course their leaving our employ thus was wholly i m p r o p e r and illegal, but we found it impossible and useless to argue with these Foreigners who take the quaintly humorous view that they are the servants of the official under whom they serve and not of the Proprietors who pay their salaries". Nevertheless, the kitchen staff were replaced by 8 o'clock the next morning.
Writs The dismissals were the talk of the industry and the glitterati. Ritz, Echenard and Escoffier denied doing anything wrong and issued writs for wrongful dismissal and breach of contract. The Savoy counterclaimed for damages. The legal proceedings were to go on for
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the best part of 2 years. Profits for 1897 were, eventually, £15,585 (£623,400), £11,000 (£440,000) down on 1896. The Directors couldn't save the dividend, which slumped to 7~l o %. In the following months, the Food and Beverage profits improved dramatically. From the low of 24½% in the first half of 1897, the 9 months after the dismissals saw the profit percentage go up to 42% and in 1899 it reached 45%. The dividend for 1898 was back to 10%, with profits at £20,276 (£811,040) in spite of a disastrous first quarter. The problem was, presumably, to keep the regular clientele happy, now that credit was more difficult to obtain, you had to pay extra if you wanted the a la carte instead of the table d'hOte and it did you no good to tip the waiters lavishly. The key player among the guests was, of course, the Prince of Wales. When H R H heard that Ritz had been dismissed, he declared publicly "Where Ritz goes, I go". 7 This could have been totally disastrous, particularly as the Prince was as good as his word and cancelled a small party at the hotel. If the Prince boycotted the Savoy, his large coterie would do likewise. On February 28th 1899, a year after the event, Richard d'Oyly Carte felt he had to write to H R H and explain his side of the story, because of "the importance we all attach to the good opinion of your Royal Highness". He quoted Carson's advice that there had been "Gross negligence and breaches of duty and mismanagement". He pointed out that the Hon. Charles Russell, the son of the Lord Chief Justice, his solicitor, had been in charge of the investigation. He explained that he still expected the case to go for trial in the Law Courts. There is nothing to show that the Prince of Wales ever responded to the letter but something had to be done to counter the calumnies which Ritz and Escoffier were now heaping on the Savoy at every opportunity.
Clearing up the mess The pre-trial manoeuvrings dragged on over nearly 2 years. The writs were originally issued on March l l t h 1898. The Savoy served their Defence with the High Court on July 8th 1898. It justified the dismissals on the grounds of malpractices, which it detailed at length. The Plaintiffs then asked for proof of the allegations and Master Kaye heard submissions from both parties on October 25th 1898. He gave directions for trial on November 7th 1898 and instructed the Defendants to produce their evidence. The Defendants served replies to interrogatories on January 14th 1899 and the Plaintiffs then considered their response. Their rebuttal of the charges was lodged with the court on June 20th 1899. They denied all the accusations and said that, even if any of them were true, the Savoy was estopped. That the company had known about the actions at the time and condoned them. As they hadn't taken any action then, they had waived their right to do so thereafter. As the months went by, however, the case for dismissal grew ever stronger. To begin with, the suppliers admitted that they had been bribing Escoffier and that many had delivered short weight. The total sum recovered from them reached £8087 (£323,480) by the end of 1899. In addition, malpractices, such as the outstanding bills for Ritz's friends, the part-time job of Echenard as London representative of Wagon Lits (he was responsible for their advertising and the distribution of literature throughout the country) and the overpurchasing of goods from firms in which Ritz had an interest, were all easily proven.
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Ritz, Echenard and Escoffier must have realised that they had no chance of winning in court and that their reputations would be ruined by the evidence which would be produced. They gave in. On January 29th 1900 their solicitors agreed a settlement with the Savoy. Ritz, Echenard and Escoffier signed a long statement admitting their guilt of all the charges the Savoy had lain against them. They appealed to the Savoy to agree that their confessions should go no further. The position of the Savoy Directors was very delicate. They had been put to enormous cost over 2 years and had suffered a much greater loss of profits than they were ever going to recover. They had also been attacked by Ritz, Echenard and Escoffier, ever since the dismissals, as heartless and ungrateful employers. Much damage had been done to the hotel's reputation among their clients. On the other hand, both Ritz and Escoffier remained famous for their skills and surrounded by powerful friends. Furthermore, if all the sordid details did emerge, what would they say about the competence of the Directors to run the shareholders' business. On the whole, so long as their former management stopped criticising the Savoy, the Directors felt they were best advised to lock the door on the whole sorry mess. Nearly 40 years later Marie Ritz was still keeping to the bargain, blaming Ritz's departure on the uncontrollable behaviour of a housekeeper with friends in the Boardroom, a "Mrs W". The lady, Mrs Willis, appears, in reality, not to have been involved at all. The settlement with the Plaintiffs enabled the Savoy to recover a lot of money. Ritz and Echenard agreed to pay the company £4173 (£169,200). In addition there was a solution to the dispute over the overordering of wines and spirits. For example, the original £576 (£23,040) stock supplied by Mr Strauss and Mr Lestapis, two of Ritz's friends, didn't sell very well. Nevertheless, Ritz had bought another £960 (£38,400) worth a few months later. Under the settlement, Ritz bought both the very substantial bin ends of those wines, and a great deal more vintages and spirits from the Savoy. The total cost to him was £6377. (£255,080). Escoffier agreed that he owed the company £8000 but his solicitor said that he had no funds at all. His friends had clubbed together to give him £500 but that was all he could offer. The Savoy agreed to take this in full s e t t l e m e n t . . . £4173 from Ritz and Echenard, £500 from Escoffier, £8087 repaid by the suppliers and £6377 for the wine. Total: £19,137 (£765,480). In 1898 the total profits of the company for the year had been £20,276.
Aftermath In April 1901 Richard d'Oyly Carte died, aged 56, from dropsy and heart disease, s On June 24th 1901 Cesar Ritz collapsed at his Carlton Hotel in London after announcing the cancellation of the lavish programme of celebrations to mark Edward VII's coronation. He never fully recovered from a complete nervous breakdown. The King's appendicitis, which necessitated an operation 1 day before the coronation, cannot be attributed to his fondness for Escoffier's cooking; the great chef being retained, after he left the Savoy, to prepare the banquet on many state occasions. The way the Savoy operated in those larcenous days had two lasting effects. To reduce his kitchen costs and so partially cover up the results of his bribe taking, Escoffier persuaded his staff that they should ignore the long hours they worked for low pay. These were sacrifices they should be prepared to make to master their culinary art. He may have
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39
believed what he was saying, but the beneficial effect on his future wage percentage could not have gone totally unnoticed. Other chefs soon took up the refrain and repeated it all over the world. W h e r e v e r chefs wanted to enrich themselves at the expense of their juniors in the future, they had the words of the "Master" to support them. The truth is that commercial cooking is just another manufacturing process. Second, chefs who wished to emulate the "Master" had been taught that it was alright to rob your employer. The cover-up to which the Savoy agreed, did not extend to the chefs' grapevine. It was not accidental that Eugene H e r b o d e a u , probably Escoffier's most distinguished disciple, wrote on his death "Escoffier, be it said to his praise, died a poor man". H e was still trying to rescue the tarnished reputation of a well known thief. To some extent, these consequences remain to undermine the ethics and morality of the industry today.
Notes Unless otherwise identified, the material in the p a p e r is based on the Savoy Hotel archives.
1. Caterer & Hotel-Keepers' Gazette, April 15th 1898. 2. Marie Ritz "Cesar Ritz", Paris 1948. p. 206. 3. Caterer & Hotel-Keeper magazine, January 1890. 4. Caterer & Hotel-Keeper magazine February 15th 1935. 5. Marie Ritz. ibid p. 176. 6. Marie Ritz ibid p. 141. 7. Marie Ritz. ibid p. 207. 8. The Times, 4th April 1901. Acknowledgement--The Author would like to gratefully acknowledge the cooperation of the Savoy Hotel Company in the preparation of this paper.
Pergamon
0278-4319(95)00054-2
Cesar Ritz and Auguste Escoffier vs the Savoy Hotel Company Derek Taylor 4 R o w a n Walk, London N 2 0 Q J , U K
When the Savoy Hotel Company dismissed Cesar Ritz and A uguste Escoffier in March 1897, it was a cause celebre. Ritz had a European reputation as a great Hotelier and Escoffier as a Master Chef. The paper explains how the dismissals came about and how and why the whole affair was hushed up. Copyright (~ 1996 Elsevier Science Ltd
Key Words:
Ritz
Escoffier
d'Oyly Carte
Savoy Hotel
On April 15th 1898 the monthly issue of the Caterer and Hotel-Keepers' Gazette tersely told its readers "Actions are pending against the Savoy Hotel Company at the instance of Messrs. Ritz, Echenard, and Escoffier, for 'wrongful dismissal and breach of c o n t r a c t " . 1 It was old news by then but the timing of important events often shows scant regard for publishers' copy dates. On March 7th Cesar Ritz and Auguste Escoffier had been dismissed from their positions as Manager and Chef, respectively. They were not allowed any period of notice and Marie Ritz, Cesar Ritz's wife, wrote later that the family were fortunate that "Mr. Newshwander, of the Charing Cross Hotel, immediately turned over to our use the pleasantest apartment available there". 2 The full story of this illuminating episode in the lives of two of the major icons in the 19th century international hotel industry has lain in four box files in the Savoy archive room for the last 100 years. It has been hidden by an agreement between the parties, dated January 29th 1900, that the facts would never be given to the press. Only now, nearly 80 years after the death of Cesar Ritz and 60 years since the death of Auguste Escoffier, is the complete story available. Some information about the events appeared a short time ago in "The Observer" newspaper in Britain and the Savoy Directors decided that it was pointless, and indeed wrong, to seek to deny the facts after all this time. This was a generous decision, for the plea of every historian is that facts should be considered sacred and should, when they can no longer hurt those involved, be allowed into the public domain. The material in this paper has all been taken from the Savoy Hotel archives and from books and press comment which have appeared on the hotel. The importance of the events lies, first, in their historical accuracy. When the effort is made to recreate the bygone world of hotels, writers are usually restricted to secondary sources, like newspapers and popular magazines, which can easily be inaccurate. The bare bones of company reports, statistics and records of births and deaths, tell little of real life. 29
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Here, in those archives, there is a time capsule; letters written by Ritz to d'Oyly Carte in his own hand, the original reports of auditors and lawyers, the day-to-day comments of the participants themselves. This is so important because, as an industry, the traditions tend to be taken for granted. Whether they are based on fact or fiction, they are accepted almost without question. Only careful historical research can identify whether the events on which present attitudes are based, really happened in the way imagined. In considering the story which will unfold, it is necessary to get the figures into perspective. To translate 1898 figures into those applicable to the present day, it is necessary to multiply by 40. Although somewhat simplistic, this is, roughly, correct. The appropriate 1995 figures are, therefore, in brackets.
Dramatis personae It is difficult in these days of faceless multi-national chains of hotels, to fully appreciate the status of the protagonists involved 100 years ago. Richard d'Oyly Carte, the Chairman and President of the Savoy Hotel Company, was the impresario who had presented the wildly successful Gilbert & Sullivan operettas. A sort of 19th century Cameron Mackintosh. Like many another successful businessman, he had become fascinated by hotels and determined to build a veritable palace to outshine all the competition. The result was the Savoy, which opened in 1889, though only after d'Oyly Carte had had to complete its financing with the help of some wealthy friends. It had been possible, he wrote, that he and his original supporters "might have found ourselves bankrupt" before it opened, and the time "it was the most difficult and dangerous of my life". Neither was the hotel successful when it began trading. There was a glut of hotels, a serious financial crisis in 1890 and the well-to-do were pulling in their belts; never a happy sight for hoteliers. The £10 shares slumped quickly to £6. Ritz had been recommended to d'Oyly Carte by Sir Arthur Sullivan and was brought to London as Restaurant Manager. H e was little known in Britain but he impressed d'Oyly Carte. The strong willed impresario swiftly dismissed the existing Manager, Mr Hardwicke, to give the job to Ritz. As the Caterer and Hotel Keepers' Gazette reported in January 1890 "The Directors and Management are by no means in perfect accord" .3 The ex-Manager's unexpired contract term had eventually to be paid in full and it cost the company £3125 (£126,000). The experience probably explains d'Oyly Carte's caution when faced with a similar decision 7 years later. Ritz was to work for 6 months in London every year but was allowed to follow other interests outside Britain out of season. (Effectively, during the winter months.) He was to become the epitome of the great Hotel Manager; a genuine legend in his own time. Very few men ever achieve an adjective made from their name, but "ritzy" comes from Ritz. In the Concise Oxford Dictionary it means "High class and luxurious" but also "Ostentatiously smart." and that sums up Ritz and also the way the public saw the early Savoy. "Ostentatious", however, applied in those days to such innovations as a large number of bathrooms when the hotel was constructed. So, in many of its Victorian attributes, it is not a criticism today's public would endorse. Ritz brought the 43 year old Auguste Escoffier with him. Escoffier was acknowledged to be the master Chef. As is well known, his "Guide to Modern Cookery", published in 1907,
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remains the bible of thousands of chefs all over the world to this day. His reputation with the monied public and with his fellow chefs was immense. Although he retired in 1914, when he died in 1935 at the ripe old age of 88, the lustre of his fame was undiminished. The President of the Swiss Culinary Association spoke for the entire international hotel industry when he said "We looked upon him as the king of chefs, and all nationalities unite in paying homage to the master". 4 To help Ritz run the Savoy, there also came a Maitre d'Hotel, Louis Echenard, who stood in for Ritz as Deputy Manager in his absence. The three executives set to work in 1890 to make the Savoy the finest hotel in London.
Terms and conditions They were well paid for their work. Ritz, as the Manager of the Savoy and the company's Grand Hotel in Rome, received £24,287 (£971,480) in the 6 years between the end of 1890 and the end of 1896. In addition, d'Oyly Carte gave him 2000 shares in the Savoy Company out of his own pocket in 1893. By 1895 these were worth £30,000. (£1.2 million). A considerable proportion of Ritz's remuneration came from a sliding scale of commission when the Savoy made profits which resulted in the shareholders getting more than a 5% dividend. In 1896 the dividend rose to 12½% and the profits to £27,057. (£1,082,280). In addition, Ritz received many benefits in kind from the Savoy, including 4 rooms in the hotel for his family. Echenard over the same period received £10,937. (£437,480) and Escoffier was paid £1000 a year (£40,000). Because the hotel had been built by a theatrical manager, and because his friends and supporters were considered somewhat raffish, it took time for the Establishment to come round to the idea of using the hotel. It was as if somebody would build a Las Vegas hotel in the middle of Geneva today. For some years the hotel continued to survive with difficulty. In 1890 the £10 shares stood at 6. In 1891 at 5, 1892, 2~6 and it was not until 1895 that the profits brought the stock to a peak of 15, a figure it was not to reach again for very many years. In 1897 a combination of unconnected events created a very different situation from the earlier years of the decade, when d'Oyly Carte, the Managers and the Chef were working relatively harmoniously as a team. First, d'Oyly Carte fell seriously ill. "I am not allowed to walk. I have to be wheeled or carried everywhere". H e was not permitted by his Doctors to take charge at Directors' meetings or to make speeches. Robert Clay, the Vice Chairman, deputised in his place. By 1897 he really wanted to retire altogether. There was a ready made fall-back position if he stayed in harness. H e had married a second time in 1888. Helen Couper-Black had been his assistant before their marriage and was an able woman. According to one friend, George Edwards, the theatre manager, "The whole foundation of the Savoy business rested upon her" at the beginning, d'Oyly Carte remained ultimately in charge of the company, but his ability to supervise was now severely limited, and he relied on his wife for much of the day-to-day Head Office work. The impact of Ritz's arrival must have bruised Helen d'Oyly Carte's ego considerably. Ritz would not consult her on anything, would not tolerate any interference, but made it clear that he was perfectly prepared to listen to his wife. Marie Ritz was only 23 in 1890, much younger and less experienced than Mrs d'Oyly Carte. Marie Ritz recalled " ' Y o u r
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taste is good' RRz said to me 'so go ahead and choose colours and fabrics at once. I trust you. '''5 The energy which Helen d'Oyly Carte was to show in investigating Ritz's m a n a g e m e n t record in 1897 was probably fuelled by this lengthy period of humiliation. Second, the renegotiation of Ritz's contract in 1895 had shown the Manager just how much he was valued by the Directors. Always possessed of a mercurial t e m p e r a m e n t , he had been kept in check in his early days, as Manager of the G r a n d Hotel National in Lucerne, by a Chairman even more authoritarian than he; Colonel Pfyffer d'Altishofen. No such restraint now existed. Admittedly, he had always been difficult to control. In January 1892 at a Board Meeting, Carte said "a very unpleasant and unsatisfactory scene occurred" and Ritz apologised in writing later "having lost control of myself in a m o m e n t of excitement, a thing which will not occur again". Yet, although he ran the hotel largely independently of the Directors, he was energetically looking after his m a n y outside interests as well. For the monied men about town were also anxious to have a hotel as successful as the Savoy in 1895, and Ritz would have been the ideal person to operate it for them. H e was brought any n u m b e r of offers to diversify his interests. H e took to delegating the responsibility for running the Savoy more and more to his old friends and colleagues, Echenard and Escoffier. Third, Escoffier now needed m o n e y badly for his own outside catering interests and, it was said, for his debts to bookmakers. H e lived lavishly, his salary was inadequate for his life style and, as a consequence, he succumbed to temptation and started to take regular bribes from his suppliers. The Savoy Directors must have been aware that their m a n a g e m e n t were likely to live well off the company. That friends might be entertained, presents accepted, and some items of personal expenditure put down to company business. D ' O y l y Carte, from his background in theatrical m a n a g e m e n t and his wide international experience, was not naive. As long as the profits were flowing in, the Directors were probably prepared to put up with a lot. T h e r e was, however, a limit. The Directors were not content to see Ritz create competition for the Savoy. Their original agreement with him specifically excluded him from involvement in any other British hotel except Claridges, a fine hotel in Mayfair in which the Savoy also had an interest. The difference between the two operations was that Ritz only had the 2000 shares d'Oyly Carte had given him in the Savoy. At Claridges he and his friends owned 50% of the issued capital. Claridges would do better if it could take the Savoy's clientele. Worse, the Directors were well aware that Ritz was approaching his clients and suppliers to back his new Ritz Hotel D e v e l o p m e n t C o m p a n y , which was to be launched in N o v e m b e r 1897. As they noted some 2½ years later " T h e intention . . . in forming such syndicate being, as soon as their agreements expired, and without letting their intention be known previously, to leave the employ of the Defendants (The Savoy), taking Mr. Escoffier with them, and . . . start a business opposition . . . to the injury of the Defendants". Ritz brazenly arranged that the original meetings of the syndicate were held free at the Savoy.
Investigation To m a k e the situation even less acceptable, by the s u m m e r of 1897 the profits from the kitchen had fallen disastrously. The gross kitchen profit in previous years had been
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between 32% and 36%. It fell to 24.5% in the first half year of 1897. In the A u t u m n the Savoy Directors had had enough. They resolved to have a full investigation, which Helen d ' O y l y Carte had been advocating since the end of 1896, and they called in the Auditors, Deloitte, Dever, Griffiths & Co. Helen d ' O y l y Carte joined in the investigation enthusiastically. The examinations undertaken were exhaustive. They even included full reports on the daily movements of Ritz and Escoffier. It all became rather melodramatic. At one stage a private detective met one of Escoffier's business partners in the 1st Class waiting room at Broad Street railway station. He was there to find out whether Escoffier had used this Charles Liddell as a gobetween with wine and cigar companies. The latter selling their goods to Mr. Liddeli, who sold them on to Escoffier at the Savoy at a higher price and shared the profits. From the Auditor's investigations there also emerged an unbelievable catalogue of staff corruption. A m o n g the earliest documents which helped them find the skeletons in the catering cupboards was 9 foolscap pages, identifying in great detail malfeasance in the kitchen and restaurant. It was by an author who simply described himself as "One who knows". (Called henceforth "the A u t h o r " ) Although we d o n ' t know the writer, many of the allegations were to be echoed in the Auditor's eventual report. On the other hand, some of the accusations could have been explained in different ways than the writer chose. The A u t h o r dealt with the management style and the manner in which business was conducted in the kitchen and restaurant. He found Ritz too excitable and nervous. The real explanation for this was that Ritz was driving himself much too hard for the good of his own health. The A u t h o r continued: "Ritz, Echenard and Escoffier are all masters and they have no power over one another. The Savoy Hotel is like a house without any master. Escoffier has climbed to such a height that nobody dare approach him, not even Ritz, when it is a question of the supply of food to the kitchens; in fact he does what he likes, and does it how he likes and when he likes... Messrs Ritz and Echenard seem afraid of Escoffier". In view of the future cooperation of Ritz and Escoffier at the Ritz in Paris and the Carlton in London, it seems more likely that Ritz indulged a colleague he respected and liked. He was far too involved with other hotel schemes to have the time to supervise the Savoy kitchen and he trusted his chef not to stray too far from the straight and narrow. This was a serious mistake.
What's yours is mine and what's mine's my own The A u t h o r went on "There is no doubt, however, that the Chef at the Savoy does insist upon and extort commission all round. This is notorious." He quoted a supplier, Bellamy's cashier, who said it was difficult to allow 5% offthe Savoy account, give 5% to the chef and supply Ritz and Echenard's private homes for nothing. Ritz had a home in Hampstead in North London. So Ritz was accused of benefiting in kind and the A u t h o r further suggested "Outside his business capacity as a Maitre d'Hotel, he is ignorant of the serious duties of a manager of a large hotel", d'Oyly Carte's later comment, in a letter to the Prince of Wales, is probably nearer the truth; He said Ritz was "discontented--always discontented---and there is no doubt that later his head became turned with success". Nevertheless, he acknowledged
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"there is no doubt that he was of the greatest service to our hotel, and worked at first and for a long time, extremely hard". Ritz craved to be a great man; when he returned from his first interview in London with d'Oyly Carte in 1889, Marie Ritz wrote "Never had he seen a more brilliant audience, never had he seen so m a n y diamonds or so m a n y beautiful w o m e n " .6 Ritz wanted to be part of that glittering society. Born in a small Swiss village, starting as a wine waiter in Paris in 1867, he always wanted to escape his humble origins. From the terms of the contract he tried to negotiate in 1894, it was obvious he felt that he was ill rewarded for the success of the Savoy. H e asked for the balance of the unissued share capital, valued at £5750 (£230,000) to start with. The Directors rejected his outrageously high demands and he stayed for far less. Nevertheless, his friends, who wanted him to spend his time on their ventures, would have found a ready ear if they had told him he was being poorly recompensed by the Savoy. Thus he must have rationalised when he improved his life style at the expense of the company who employed him. It wasn't just the suppliers' goods going to H a m p s t e a d . Large quantities of food went to his house from the hotel, particularly on Sundays. The bill for his washing in H a m p s t e a d came to over £80 (£3200) in 6 months. The laundry charged it at a rate of £3 (£120) a week, even if he wasn't in Britain. Free carriages were provided for him by the Savoy jobmaster. H e c o m m a n d e e r e d free meeting rooms at the hotel when he wanted to discuss new ventures with his backers. These meetings were followed by free lunches and drinks. He got free passes for the trains in exchange for entertaining railway executives. H e gave his friends credit in the hotel. His stockbroker ran up a £281 (£11,240) bill but was never pressed to pay it. What Ritz was taking, probably convincing himself that it was his right, Escoffier knew he was stealing. One later affidavit from a supplier described his shifty method of visiting their firm and just talking aimlessly until his commission was forthcoming. In return, he not only allowed the suppliers to overcharge but to provide short weight. The goods were signed in by a new controller, Mr. Darbilly, from 1896. Darbilly was, in fact, a m e m b e r of Escoffier's family. H e was also an employee of a supplier who was among the worst when it came to short deliveries. Where orders had previously been signed by Ritz, they were now signed by Escoffier. The size of the shortfall was as much as 30-40%. H e n r y Mann, former H e a d of the Egg D e p a r t m e n t at Hudson Bros., claimed in an affidavit that he had been ordered to deliver only 450-500 eggs when the Savoy kitchen ordered 700. H e had been promised two suits by his Manager for arranging this, but he never got them. H e was dismissed instead when the scandal broke. Hudsons eventually accepted judgement against them of £3179. (£127,160) A n d that was with the young Rufus Isaacs, a future Lord Chief Justice, acting for them. The A u t h o r also itemised a n u m b e r of scams operated by the restaurant staff. There were 70 waiters in the restaurant and they lived off the tronc. Only the most senior received any wages. The tronc, however, did not only consist of tips from the customers. All the profits from the flowers on the tables went to the waiters' tronc. They provided the flowers, charged the guests, and the hotel paid them the difference. It was worth about £1000£1500 (£40,000-£60,000) a year. At the same time, the cost of flowers brought by the hotel to enhance its own decor came to about £700 (£28,000) a year. Not surprisingly, the A u t h o r was able to report that flowers were charged to guests who
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35
hadn't ordered them. Correspondence in the archives confirms that there were such complaints. The head waiter was allowed to buy all the fresh fruit for the restaurant and banqueting. H e was paid 2p (80p) for each table d'h6te meal taken and 3p (£1.20p) for each banqueting cover, whether the guest ate the fruit or not. The waiters also got a 20% commission on cigar sales. The H e a d Waiter, who was paid £200 (£8000) a year plus £10 (£400) a week from the tronc, was the executive permitted to decide who should be granted credit to sign their bills. The A u t h o r suggested that if you gave the waiter a good tip, you could always have credit. The amount of credit outstanding in June 1897 was said to be £13,000 (£520,000). Sir William Neville and D r Coall (Ritz's Doctor) were n a m e d as guests who were even allowed to sign cheques for cash. Dr Coall for £200 (£8000). A n o t h e r source of income for the waiters, which was later confirmed by the auditors, was a tip to get a table in the restaurant on popular nights. A n d Ritz and Escoffier had made the restaurant very popular indeed. The going rate was said to be £1 (£40) every night of the week except Sunday, when it was £2 (£80). With tips, there was a lot of m o n e y to be gained. The coal porter might earn 70p (£28) a week, but the cloakroom attendant could expect £7 (£280). The systematic larceny in the kitchen and restaurant operations was further exacerbated by the liquor stock losses. In the first six months of 1897 the auditors identified sales of £37,549 (£1,501,960). They found that the receipts were only £34,073. (£1,362,920). A shortfall of £3476 (£139,040). In these days of 4 weekly Liquor Stock takes, it is perhaps significant that Ritz's policy at the time was to only have the stocks checked twice a year. Ritz m a d e many excuses when confronted with these facts. H e said that competition had forced down the selling price of wines. It hadn't. He said that the contrast in kitchen profits was with the D i a m o n d Jubilee year figures. But the overall turnover had not declined very much. Just the profits. H e said he'd had to pay the waiters more to keep them, because other hotels were trying to poach them. But there was no evidence of sizable wage rises. H e also complained that the auditors were asking the staff questions without him being present, even though he had offered to cooperate in every way. The questions continued. The C o m p a n y Secretary, Charles Munro, replied brusquely that the auditors were employed by the shareholders and, by implication, not the Manager. The auditor's work was not made any easier by the fact that the H e a d Checker, Mr. Gottlieb, had been told by Ritz to destroy the invoices when there were too m a n y to fit into his box! This the controller duly did. Ritz was told at one point " Y o u have latterly been simply using the Savoy as a place to live in, a pied-a-terre, an office, from which to carry on your other schemes". That seems a pretty fair summary. These other ventures now involved him in Directorships of hotels and hotel companies in Frankfurt, Monte Carlo, Paris, Egypt and Maidenhead. H e had also been trying to raise m o n e y for the Ritz Hotel D e v e l o p m e n t Syndicate in order to build the Carlton Hotel. This would open in competition with the Savoy in the H a y m a r k e t , a mile or so away, a few years later. Escoffier protested at the investigation as well. H e said he would resign if he hadn't been bound by his contract. H e was asked to explain why some suppliers sold their goods to him and then he sold them on to the Savoy. H e said that their companies were based overseas,
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they knew he was creditworthy but they didn't know if the Savoy was. So they would only deal with him direct.
Imperative duty The Savoy Directors were faced with a terrible commercial, if not ethical, dilemma. Both Ritz and Escoffier had a tremendous following, both among the monied public and in the hotel industry itself. It was manifested almost immediately when d'Oyly Carte tried to find a replacement for Escoffier. H e offered the job in February 1898 to Charles Harbensreithinger, an able French Chef. The salary was to be £600 (£24,000) a year, a considerable saving on Escoffier's, but still a great deal of m o n e y in Victorian times. M. Harbensreithinger accepted the job with alacrity on February 27th and then retracted on March 4th. H e said it was "impossible for me to be so ungrateful to M. Escoffier. I should lose the esteem of all my friends". The public following included the leader of all British society, the Prince of Wales, who loved the food Escoffier p r e p a r e d so well. Would anybody believe the Directors if they took action? Never a man to do things by halves, d'Oyly Carte retained a team of barristers, headed by one of the most eminent counsel in the country, Sir Edward Carson. The advice they received on February 28th 1898 was crystal clear. Sir Edward told them that "it is the imperative duty of the Directors to dismiss the Manager and the Chef". The Directors, even when so clearly instructed, wavered. They asked Sir Edward whether they should give Ritz and Escoffier a last chance to explain the deficiencies. Sir Edward was blunt. "Certainly not" he said.
Dismissal H e might have added the words of his contemporary, Lord A c t o n - - " P o w e r tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely". The Directors did as they were told. They issued a statement. "Acting under the advice of eminent counsel, the Directors have found it their imperative duty to dismiss the two managers and the chef from the service of the company". Echenard went too. The departure of Ritz, Echenard and Escoffier was accompanied by many less senior staffwho were loyal to them. As the shareholders learned on March 15th at the 9th Annual General Meeting, " O n Monday the 7th, after the changes had been effected, the kitchen staff agreed to do their duty that evening but expressed their intention of leaving after midnight . . . . Of course their leaving our employ thus was wholly i m p r o p e r and illegal, but we found it impossible and useless to argue with these Foreigners who take the quaintly humorous view that they are the servants of the official under whom they serve and not of the Proprietors who pay their salaries". Nevertheless, the kitchen staff were replaced by 8 o'clock the next morning.
Writs The dismissals were the talk of the industry and the glitterati. Ritz, Echenard and Escoffier denied doing anything wrong and issued writs for wrongful dismissal and breach of contract. The Savoy counterclaimed for damages. The legal proceedings were to go on for
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the best part of 2 years. Profits for 1897 were, eventually, £15,585 (£623,400), £11,000 (£440,000) down on 1896. The Directors couldn't save the dividend, which slumped to 7~l o %. In the following months, the Food and Beverage profits improved dramatically. From the low of 24½% in the first half of 1897, the 9 months after the dismissals saw the profit percentage go up to 42% and in 1899 it reached 45%. The dividend for 1898 was back to 10%, with profits at £20,276 (£811,040) in spite of a disastrous first quarter. The problem was, presumably, to keep the regular clientele happy, now that credit was more difficult to obtain, you had to pay extra if you wanted the a la carte instead of the table d'hOte and it did you no good to tip the waiters lavishly. The key player among the guests was, of course, the Prince of Wales. When H R H heard that Ritz had been dismissed, he declared publicly "Where Ritz goes, I go". 7 This could have been totally disastrous, particularly as the Prince was as good as his word and cancelled a small party at the hotel. If the Prince boycotted the Savoy, his large coterie would do likewise. On February 28th 1899, a year after the event, Richard d'Oyly Carte felt he had to write to H R H and explain his side of the story, because of "the importance we all attach to the good opinion of your Royal Highness". He quoted Carson's advice that there had been "Gross negligence and breaches of duty and mismanagement". He pointed out that the Hon. Charles Russell, the son of the Lord Chief Justice, his solicitor, had been in charge of the investigation. He explained that he still expected the case to go for trial in the Law Courts. There is nothing to show that the Prince of Wales ever responded to the letter but something had to be done to counter the calumnies which Ritz and Escoffier were now heaping on the Savoy at every opportunity.
Clearing up the mess The pre-trial manoeuvrings dragged on over nearly 2 years. The writs were originally issued on March l l t h 1898. The Savoy served their Defence with the High Court on July 8th 1898. It justified the dismissals on the grounds of malpractices, which it detailed at length. The Plaintiffs then asked for proof of the allegations and Master Kaye heard submissions from both parties on October 25th 1898. He gave directions for trial on November 7th 1898 and instructed the Defendants to produce their evidence. The Defendants served replies to interrogatories on January 14th 1899 and the Plaintiffs then considered their response. Their rebuttal of the charges was lodged with the court on June 20th 1899. They denied all the accusations and said that, even if any of them were true, the Savoy was estopped. That the company had known about the actions at the time and condoned them. As they hadn't taken any action then, they had waived their right to do so thereafter. As the months went by, however, the case for dismissal grew ever stronger. To begin with, the suppliers admitted that they had been bribing Escoffier and that many had delivered short weight. The total sum recovered from them reached £8087 (£323,480) by the end of 1899. In addition, malpractices, such as the outstanding bills for Ritz's friends, the part-time job of Echenard as London representative of Wagon Lits (he was responsible for their advertising and the distribution of literature throughout the country) and the overpurchasing of goods from firms in which Ritz had an interest, were all easily proven.
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Derek Taylor
Ritz, Echenard and Escoffier must have realised that they had no chance of winning in court and that their reputations would be ruined by the evidence which would be produced. They gave in. On January 29th 1900 their solicitors agreed a settlement with the Savoy. Ritz, Echenard and Escoffier signed a long statement admitting their guilt of all the charges the Savoy had lain against them. They appealed to the Savoy to agree that their confessions should go no further. The position of the Savoy Directors was very delicate. They had been put to enormous cost over 2 years and had suffered a much greater loss of profits than they were ever going to recover. They had also been attacked by Ritz, Echenard and Escoffier, ever since the dismissals, as heartless and ungrateful employers. Much damage had been done to the hotel's reputation among their clients. On the other hand, both Ritz and Escoffier remained famous for their skills and surrounded by powerful friends. Furthermore, if all the sordid details did emerge, what would they say about the competence of the Directors to run the shareholders' business. On the whole, so long as their former management stopped criticising the Savoy, the Directors felt they were best advised to lock the door on the whole sorry mess. Nearly 40 years later Marie Ritz was still keeping to the bargain, blaming Ritz's departure on the uncontrollable behaviour of a housekeeper with friends in the Boardroom, a "Mrs W". The lady, Mrs Willis, appears, in reality, not to have been involved at all. The settlement with the Plaintiffs enabled the Savoy to recover a lot of money. Ritz and Echenard agreed to pay the company £4173 (£169,200). In addition there was a solution to the dispute over the overordering of wines and spirits. For example, the original £576 (£23,040) stock supplied by Mr Strauss and Mr Lestapis, two of Ritz's friends, didn't sell very well. Nevertheless, Ritz had bought another £960 (£38,400) worth a few months later. Under the settlement, Ritz bought both the very substantial bin ends of those wines, and a great deal more vintages and spirits from the Savoy. The total cost to him was £6377. (£255,080). Escoffier agreed that he owed the company £8000 but his solicitor said that he had no funds at all. His friends had clubbed together to give him £500 but that was all he could offer. The Savoy agreed to take this in full s e t t l e m e n t . . . £4173 from Ritz and Echenard, £500 from Escoffier, £8087 repaid by the suppliers and £6377 for the wine. Total: £19,137 (£765,480). In 1898 the total profits of the company for the year had been £20,276.
Aftermath In April 1901 Richard d'Oyly Carte died, aged 56, from dropsy and heart disease, s On June 24th 1901 Cesar Ritz collapsed at his Carlton Hotel in London after announcing the cancellation of the lavish programme of celebrations to mark Edward VII's coronation. He never fully recovered from a complete nervous breakdown. The King's appendicitis, which necessitated an operation 1 day before the coronation, cannot be attributed to his fondness for Escoffier's cooking; the great chef being retained, after he left the Savoy, to prepare the banquet on many state occasions. The way the Savoy operated in those larcenous days had two lasting effects. To reduce his kitchen costs and so partially cover up the results of his bribe taking, Escoffier persuaded his staff that they should ignore the long hours they worked for low pay. These were sacrifices they should be prepared to make to master their culinary art. He may have
Ritz & Escoffier vs the Savoy Hotel Company
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believed what he was saying, but the beneficial effect on his future wage percentage could not have gone totally unnoticed. Other chefs soon took up the refrain and repeated it all over the world. W h e r e v e r chefs wanted to enrich themselves at the expense of their juniors in the future, they had the words of the "Master" to support them. The truth is that commercial cooking is just another manufacturing process. Second, chefs who wished to emulate the "Master" had been taught that it was alright to rob your employer. The cover-up to which the Savoy agreed, did not extend to the chefs' grapevine. It was not accidental that Eugene H e r b o d e a u , probably Escoffier's most distinguished disciple, wrote on his death "Escoffier, be it said to his praise, died a poor man". H e was still trying to rescue the tarnished reputation of a well known thief. To some extent, these consequences remain to undermine the ethics and morality of the industry today.
Notes Unless otherwise identified, the material in the p a p e r is based on the Savoy Hotel archives.
1. Caterer & Hotel-Keepers' Gazette, April 15th 1898. 2. Marie Ritz "Cesar Ritz", Paris 1948. p. 206. 3. Caterer & Hotel-Keeper magazine, January 1890. 4. Caterer & Hotel-Keeper magazine February 15th 1935. 5. Marie Ritz. ibid p. 176. 6. Marie Ritz ibid p. 141. 7. Marie Ritz. ibid p. 207. 8. The Times, 4th April 1901. Acknowledgement--The Author would like to gratefully acknowledge the cooperation of the Savoy Hotel Company in the preparation of this paper.