Founders - #185 César Ritz and Auguste Escoffier (The Hotelier and The Chef)

Episode Date: June 10, 2021

What I learned from reading Ritz and Escoffier: The Hotelier, The Chef, and the Rise of the Leisure Class by Luke Barr. ----Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders by investing in a subscription to Founders Notes----[1:00] The words echoed in his head, even now. The idea that they should be seen as servants was the cruelest of insults. César Ritz, Auguste Escoffier, servants?[11:28] He hasn't the least idea how much work and care, how much imagination and effort, go into the proper running of a hotel. [20:44] This was the very heart of a world that had shaped him, a world of privilege and luxury in which he had forged a place for himself, against all odds. Ritz had not been born to this life. Raised in a tiny village (population 123) in the foothills of the Swiss Alps, he was the last of eleven children, and had left home at the age of twelve.[21:04]  He was a self-made man. And beneath his placid, imperturbable Swiss poise lay enormous ambition. [22:26] Ritz knew better than anyone the importance of the kitchen in creating a truly luxurious hotel experience. He had built his success in the hotel business in tandem with the brilliant chef Auguste Escoffier. [26:48] Ritz had spent years working for others and was now, finally, a hotel owner himself. Yes, his hotels were small, but they were his. [27:48] Ritz was proud, but also full of insecurities: about his Swiss peasant family background, his lack of education. [30:20] "You'll never make anything of yourself in the hotel business," his boss at one of his very first jobs had told him. "It takes a special knack, a special flair, and it's only right that I should tell you the truth: you haven't got it." Well, he'd got it now. [40:18] Escoffier was not an educated man, but he had quickly discovered that he had a real talent for cooking, which he saw as both a science and an art. [40:37] He had begun to establish a new ethos for the professional kitchen, one that depended on respect: respect for the chefs, respect for the ingredients, respect for the artistry of cooking.[44:41] The food itself was less complicated than it had been, shorn of unnecessary ornamentation, inedible decoration, and too many sauces. "Above all, make it simple." was his motto. [49:40] He was the elegant and cultivated César Ritz, mastermind of luxury, but he couldn't escape the feeling that he might be revealed, at any moment, to be an impostor, nothing more than a servant. The truth, he feared, was detectable in the size of his hands and feet. They were large, peasant-size hands and feet, he was convinced, and he did everything possible to keep them hidden. He wore his shoes a half size too small.[53:39] The Provence was his and his alone. It was almost impossible to explain to Marie what that meant to him, how deep that feeling went. For Ritz, owning his own hotel was the signal achievement of his life, marking his escape from his past. [1:02:07] The most damning charge in the entire letter was that Escoffier was taking kickbacks on all the food orders coming into the Savoy. [1:05:11] Escoffier and Ritz had been fired. [1:06:57] "The best is not too good," Ritz would say. This was his philosophy about everything. [1:08:01] It should instead be "a work tool more than a book, a constant companion that chefs would always keep at their side." A book for working professionals. [1:12:17]Again, a tiny detail, a solution to a problem no one had ever even put into words, but one that Ritz, in his obsessive way, had noted and now acted upon.  [1:14:35] Ritz was filled with overwhelming pride and, at the same time, a creeping sense of inadequacy. [1:16:25] To think that his parents had lived and died in Niederwald, had never even left Switzerland, not once, and here he was, the proprietor of the Hôtel Ritz in Paris, the most famous hotelier in the world, and now he was opening a new property in London. [1:18:29] They both looked back with amazement at what they had achieved together in the 1890s, how different the world was then, how they themselves had changed it.----Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders by investing in a subscription to Founders Notes----“I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — GarethBe like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast ----Founders Notes gives you the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Use it to supplement the decisions you make in your work.  Get access to Founders Notes here. ----“I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — GarethBe like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast

Ritz was not humiliated. He was furious. After all he'd done for the Savoy, this was his thanks? To be cast out under a cloud of suspicion and false allegations? It was outrageous. Everything he'd done had been for the betterment of the Savoy. Of course he'd signed for checks and extended credit sometimes. That was his job as the manager, the host, the personification of the hotel and its generosity.

All those who'd been given credit would certainly be paying their bills. It was insulting to suggest otherwise. And as for his dealings with the backers of the Ritz Hotel Syndicate, he had been perfectly aboard from the outset. Richard had always understood that Ritz maintained his independence and would be involved in outside projects. Indeed, from the very beginning, this freedom had been written into his contract with the Savoy. For Richard, to be holding it against him now was nothing less than a betrayal. But it was what Richard had said, that Ritz and Escoffier had forgot that they were servants and assumed the attitude of masters and proprietors. Those words echoed in his head even now. The idea that they should be seen as

servants was the cruelest of insults. Cesar Ritz? August Escoffier? Servants? That was an excerpt in which Cesar Ritz and August Escoffier are fired from the grandest hotel in London called the Savoy. And it comes from the book I'm going to talk to you about today, which is Ritz and Escoffier, the hotel, the chef and the rise of the leisure class. And it was written by Luke Barr. And I absolutely love this book. I devoured it in just two days. I have a ton of highlights. We're going to get to that. First, I want to tell you how I found it. This is an example of something that I did that you and I talk about all the time, which is that books are the original links. They lead you from one idea to another, from one person to another. On the last episode of Founders, episode number 184, which is about the autobiography of the founder of Four Seasons,

I came across just one sentence in the book that really piqued my interest. And he said, remembering that Cesar Ritz had made his hotels world famous by hiring some of the foremost chefs, we decided to do something similar. So I saw the name Cesar Ritz. I thought, OK, that has to be the Ritz Carlton guy. Right. of Izzy Sharp, which is the founder of Four Seasons, like all great entrepreneurs and founders, studied the founders and entrepreneurs, the great entrepreneurs of the past, took ideas from their lives and careers and applied it to their own work. That is the entire thesis behind founders. It's something that as you study the history of entrepreneurship, you see all of the best founders do. And this is the result of that. And by the mid 1980s, we had completely demolished the longstanding stereotype of a hotel restaurant as a mediocre, overpriced trap for tired travelers. And so I read that. I was like, OK, I got to see if there's a biography, if there's a book on Cesar

Ritz, if Izzy Sharp, one of the most successful entrepreneurs ever lived, is learning from him. Why aren't you and I? And so that led me to this amazing, amazing book. And so it's about Cesar Ritz, which his nickname is the Hotelier to Kings, or excuse me, the King of Hoteliers, the Hotelier to Kings, and his partner, which is August Escoffier, which is probably my, you could argue that he's the most influential chef of all time. So let's jump into the book. I want to start with a description of Cesar Ritz. He's in his late 30s at the time, and he's going to explore this opportunity in London. He already owns a few hotels of himself. He's being recruited to run what is supposed to be the grandest hotel in the entire world.

So it says, the express train he was on had launched a few years earlier in 1886, and it was state of the art. The trip would take a full day and night. It was remarkably fast, Ritz thought. The express trains were transforming European travel. Now, why is that important to him? The express trains heralded a new era, bringing throngs of visitors from all over Europe. This was good for Ritz.

He was in the hotel business, So it's opening up new markets. The way I want you to think about the section that we're in right now is you think of, and you've seen this in the past, in past episodes of Founders, if you're studying any American business history, let's say in the late 1800s, early 1900s, you realize that the railroads were the internet of their day. And what does that mean? They were large technological platforms that create massive business opportunities that you can build on top of the platform, just like the internet enables today. And that's exactly what's happening in Ritz's business. It's bringing him a lot more customers and he's having access to a lot more customers than he would if

they didn't exist. His business was pleasure. Ritz was a hotel man, welcoming guests with well-practiced charm at his two small properties. He was 39 years old and had been working in the hotel business his whole life, all over Europe. And then it goes into a little bit about his background and his philosophy and how he runs his hotels. The dapper young Swiss hotelier was effortlessly multilingual and never forgot a name or a face. Not only that, he also took careful notes of his clients' whims and desires. This is something we saw Izzy actually put into practice, and he actually computerized this process throughout the Four Seasons hotel chain. Ritz was also a showman, an orchestrator of evening entertainments and gala dinners.

Izzy did the exact same thing to draw attention to his hotels. He had advertised both the hotel and restaurants extensively, printing lavish brochures and installed electric lights, which at this time was a novelty, and so that got him attention, above his terrace. Kaiser Wilhelm I, the German emperor at the time, had eaten dinner at his restaurant, and Ritz made sure everyone knew it.

So at this point in the story, Ritz is throwing this lavish party at his restaurant to publicize his restaurant. It's called Bringing the Outside In. So he transforms the interior of the restaurant. Looks like you're outdoors. There's tons of trees and flowers. And Ritz was a great believer in flowers, vast, extravagant quantities of them throughout his entire life. He used that idea at every single one of his hotels. And it's at this crazy gathering that he's going to meet this guy named Richard. I don't know how to pronounce his last name. I think it's D. Oily Cartay. I'm only going to refer to him as Richard to keep things simple. This is the guy that just fired him, but this is him trying to recruit Ritz to his hotel in London. And we'll go into why.

It's really fascinating to me is how pained Ritz was at making this decision and why he wound up choosing this opportunity. And that one decision changes the course of his entire life, which we'll go into a lot of detail about that today. So it says, It was just after dinner when Ritz was approached by an Englishman named Richard. This is the sort of thing, he's talking about the party that Ritz is throwing, I'd like to do

at my new hotel in london richard was now building a large luxury hotel next door to his theater also called the savoy one that he said would be the best in the world and so he had never built a hotel before had no expertise he had wind up richard made his fortune producing what they call comic operas at the time they're just these hugely popular entertainment shows that you sell tickets to. And so he realized, hey, my theater's successful. Why don't I build a hotel right next to it and I can make money doing that?

And so now Richard's going straight into his pitch. He says, what London needed was a man like Ritz. You'd make money hand over fist. There were plenty of large hotels in London, but their food and service were mediocre. So let me pause right there. The idea that they're talking about, hey, I've identified an opportunity because there's tons of hotels that already exist. They're making money.

And yet they're very mediocre. We saw the exact same thing on the last book where Izzy on the night of his honeymoon, he winds up staying at this one of the most successful hotels, I think, in Toronto. And it's at the airport. He's like, oh, we thought it was going to be glamorous because it's so successful and winds up being a dump. And he's like, wait a minute, if this place can make money and they're not even running it well, what happens if you can actually make a great hotel? And that actually gave Izzy confidence in trying to pursue what winds up being his life's work. Richard was no longer making idle small talk about the hotel

business. He was offering Ritz a job. And so Ritz, like every single other entrepreneur, primary motivation is control. They want control over how they spend their time, what they work on. So he's going to turn Richard down. He's like, no, no, no. I've just gone into business myself. His plate was full. He had said no. So Richard does something smart. He's like, okay, you don't have to accept the job. What if I pay you two, you come to my hotel for two weeks as a consultant? Right. And he winds up paying him the equivalent of what would be like for two weeks would be a good like a decent annual salary for like a middle class worker. Right. So this is actually smart. So he says, why not come to London for the grand opening just for a short visit a week or two?

You could survey the operation and offer advice. Ritz's knowledge and expertise would be invaluable. He would be a consultant. And then he talks about Ritz is thinking about that because he says, you know, this amount, it's a lot of money. It's the equivalent of a decent annual salary. So Ritz is thinking about it. He goes home, talks to his wife. His wife is probably the most important person in his life because it is her, his muse. She helps him build the hotel. She helps with the design. He vents to her.

He actually met her because he, her family owned, I think the Grand Monaco. I think her uncle owned the Grand Hotel in Monaco. That's the one Ritz was, Ritz was managing the hotel when he met his soon-to-be wife. I'll go into more detail about his background because it's fascinating. He starts out unbelievably poor. He was born in a village in the Swiss Alps of like 120 people. There's like 11 kids in his family. He leaves home to start working at 12 years old.

I mean, his life and August Escoffier's life is just remarkable. This book is fantastic, I'm telling you. But anyways, Ritz is talking to his wife and he's just like, she's like, why does he want? You have a good reputation uh his hotels are in small cities usually that are that only see travel by the unbelievably wealthy in a few months of the year and so rich is telling and and you know london even though it's the center of it's probably the richest i think it's the largest and richest city in the world at this point in history and so uh richard's idea is like why don't we the same clientele that you get at your hotels

right as they travel they'll come to lond come to London because London's like the center. There's like a gravitational pull for all of the world's wealthy, right? So Ritz is saying he, meaning Richard, wants the Vanderbilts and the Morgans and the Rothschilds. There was nothing that gave Ritz more pleasure than contemplating the list of his most illustrious glamorous guests the prestige money and honor their names represented a represented prestige that has now attached itself in some way to his own name and his name his name becomes a brand this is the precursor he's obviously the precursor to the ritz carlton hotel brand that still exists 100 years later it come that name is actually trademarked and licensed out and it's based on two hotels that Ritz is going to build later in his career,

which is the Hotel Ritz in Paris and the Carlton Hotel in London. We'll get there, too. So it says the honor of their names represented prestige and now attached in some way to his own name. And for a man who'd grown up herding cows and goats in the Swiss Alps, that was saying something. So continuing this discussion with his wife, he says something that's really interesting because remember, Ritz at this point, he's around 39 years old. He's been working in the hotel industry for over 20 years, his entire life. And he started as a waiter, worked himself, worked his way up. He knows how to do every single thing in the hotel. He's a completely obsessed person. This winds up, his life has an unhappy ending

because of that, which I'll get to. But he says something that other great entrepreneurs have realized. And he says to his wife about Richard, the fact that he doesn't know what he's getting into. He hasn't the least idea how much work and care, how much imagination and effort go into the proper running of a hotel. I'm going to quote Steve Jobs here. He says the exact same thing 100 years later, well, 80 years later. They have no conception of the craftsmanship that is required to make a good idea and turn it into a good product. Ritz is saying the exact same thing that Steve Jobs said. Another main theme of this book, and I would say Richard's like the third. There's two main characters. There's Ritz and Escoffier.ier those are main characters richard's the third main character he's obviously an entrepreneur as well and there's something that um mark andreason said that i think perfectly sums up

the the entrepreneurial emotional roller coaster he's talking to his his co-founder ben horowitz at the time and he says to ben hey do you know the best things about startups? Ben says, what? And Mark says, you only experience two emotions, euphoria and terror. And so that is a main theme of this book. That is a very old idea. And we see that here with Richard. We're also going to see it with Escoffier and Ritz. Richard found himself consumed with anxiety, the deep and existential kind that accompanies great risk undertaken in public he had put it all on the line for this hotel his money his friends uh his friends money and his reputation

he had spent five years building the hotel and now this was the moment of truth and that moment of truth is the grand opening before i get into that and everything ritz notices that's where ritz is on the train that's where he's headed to now he's he's there's there's an interesting thing just a few sentences here for you that's really fascinating and it's an element of human nature that never changes so it's important for us to understand there's a lot of this is one of the first hotels in london to have electricity to have light bulbs and to have elevators and his customers are scared humans are always scared of the new. And now, you know, 120 years, 140 years later, we're like, you're scared of an elevator or a light bulb? Like, what are you, crazy? But they thought they were like little bombs that they would explode. And so I'm going to read this

section to you, and then I'm going to tell you another thing that I learned from Steve Jobs that's a very, very powerful idea for you. So it says Richard understood that he needed to educate his clients. Actually, this is about the theater, not the hotel. But the hotel does have elevators. This is the first theater in London. His was the first theater in London to be lit entirely by electricity. A fact that aroused much curiosity but also fear. So his customers are asking, how is it safe? Just how flammable exactly was a light bulb? And so he has to do public demonstrations and show that, you know, it's not flammable. Everything's OK. You're not going to the theater is not going to burst into flames.

Something that I heard Steve Jobs say one time that I think is a very powerful idea. And he talks about what is marketing, what is advertising? And you can wrap this up in public relations, right? He says, good PR educates people. That's all it is. That's his exact quote. Good PR educates people. That's all it is. More on Richard's thinking, not only how he designed his theater, but also how he designed his hotel,

which is he does something really smart here. Again, Izzy Sharp, founder of Four Seasons, did the exact same thing. If something annoys you, there's a good chance it annoys your customers too. So by eliminating that, you actually build a better experience for your customers. This leads to hopefully more success in your business, right? Just as he had at the theater, Richard planned to eliminate all the extraneous charges at the hotel, aiming for a smoother and less irritating service. No charge for baths, lights, or attendance.

Announce a full-page advertisement for the hotel. Such charges for basic services. This is so important, right? Because everybody else, humans don't think. We copy, right? So everybody else is just like, well, other hotels, they charge for this stuff, so I'll build a hotel and I'll do the same thing. But you can make vast levels of improvement by just bucking the trend

and asking yourself, does this actually make sense? And most people never ask the question. Such charges for basic services were common at most hotels and infuriated him endlessly. This was so common that there was a very, um, there's a very common book that was called, that was written at the time. This is written in the 1850s. It was called The English Hotel Nuisance. And it was a book that, this is hilarious. It's a book that outlined every shabby, indignity, overpriced candle, unusable bar of soap, inedible steak, uncomfortable room,

and gouging fee charged for indifferent service at English hotels. And this is a very, very powerful idea we've seen over and over again. Your competition, the bar is so low that they're writing books on how bad it is, and yet no one thinks to improve it. So Richard thinks to improve it. Cesar Ritz did this instinctively, right? Another example is Izzy, go back to that example of Izzy Sharp staying at hotels. This is a terrible hotel or a terrible motel. Like, I can do a better job than this.

Go back to Walt Disney. His life's greatest work, even though he's known for animation and building the best content library in human history, his life's work, if you ask him what the most important thing he ever worked on was Disneyland. And that opportunity existed because every other, before Disneyland, amusement parks were for, like, suckers. They were run by essentially con artists. And when he wanted to artists and and when he wanted to build and when disney wanted to build a um uh an amusement park i was like why would you do that they're such crappy experiences and he's like that's exactly the point mine won't be go back

to what we just learned in the johnny ive book uh when steve jobs comes back to apple apple's trying to do the same thing that every other computer maker is just make undistinguishable hardware that's running microsoft windows and compete on price. And Steve's like, I'm not doing that. I'm going to build the best 3000. I'm not going to build the worst five, the cheapest computer, the $500 computer that more people like the most amount of people will buy. I'm going to build the best $3,000 computer because people always pay for quality, the opportunities, because everybody's chasing after the same goal. Let's build the cheapest computer possible. And Steve's like, no, I'm going to build the best computer possible. And so again, if somebody's writing a book on how bad the experience is,

that's a giant screaming sign. There's the opportunity. That idea fires me up. Let me fast forward. Go back. I want to go back more to this euphoria and terror idea. And again, building companies is for the crazy. You will not find normal people to do this because everybody that tries knows this feeling. Richard's experience then, again, the truth was Richard, and the reason I bring this up is like founders are misfits. Obsessive people are a little crazy.

This is not meant for everybody. The truth was Richard enjoyed the pressure, the rush of putting on a show. It was exhilarating. So we use the word euphoria. They're using the word exhilarating. If a little panic inducing, which is a great another word for terror. So how crazy do you have to be? How unusual do you have to be that you're enjoying the pressure? And part of the reason he's so terrified because he knows there's a real, very real chance of failure. And he knows that from his show business career, not every show succeeded. He knew that, or he knew that you launched them as well as you could and hope for

the best. That reminded me of something that Edwin Land, founder of Polaroid, Steve Jobs, hero, somebody I've done. I've read five books. I think I have five different podcasts on this guy. He's one, by far one of the most important entrepreneurs to ever live. And he says something that's really interesting. He talks about, you know, any difficult endeavor, building a product, doing science, you have to endure the error part of the trial and error axiom. And he says why you have to do it is because what your product is, right, the experimentation, the invention of instant photography in his case, he's saying we sell the results of our failures. What a great way to think about a finished product.

It's the result of your failures. It might have taken you 1,000 times, 2,000 different experiments to get your product right. But once you have it right, you're selling the results of your failures. James Dyson knew the exact same thing. He built 5,127 prototypes before he finally had the vacuum cleaner the way he wanted it, the way up to his standards that he could control, that he could go out and sell. And going through that 5,127 prototypes, now he owns 100% of the Dyson company. I think last time I checked, his net worth is somewhere like $30 billion. But that took 12 years, 5,127 prototypes.

He's selling the results of his failures. Okay, so let's go back to, let's go to Ritz on London. His impression here is going to influence an important decision he makes later. And don't worry, we're going to get to August Escoffier. He's got a fantastic mind and there's a lot we can learn from him too. I promise he's coming.

Ritz had never seen anything like it. London was a metropolis of five and a half million people, more than twice the population of Paris, the next biggest city in Europe, and far bigger than New York City, Berlin, Tokyo, Vienna, or any other city in the world for that matter. It was the booming center of a global empire. There were vast amounts of money here, remember in the late 1800s, and an unrivaled concentration of business, politics and trade. London was another world and it amazed him. So now we get into like a brief bio on Ritz and then more about his critical eye, which is also something that helps build great products, understanding what's wrong with other products. So he says, This was the very heart of a world that had shaped him,

a world of privilege and luxury in which he had forged a place for himself against all odds. Ritz had not been born to this life. Raised in a tiny village, population 123, in the foothills of the Swiss Alps, he was the last of 11 children and had left home at the age of 12. He was a self-made man and beneath his placid, impenetrable Swiss poise lay enormous ambition. He knew immediately that the Savoy had every reason to succeed. It was the right time and the right place for a modern luxury hotel. London was booming. Except as the days went by, his doubts crept in. This is where we get to his critical eye. Rich could see that the kitchen would not live up to Richard's

grand ambition for the place. It was not organized properly. Service was slow. And that's another thing like almost every single great founder. Jeff Bezos says going slow is expensive for sure. And the Johnny Ive book talks about Apple's an extremely fast company. Johnny's amazed when they're picking colors for the new iMacs. He's like Steve Jobs did it in 30 minutes. Other companies would take three months. So again, we see this. I bring this up to you because it's extremely important when we see this entrepreneurs that

don't know each other. They lived at different times in history, different industries, different parts of the globe, and yet they all pick up on the important aspects. These are fundamentals. These are principles that we can then use and apply to our own work. Speed, speed, speed is extremely important. Speed is a function of time. So he's saying not only are you not organized properly, you're moving too damn slow. You got to pick up the pace here. What are you doing? The food was fine. Okay, that's not what you want to hear. But it was not great. It was not awe-inspiring. It was not not escoffier now we get to his central idea

where he feels ritz feels his success was in large part due to escoffier which is exactly what izzy sharp knew right ritz knew better than anyone the importance of the kitchen in creating a truly luxurious hotel experience he had built his success in the hotel business in tandem so think about when you when we're going to this book today and i hope you do read it because it's absolutely fantastic they're partners ritz is technically the the the like the senior partner but he doesn't they both have control of their domains and they have a partnership and a friendship that lasts their entire lives which is also rare with two headstrong really successful people he had built his success at the hotel business in tandem with the brilliant chef August Escoffier at the Grand Hotel Monte Carlo and the Grand Hotel National in Lucerne,

where they both worked for years. Escoffier had dazzled. This is also my favorite part of these books that we're reading because they're both super well-known, super famous, but we know them at the end of their careers, right? This is when they're in their 30s. They're not yet. I mean, they're showing signs of who they've become. They haven't become those people yet. This is my favorite part of studying the lives. I go back to, I think it was like episode number 140 something, that book on Bill Gates. Yeah, maybe I'll listen to Bill Gates talk now when he's 65, 70. Don't get me wrong, but the Bill Gates in that book that I did, it's called Hard Drive. It covers the first 35 years of his life. That is the Bill Gates that built the success that the Bill Gates of today enjoys. That's the most relatable part. It's very hard to relate to a multi-billionaire. It's at the end of their career. Most of us are

still on the way up. So we want to learn what the great people did when they were on their way up. And this is where I have a big smile on my face, just thinking about you have Cesar ritz and august scoffier before they were written scoffie working together they had to put in the work before and we get to see that because somebody wrote down these lessons in a book how amazing is that um scoffier oh that just gets me excited okay uh they had both worked there for years scoffie had dazzled guests with his cooking inventing new dishes and finding new ways of presenting classics that's a key right there. He takes, he understands the fundamentals and then builds on top of them. And he writes one of the most famous culinary books. It's still half, not a half a century, over a century later, still in print today, still used today. That's how valuable his ideas were.

And it's the fact that people were ignorant of what came before them. That's also what David Ogilvie talked about. He said that people that don't study history what came before them. That's also what David Ogilvie talked about. He said that people that don't study history are ignorant amateurs. He did not mince words about that. So Escoffier says the same stuff, but again, think about that as his main theme. Understand the fundamentals and then build on top of that. So he's finding new ways of presenting classics.

Ritz often thought that Escoffier, in fact, was the key to his own success. The Savoy's chef was not on the same level. And so Ritz sees what's going on, but he also plays it close to his vest. Remember, he's not an owner in the hotel. He's not accepting a job. He's a consultant. So he's observing, but he's not going to run over the people that are already working there.

He was not there to direct and organize the staff, but to offer advice, which he did politely. He could see every flaw and how to fix them again he's an obsessive and again when we get to the end you'll see his his life does have a sad ending because of his obsessive nature unfortunately you know sometimes our strengths our greatest strengths can be our greatest weaknesses we have to be careful uh richard had told ritz proudly that it was his wife helen who had taken charge of the decor so ritz held his tongueitz did not like the decor. When Ritz is going to wind up taking over the hotel later, after a lot of consternation and months of being recruited and saying no, and he gets rid of that, and that causes an issue. Remember, he gets fired by Richard later on. That's how we started the

podcast. I'm not bearing the lead there. Very important. All these things are very important because it's going to lead him to his greatest success, which is also an exciting thought. There was no point in antagonizing Helen with his views on the hotel design. So he didn't. Very smart move there. And anyway, the real problems were deeper. Alone in his room at the end of his two weeks stay, Ritz contemplated the Savoy's future. It will not succeed, he thought, not under its present management. And even at the end of two weeks, he's still not accepting the job.

He wanted the independence of the entrepreneur. Same thing about when you read biography of Thomas Edison, one of the first things, opening paragraphs in that book, The Wizard of Menlo Park. He just wanted the autonomy of entrepreneur, a small shop where he can work on his own ideas.

He didn't have these grand ambitions. I mean, he wound up having, wound up succeeding on a grand scale. But he says, I just want to have control over what I work on and let me pick my ideas in my own time and make my own money. Ritz is the same thing. He's like, I've worked for people for 25 years.

I just finally bought my independence. I don't want to give it up now. Ritz had no regrets about turning down the job. Ritz had spent years. I just ran over my own point here. Ritz had spent years working for others and was now finally a hotel owner himself. Yes, his hotels were small, but they were his. And seeing the wealth in London only reinforced his desire for independence and his confidence in his own success.

So we're going to go more into the background of Ritz here. This is hilarious because this person is a ridiculous person. I'll get to him in a minute. But let me give some background and again a large part that's going to be surprising is this this idea of imposter syndrome that in quiet moments which most people don't share with other people is like they don't think they're good enough you can be some of the most successful people in the world already accomplished do things that most people never do in their lives and then they they just have these i won't even call it a mental breakdown um because that's not the right word for it but they just have these periods of intense doubt like i'm a fraud rich was proud he was also

full of what marie that's his wife thought were silly insecurities about his peasant family background and about his lack of education he had spent his youth as a waiter serving the high and mighty observing just exactly how his customers comported themselves. How they spoke. How they wrote their jackets. So he learns from them. He starts copying their ideas, right? Within a few years, Ritz had worked his way up as a waiter at some of the best Parisian restaurants.

He still remembered serving the American railroad tycoon, Jay Gold. I actually have a book about this crazy guy. I haven't got to to it yet but it will be a future episode of founders um so let me he's an american railroad tycoon jay gold at the end of the meal gold had offered ritz some advice it's a mathematical certainty that the new age is going to be an age of electricity and steel this is probably around 1850 i would i would guess he said bank on it but don't let machinery govern you take off your coat now and again and work in a garden that's what the new generation must learn to do if it wants to keep sane. Gold went on to describe his love of manual labor, of working outside, of digging his hands in the

soil, and how invigorating it all was. Yeah, that's nice if you can do that because you like to do it. It's different if you have to do it, right? And that's what we're going to see here. Ritz had grown up on a farm herding livestock from a very young age. He knew all about hard outdoor work and the irony of the robber baron millionaire telling him oh so wisely about the benefits of working the land were not lost on him. Everything Ritz had done in his life he had done in order to escape that fate. He had seen too much of the hardscrabble desperate life of peasants to romanticize it. Of course he could say none of this to gold and only smiled at his as he cleared the dishes from the table later he told marie the stories of his early life his struggles his ambition his fears and she alone understood

his silence at that moment listening to jay gold was the silence that propelled him now. So he is reflecting back. He's talking, you know, he's now a successful hotelier and he's looking back at these experiences. He's telling his wife about this. And then he's also giving her fuel to the fire. And we've seen this example too. And I'm going to tell you my note before I read this. And it's very, very important. And I've learned this from a lot of the entrepreneurs that we're studying here. When people tell you that you can't do something, what they're really saying is they can't do it. I can't do it. They don't know what you can do.

Only you know what you can do. And you only know that by betting on yourself. And so look how ridiculous this is. This is one of his boss. So it says he had persevered. You'll never make anything of yourself in the hotel business. His boss at one of his first very first job said I told him it takes a special knack, a special flair. And it's only right that I should tell you the truth. You haven't got it. And this this next sentence just fires me up. Well, he got it now. And the reason I say we said that before is because one of the first time one of the first jobs Sam Walton, founder of Walmart, ever had was at JCPenney.

JCPenney was almost like a Sam Walton before Sam Walton was, right? Just like Jeff Bezos studied Sam Walton, Sam Walton studied previous founders that came before him. And they told him, it's like, oh, you know, you're not cut out for retail. You're never going to make it. And now looking back, like how ridiculous is that statement? Okay, you're not cut out for retail. Oh, how about, you know what, i'll become the best retailer in history how about that same thing's happening here you're not cut out to be in a hotel to be in the hotel business

oh you know what how about i build the best hotel brand that has ever lived how about that this is this this this tendency in human nature is annoying to go around and just shitting on other people's hopes and dreams why don't we do the other thing? Why don't we encourage it? What is the difference if someone wants to follow their dream if they succeed or fail? It has nothing to do with you. So why do people do this? Think about if Ritz hadn't listened. It takes a special knack, a special flair.

And it's only right I should tell you now. You don't have it. So go find something else to do. And I go back to what I think about one of the most important events in Henry Ford's life. At the time, people were building the early cars. I think a lot of people find the surprising is that a lot of cars were electric or steam powered. There were very few internal combustion engines. And so Ford, I think he's like 30 years old at the time before he's building Ford Motor Company. And he winds up

being at a meeting with, because he worked for Edison Electric Company and he worked on his internal combustion engine at night. But he winds up getting to a table. An older gentleman introduces him to Edison and talks to him and says, hey, this Ford guy's got a unique idea. And so Edison's like partially deaf and so he has to move chairs

and he has to almost scream so Edison can hear him. And he talks about, hey, this is my idea. Cars should be built with internal combustion engine because they have all the power stuff contained. And Edison, like, I think he slams his head on the table. I forgot his exact words. His words were something like, you have it. That's a great idea.

Keep at it, young man. And Henry Ford goes home and he's fired up. And that inspiration derived from Edison. You know, Edison's super famous. He's a couple decades older. He's like, wow, if Edison thinks I have the right idea, I need to keep doing this. And we know because I've done, you know, I don't know what, five podcasts on Henry Ford. I forgot how many at the moment.

But he perseveres through multiple failings. A lot of people don't know. I think it's what, his first company definitely fails. I feel like it's, if I remember correctly, his first two fail. But he had to go through failures before he winds up building one of the most successful companies of all time and he winds up owning in the early 1900s he owns 100 of ford motor company it's crazy so again just think about this like if we have the opportunity if somebody's telling us about a hope or a dream you know if you don't think it's going to work maybe if you can point out constructive criticism then yeah that's something different you know but

just say oh you haven't got it. This intangible, I don't see it in you. Just give up. Like, no, let's do the opposite. Let's encourage people to build more things. Because if they're successful, then we get to have the benefit of their great product. It's positive some, you know. She was her husband's closest confidant and also his muse. He adored her.

She inspired him and calmed him. Ritz's high-strung perfectionism would sometimes turn in private to introspection and doubt. And Marie was the one who soothed his nerves. And so at this point in the story, he's back home, he left London, but he can't stop thinking about the opportunity. And so he's talking to his wife about it again. It would not succeed without him, was what he meant. Marie could sense her husband's anguish. He had seen the future in London and wanted so much to be part of it.

Cesar was, I don't know if it's Caesar or Cesar, I think it's, I'm going to say, I'm just going to call him Ritz. Ritz was happiest when he was busy, going non-stop, and the challenge the Savoy represented was tantalizing to him. At the same time, he was proud and immensely protective of his recent independence. He would not go back to being an employee, but he couldn't stop thinking about it. And so something important happens. The Savoy gets a lot of press. The opening is a grand success. But after a few months, the business is decreasing. It's not run properly, just as ritz said so richard goes back to constantly he keeps trying to recruit ritz over and over again ritz like no

no no no no after several months they finally come up with a deal and it's way he can work at the savoy for six months of the year and still have his independence for his hotels so says he would continue to run his hotels and he would stay in london for only half the year he would maintain his independence the most valuable thing to to him. What made it all work was where the complimentary high travel seasons for the various groups of leisurely and aristocratic clientele that Ritz catered to. So in other words, the six months of the year that they're not in France, and I think his other hotels in Switzerland, they're being held in London. So he's like, okay, I'll just follow my clientele. I can do both. So Ritz is not going to go to

London though, without his partner. And he's not at this time working with Escoffier anymore, because he can't afford him. So he goes to recruit him. And so this is an introduction to Escoffier. August Escoffier was a disciplined and scientific Frenchman, calm, quiet, and thoughtful. He was a brilliant and innovative cook, inventing new dishes and always keeping careful notes of what he served to important guests, so to never make the same thing twice. He and Ritz had worked as counterparts since the mid-1980s. They were an odd couple and ideal partners. Like Ritz, Escoffier had grown up poor in a tiny village. They'd both left home at an early age to work as apprentices.

Ritz as a waiter, Escoffier as a cook. Temperamentally, however, they were opposites. And this is also why Escoffier had a much longer and I think happier life than Ritz did, unfortunately. Ritz was outgoing, debonair, and excitable. While Escoffier was cerebral and methodical Ritz was extravagant ambitious and prone to self-doubt while Escoffier was self-assured and precise so it talks about how they met I think this was at the hotel in Monte Carlo one of his Ritz's chef winds up getting recruited away I'll skip the guy's name it's French anyways I couldn't pronounce it he says the chef had been good, but Ritz remembered something that the chef had said.

He often sung the praises of his master in Paris. They worked for Escoffier at this restaurant. I'm not going to pronounce it. It's also French. A man named August Escoffier who taught him everything he knew. And so Ritz tracked down this Escoffier and hired him. And so Ritz, at this point, had already come to a realization that a luxury hotel business really is the restaurant, is a large part of that. And then Escoffier chooses to team up with him because

Ritz's reputation, being in some of the grandest hotels in Europe at the time, he's like, okay, I'm going to team up with this guy because I want a little bit of that fame. He did like being famous. Escoffier, meanwhile, had come to the realization that he was a brilliant chef and he needed an appreciative audience. Ritz was on his way to becoming the premier hotelier in Europe. And now Escoffier found himself acquiring a bit of fame too, recognition for his culinary invention. Quite apart from their so-owned self-interested reasons, it turned out that Ritz and Escoffier worked exceedingly well together. They were a team. They were also friends, and they had stayed in touch even after Ritz had left the Grand and the National the previous year

to go out on his own. He could not yet afford a chef of Escoffier's caliber. This was his chance, he said. Excuse me, this was their chance. Now, is we're into the Ritz's pitch to Escoffier. And this is important because towards the end of his life, Escoffier will look back and he survives Ritz convinced him to go to London. So this is a really important part in the life, in both our lives, but really the life of Escoffier as well. This was their chance, Ritz said, to open the best restaurant in the world. Ritz would not do it without Escoffier, not only because Escoffier was a great chef, but also because he had perfected

the modern organization of the kitchen restaurant. For all problems Ritz had seen at the Savoy restaurant, Escoffier was the solution. And so what does that mean? He reorganized the modern kitchen environment? What are they talking about? Well, I'm going to tell you about that. But really what I want you to think about as I read to you a few sections from these pages,

think about the levels of self-confidence you would need to change the way something had been done for hundreds of years. That's exactly what Escoffier did. Restaurant kitchens were intense, sometimes brutish places. The men who worked in them were frequently drunk. Everyone shouted all the time. The heat from the ovens was inescapable. Everyone sweat and swore profusely. Kitchens were hot, dirty, and loud.

The mess at the Savoy that morning reminded Escoffier of the restaurant kitchens of his youth and how much he hated them. Escoffier had been working in kitchens since he was 13 and had always despised the uncivilized cacophony and had taken years to solve. Indeed, he was still working on it. So again, we see this example. You could see something being done, see obvious flaws that other people for some reason are just keep going on for this experience that is not optimal. And by just thinking, okay, what is the best way? How can I just remove all the things that I think are poor about this experience? And it's addition by subtraction, right? And then so I take away the loudness.

I take away the fact that everybody's drunk. You can't do your best work when you're drunk. I mean, come on, what are we doing here? And it's through the removing of the bad parts, I create something better. And then once I remove the bad parts, I can start adding good parts, right? So he says, Ascafier was not an educated man,

but he had quickly discovered that he had a real talent for cooking, which he saw as both a science and an art. Of course, over the course of the previous decade, Escoffier had organized restaurant kitchens to his own exacting specification. He had instituted a rational modern division of labor and a level of specialization that went far beyond. He had begun to establish a new ethos for the professional kitchen, one that depended on respect, respect for the chefs, respect for the ingredients, respect for the artistry of cooking. This is how, and so he talks about he's changed, and this is a punchline, that he had changed, he's naming all the things that

he didn't like about it. And again, he's not the first person. Go back to James Dyson. James Dyson, when he started building the Dyson vacuum cleaners because he thought the Hoover vacuum cleaner was such a crappy experience and his whole point is like I was probably the millionth person that had used a Hoover vacuum that realized it was suboptimal the difference was I did more than just think about it I acted and Escoffier is doing the same thing he said this was how it had been done in kitchens in Europe for centuries he was there's no way Escoffier was the first person to notice the deficiencies in the way kitchens were organized. He was the first person to do something about it.

Escoffier continued. He wanted an atmosphere of calm and cooperation, he said. He wanted serenity. There would be no vulgar language. There would be no shouting. This is what he says about that. The rush hour in kitchen is not a time for a rush of words. Slow, methodical, calm and quiet is how he does his work. Right.

A scoffier pointed at it. So he I don't know if I already said this, but he he's coming to Savoy. He's observing like this is not going to work. And so now he's he's talking to the people now he's in charge of. He pointed at the men's white aprons and uniforms. They were stained, splattered, some of them quite filthy. A scoffier spoke in his quiet, precise way way i want all of your uniforms to be perfectly this is going to remind you this is wild now i'm just realizing this as i remember this and i didn't take it i didn't leave a note it's just coming to my mind now bill walsh i think it was what founders number episode 106 something like that it's the score takes care of itself and his whole thesis is that champions act like champions before they're champions and then if you do the little things right the score will take care of itself

if you do all the little things right and in business like the profit will take care of itself everything it's focusing on the fundamentals and the little things and and he talks about um i remember in that book he people would he takes over san francisco 49ers it's like a really crappy team within a few years they went up winning super the Super Bowl under his ethos, right? And this is one of the most influential, as far as like modern-day technology entrepreneurs, although it applies to much more domains than just technology, this book is one of the most influential books that you can possibly read. People from all different founders of companies you know talk about this, right?

So anyways, he noticed that people would, one example is people come back from practice and just throw the helmet. And so he's like, this has the 49er logo on it. This is a representation of who we are and what we're about. You place it neatly in your locker. You put it down. And he would kick people off the team for minor infractions like this. But there's a reason he did this. And now that I'm thinking about it, we see Escoffier is going to illustrate or enunciate

rather a similar idea here. He took a point at the men's white aprons and uniforms. They were stained, splattered, some of them quite filthy. Escoffier spoke in his quiet, precise way. I want all your uniforms to be perfectly white at the beginning of each day. And when you leave the restaurant, you will change into a proper jacket, tie and hat hat this is a matter of self-respect we are professionals we will present ourselves professionally that is a quote from august escoffier that could have easily come out of bill walsh's mouth escoffier was now telling them their appearance their cleanliness was just as important as their sharpness of their blades there will be no drinking of any alcohol. This is another tradition dating back decades, if not centuries.

Cooks in the kitchens getting drunken by the hour. We are not drunks, he said. We're cooks. For all his stern lecturing and unsmiling absolutism, he felt protective of these men. They were his people. One sentence just to add to an important idea we already talked about. This is Ritz, and the note of myself as being slow is expensive for sure, by Jeff Bezos. Ritz is saying he wanted to impart his staff the importance of quickness. Go back to Escoffier. We have another example.

History of entrepreneurship is full of examples of this. This is another master of his craft that is obsessed with simplicity. The food, and it talks about Escoffier, why is Escoffier's food so different? The food itself was less complicated than it had been, shorn of unnecessary ornamentation, inedible decoration, and too many sauces. This was his motto.

It's in French. I don't know how to say it, so I'm going to translate it for you. Above all, make it simple. Another idea we learned in the last episode. Z-Sharp did the exact same thing that Cesar Ritz is doing here. I'm sorry, no. Ritz did this. I already mentioned that part to you. This is Escoffier with the same idea.

So all three of them have it in common. Escoffier instituted a more systematic record-keeping in his files by organized by customer name it was this record of predilections favorite dishes and likes and dislikes that made possibles is scoffy a seemingly magical uncanny ability to design the perfect meal for his regular guests every time something else i found interesting it was not his he winds up being really good at it at beginning he wanted to be a sculptor he was forced into being a chef and then realized he found love doing it and realized he could be really good at it. The summary of this section, what I wrote to myself, bloom where you are planted. Escoffier was an artist at heart.

He dreamed when he was a young boy, he dreamed of being a sculptor. Unfortunately, he said, I was forced to give up this dream. His father, insisting on a more reliable profession, had sent him to apprentice at his brother's restaurant. I was informed that I was to be a cook and I was given no option but to obey. And so he brought his artistic temperament to bear in the kitchen. So another example of an idea that you and I have talked about over and over again, never underestimate humans' ability to focus on the inconsequential. The partners that Richard had in his

theater, the people that he made the comic operas with, they made fortunes. They got rich together. They sue each other because they're fighting over who should pay for a new carpet. This is ridiculous behavior we should avoid. Gilbert went to court to sue

Richard, who would not bend on the question of expenses of the carpet. It seemed astounding that these men, who had each made a fortune working together, were now squabbling in public over a few hundred pounds. It was bad for all their reputation, and it was perhaps a sign of things to come, where small grievances can conceivably cause big trouble that's a reference to richard the small grievances that that compound over time that lead richard to firing escoffier and ritz but we're not there yet at this point uh ritz is his schedule is unbelievably full he's running the savoy half the year he's running his businesses he's consulting because he's now becoming the grand the greatest hotelier in europe so he's consulting for other projects and it says and this feeling feeling might be familiar to you that's why i'm reading it ritz had never been happier he had also been never been more

frantic he was managing three hotels two restaurants in three countries a recipe for always needing to be somewhere else that kind of echoes something i learned from jeff bezos where he said depression usually comes from inaction usually he's not coming from being overworked, but actually underworked. I thought it was a really interesting insight. Let's go into more detail about Escoffier's level of detail that he applies to everything. Escoffier wrote his own menus. I started looking for words that sounded gentle and pleasing to the ear while expressing a connection with the food being proposed. All well-presented menus should be evocative and increase the desire to partake of a skillfully prepared and presented meal.

The menu was a kind of poem, Escafe believed, teasing, seducing, promising pleasure, a poem of anticipation. Okay, so things at Savoy, Ritz and Scafie know what they're doing they're becoming wildly successful so there's a group of investors in the Savoy that want to expand and so they have the opportunity to open a very similar um luxury hotel in the city of Rome and so Ritz is like listen I'll do that but I'm owning part of this hotel and so he winds up getting ownership for himself Scafie and like their key like lieutenants is the way to think about it so he's in rome at this point but i want

to go back to this this this pervasive um trait for people trying to accomplish great things to experience imposter syndrome so first they're riding around rome as as as they rode in the streets as they rode through rome streets in carriage, he asked his friend who came from like their friends, but they had opposite backgrounds. He was like aristocrat, well-educated. And Ritz, you know, he felt some level of insecurity that he didn't have an education. So he's asking his friend that does have that education. Tell me as much of the history of the city as you could remember. What was this building here?

And what was that ruin? And what was that church? And the great men of the history of the city as you can remember. What was this building here? And what was that ruin? And what was that church? And the great men of Roman history? Caesar? Augustus? Cicero? What were their stories?

The gaps in his knowledge seem more consequential now, reminding him that however much he looked the part, it was a part he was playing. He was the elegant and cultivated Cesar Ritz, mastermind of luxury. But he couldn't escape the feeling that he might be revealed at any moment to be an imposter. Nothing more than a servant. And so you start to feel bad that he's struggling through this at this point.

And then I can't help but laugh at this next part, though. The truth, he feared, was detectable in the size of his hands and feet. They were large, peasant hands and feet, he was convinced. And he did, this is the funny part, and he did everything possible to keep them hidden. He wore his shoes a half size too small. This was painful, of course, but preferable to ridicule. It's just the idea that you think, okay, people are going to think I'm a peasant

because I got giant hands and feet, and I'm going to wear small shoes and this is talked this is mentioned over and over again in the book that's what makes it funny he was in some ways in his own mind a fake he was not wealthy yet he presided over a world of luxury at the savoy he was steeped in the byways and pecking orders of the aristocracy even as he stood apart from it entirely in shoes half-size too small. Okay, so one thing about Ritz, he always shot for the best, even if it was most expensive.

This puts a lot of strain, because remember, he doesn't have ownership in the Savoy. He has a percentage of the profits, but he's still technically an employee, and this can cause him to lose. It caused him to lose his temper, which is very rare because he seemed to have control. His emotions, his suffering was done in private. It's not like he would have public outbursts. At a board meeting in early 1892, so now we're, what, like five years into this experiment of him running the hotel, maybe four, five, six years, somewhere in there, Ritz was confronted

about his spending and he momentarily lost his temper. What exactly do you think I'm trying to do? He shouted. I'm running the hotel the best I can and I will not stand here and listen to your ignorant criticism. Ritz stormed out of the meeting, but he soon regretted it and sent a note to Richard apologizing for, quote, having lost control of myself in a moment of excitement, a thing which will not occur again. The pressure was getting to him. He was stretched too thin. And this reminded me of that part.

We have to keep that in mind. The pressure, the fact that he pushes himself too hard, that's going to lead to a mental breakdown, right? And the last like 10 years of his life is really, he's in hospitals, he's retired from work. His life is essentially over. He's just like a living member, like a dead man walking. But this part where he's shouting about, I'm building the best hotel, something that Walt Disney constantly got in fights with his brother over, his partner, over how much he's spending.

And he says something that was interesting. And Disney yells, we're innovating. I'll tell you what it costs when i'm done so we see a very similar line of thinking uh from ritz more on the struggle and just he's packed his schedule he's got no time for anything else ritz presence and authority were frequently required this is when they're building the hotel in rome so he's building a new hotel in rome running the savoy in london and he's still got his his own hotels so something's got to break here right when the construction workers threatened to strike, for example, Ritz would have to take the next train to Rome. When the carpeting that Marie had ordered failed to arrive,

when the courtyard garden failed to materialize, when the furniture being custom made for the hotel failed to get built, it was Ritz who had to put things right. He soon found he was spending most of his time away from the Savoy on the Rome project and neglecting his small hotels and restaurant. He was now too busy to pay attention to everything. He was tired. He was always tired. His wife was worried. Her husband seemed worn down.

We should sell the hotels, she said, and the restaurant, too. So the main hotel, the province, is his first hotel. It's like it's like he's saying to him to sell his baby. So it says, Ritz looked at his wife. He had been contemplating the same thing. Sell the small hotels, focus on London and Rome. It was the rational choice, right? But we're not rational creatures, right?

We're rationalizing creatures. That's very different. Still, he felt a stab of shame, of dismay, at the thought of abandoning his own hotels, especially the province. It was more than a business. He had a sentimental attachment to the place. It represented his independence, the end of his many years as an employee. The province was his and his alone. It was almost impossible to explain to Marie what it meant to him, how deep that feeling went. For Ritz, owning his own hotel was a signal achievement of his life,

marking his escape from the past. Ritz's parents were long dead. They were farmers, and he loved them, but he had found his way in the world far from the rural Alps of his childhood. He began to cry cry and at this point they just had their first son he's holding a son son still like a little baby he was looking down at his son's hands and feet charles's hands and feet were dying i forgot about this part it's a sad part and then this part of his obsession with large peasant hands and feet just makes me laugh. I don't know why. Charles, sorry, Charles hands and feet were tiny and he held them gently in his own hands. Thank God he will have small hands. He said to Marie,

he has inherited his hands from you, not me. He will not suffer as I have because of peasant hands. Oh my goodness. I don't know why i find that so funny marie always made light of c this is what i'm laughing about marie always made light of caesar's shame and vanity and his two small shoes but now her eyes filled with tears yet yes they would sell the province ritz said but he would fight twice as hard for his independence, for Marie, for Charles. He would not resign himself to being Richard's employee. He would own his own house. This is a really important part, actually. He would own his own hotels again in London, in Rome, maybe even in Paris. it was his destiny. And that is indeed going to be his destiny.

He's going to have to get fired first. And he doesn't get fired intentionally. This is a good summary of, I think, the cause. So we'll go into detail about why the board of directors wants to fire Ritz and Scafier. But this is really the cause. Ritz's outsized ambition, his insistence on his independence, was always bound to cause trouble, blurring the line between loyalty and self-interest. And so let's go back to this idea, hey, I don't want to sell

my hotels. I have an emotional attachment to them. But he also knows, hey, I want to be the greatest hotelier to ever live. Running the best hotels in the best cities in the world is one way to do that. I have to part with this. And he starts making a lot of money as a result of this decision because he gets a share of the profits. In 1895, the Savoy earned record profits. And after taking his fees and commissions, Ritz had never made so much money in one year in his entire life.

It was just as Marie had predicted. Ritz's focus on the Savoy had only increased his prominence. So now he can focus. You can't do everything. A big part of being successful is knowing what to say no to, right? Cesar was excessively busy with his Rome and London affairs and any number of new ventures, which took up every scrap of his time. That's a quote from her memoir that she writes after her husband passes away. And so let's get into what is going to cause this rift between Scafie and Ritz and Richard. So Scafie and Ritz never have a rift.

They are always a team. But they are, you know, this is, I understand their justification for it. I'm going to try to give you both sides of the story. But I think actions tell us more about things and words. And so this whole series of kickbacks that they're getting from suppliers winds up getting them fired. Interesting enough, when they own the hotels, so there's a series of kickbacks and under deliveries, which I'm going to explain to you now, right? But I'm not going to bury the lead. Okay, so you did it when you were an employee at Savoy.

You said this is just how things were done, right? But when you're running your own hotel, you eliminated this practice. Clearly, they learned from this experience. So they're not perfect. No one is. And this is what they did. Just like Ritz at the hotel, Escoffier had taken complete control of the restaurant and all its dealings with vendors who knew him, what he wanted and how he wanted it. In all these cases, he had negotiated significant discounts for the hotel. So now it's going to talk about how he looks at it from his perspective. So you'd get a 5% discount for the hotel, right? But he also collected an additional 5% commission on all orders, which he was given in cash when he visited the shops and warehouses. So say, hey, I'm going to be buying a lot from you.

Give me a 5% discount for the hotel, but give me a 5% kickback. And that's what he's doing. This is what gets them fired. The personal commission was a fair reward, he figured, for the discounts he had achieved at Savoy. After all, the very reason the Savoy was such an important customer for all its food suppliers, the restaurant ordered vast quantities on a weekly basis and was able to demand discounts was because of Escoffier himself. He had made the restaurant an astounding success. And he's also working harder. So he's like, I'm not sitting back and getting money. Escoffier himself. He had made the restaurant an astounding success. And he's also working harder.

So he's like, I'm not just sitting back and getting money. Escoffier did not rest on his laurels. He was as resolutely devoted to his work as ever. So this is going to go on for many years before the board of directors catches it. They do an audit. They hire private investigators. I'll get there in a little bit. There's this there's these events these dual events from for royalty happening on the same night at savoy that was orchestrated by ritz he's very proud of it they wind up um like these princes and dukes and i don't know anything about royalty so i'm gonna skip over the other titles but uh they wind up signing they want they give ritz a gift and they take the menu of the night and they all sign it it's like some of the most i guess most famous people in the world the most famous city in the world's time and this is the result ritz

was filled with pride he would keep the menu as a souvenir a prized possession it was an emblem of all that he achieved as a hotelier he couldn't help but think of his parents if only they could see him now and how far he'd come to To be here in this room, surrounded by royalty, to be respected by royalty, his large... I wonder if the author did this on purpose. Yes. His large manicured hands, his godforsaken peasant hands held the sign menu and trembled. Okay, I'm going to move on to pride, ambition, expansion. There's this guy named Alfred Beatt, who I never heard of before, but they say he might have been the richest person in the world at the time.

He was a South African gold and diamond magnate, was a regular at the Savoy, and he would regale Ritz with stories of his exploits, always encouraging Ritz to think big. There was a dearth of great hotels around the world, be it said. Why, with the right backing, a man of Ritz's quality could open a luxury hotel in every capital in Europe. And London too. Yes, London could always use another luxury hotel. And so what if that meant competing with the Savoy? And so Ritz partners up with this guy, one of the richest guys in the world. They start this thing called the Ritz Hotel Syndicate. They start getting investors to back them and he's going to start building his own hotels. You could imagine from Richard's perspective, it's like, wait, and Ritz is taking his meetings at the Savoy. There's issues with putting these dinners that benefit the Ritz Hotel Syndicate on the house of the Savoy that from Richard, you know, is the last straw.

That's why he fires Ritz as well. I mean, also, you know, he's not going to like the fact that this guy is supposed to be his employee. And now he's setting up and you're going to be building, even though it was in his contract, that he's going to be building all these hotels and his interest is going to be elsewhere. But again, it's going to be inevitable when you have somebody as talented as an ambition as Ritz. So something that sparks this whole thing is somebody snitches. So Richard's wife, Helen, who's also his partner, gets an anonymous note and it says that's when the strangest thing happened. Strangest thing happened. A few weeks later, Helen received an anonymous note. The note was not addressed to anyone in particular,

so it took Helen a moment to decipher what exactly she had in her hands. The note was an indictment, an expose, everything that was wrong with the Savoy, every unfairness, every swindle, every instance of corruption from top to bottom. And so it was written, they think, from like a waiter's perspective because it was talking about they weren't sharing tips, but in there it also talked about the fact that Escoffier is getting kickbacks and everybody knows it.

The most damning charge in the entire letter was that Escoffier was taking kickbacks on all the food orders coming into the Savoy. So as Ritz is planning these hotels he wants to build and his dream is to have the hotel in Paris, right, which is going to be one of the most famous hotels that's ever existed. It's the Ritz Hotel. He doesn't know he's being followed by a private investigator and doing an audit. The Savoy board of directors is doing a complete audit. So Savoy kept Ritz busy as did his plans for the Ritz Hotel Syndicate. He was looking for a building in Paris. This was the dream, to open his own hotel in the capital where he had started his career as a waiter. The most beautiful city in the world and one solely lacking in luxury accommodation. Paris was the perfect place to launch the first Ritz Hotel.

The very idea of a hotel called Ritz filled him with pride and trepidation to bring such attention to himself. And this is so he's very excited about it. But then he's talking about like, I'm naming the hotel after myself is this ridiculous to bring such attention himself was gotch yet he felt elated at the prospect so he goes back and forth i think he's talking to that guy be it i forgot who convinces them but like is this ridiculous like am i being presumptuous are people going to think i'm ridiculous to put my name on the side of this building and um maybe it was his wife i think it might have been his wife and one of his clients like you're the best hotelier like you're the best at what you do

that name has value it's not that you're just doing it in like a self-aggrandizing way which i thought was actually really smart for them to point out though because if you think about it now like his name becomes a brand name right it has it's a it's his last it's a last name to him but to to to customers throughout the world it means something so while ritz is planning these hotels which obviously he's going to do with a scoffier scoffier is planning what becomes one of the most important projects of his life he wants to write a cookbook this is what i referenced earlier this idea if it's crazy think about this this idea that he's having right now at his point in his life is still influencing chefs a century

later that is the power of ideas they they are immortal they never die he kept his recipes on note cards and was increasingly interested in organizing them in a systematic way for writing a book this was something he'd been talking about for years so the audit reveals that there's kickbacks there's under deliveries which i think that's the most messed up part like the savoy pays for like 750 eggs because the suppliers are like, I can't afford. I'm giving you a discount and I'm kicking you back money. So what they did is they would say you order 700 eggs, you'll get like 450. That's, come on, that's, you can't do that.

That's, I don't know, you're stealing from your employer. Whether or not you're responsible for the success. Yeah, I understand you're responsible for the success, but come on, dude, what are you doing here? Just, you didn't have to do this. It, I understand you're responsible for the success, but come on, dude, what are you doing here? Just, you didn't have to do this. It winds up being a good thing they got fired, though. But yet it was Ritz's extensive entertaining of his financial backers and the Ritz Hotel Syndicate that would prove the most galling to Richard.

And this is where they call Scafé and Ritz to his house. It was Richard who had handed each of them his official note of dismissal. By resolution passed this morning, you have been dismissed from the service of the hotel for, among other serious reasons, gross negligence and breaches of duty and mismanagement. I am also directed to request that you will be good enough to leave the hotel at once. Escoffier and Ritz had been fired.

And that leads us to the part where the beginning of the podcast where he's talking about the way he looks at it, how dare you call us a servant, like we are the ones that built you. And so now he's like, okay, I'm going all in on my dream i have financial backers i have a name i'm gonna beat you at your own game he starts out in paris then he's gonna open and compete directly with the savoy in london that's the carlton hotel precursors to the ritz carlton brand uh but there's a lesson in here once people find out that ritz was fired it's a lesson that controlling the relationship with your customer is the most important. You don't want people in between you and your customer. And the Prince of Wales is probably the most famous person in England at the time, finds out and decides.

He's like, no, no, no, I'm canceling any further engagement to Savoy. Ritz's most important client of all, the Prince of Wales, had canceled an upcoming party at Savoy. Where Ritz goes, I go, he declared. It was the best endorsement Ritz had ever received. So now we get into Ritz building what's going to be his greatest hotel ever. And really think about it. He's setting this up, not as a hotel, but a home disguised as a hotel. He had a very clear sense of what his hotel must feel like and how luxurious it would be.

There would be a small intimate lobby as in a private home. The mere 100 guest rooms would be tall and perfectly proportioned with very large and beautiful bathrooms attached to each one. The key point for Ritz and what would distinguish his establishment from any other newly built luxury hotel was that it would have the atmosphere of a gentleman's townhouse, a house in which several distinguished generations had lived, entertained, and enjoyed themselves. And it's during this process we see the full spectrum, the full scope of Ritz's obsessiveness. Ritz was a perfectionist and determined that every detail be just right. The best is not too good, Ritz would say.

This was his philosophy about everything at the new hotel. It would be superlative in every way. And what's so fascinating is at the exact same time, the author compares and contrasts and goes back and forth between Ritz designing his hotel and Escoffier writing his book. And he thinks about writing the book as a tool for professionals. I really like this idea. It was an overwhelming prospect to attempt to condense the entirety of his kitchen knowledge into a single volume. At first, he thought he might limit himself to describing only his new recipes, his modern innovations. That was the original idea for the project. But the more he

thought about it, the more he realized that for the book to be actually useful he would need to start from the beginning the art of cooking was always changing but the essentials were always remain the same every one of his culinary inventions stood upon the foundations of his training this is what i talk about being respectful of the past right every one of his culinary inventions stood upon the foundations of his training. It should, talking about the book, be a work tool more than a book, which is exactly how I feel about biographies of entrepreneurs. They're work tools disguised as a book, a constant companion that chefs would always keep at their side, a book for working professionals. The book would be a tool for other chefs, but it was also in the writing a kind of memoir.

And so for him, the book was much more than a record of his recipes. It was a way to lay claim to his reputation, to document the changes and advances he had brought to modern restaurant cooking, to establish his place in the pantheon of chefs who had come before him. And he continues describing what this is and understanding the philosophy behind these books, not only Escoffier's book, but every book. Like when we read this book, we understand Escoffier's philosophy. We understand Ritz's philosophy. Last week, we understand. I mean, it's literally the title of the book is a story of a business philosophy.

Like that's what we're doing. When you're reading these books, when you're listening to this podcast, you're downloading the philosophy of all the entrepreneurs that came before you. And then their philosophies are going to intermingle with your own. And the combination of that creates something new and unique. It's interesting. It would contain his recipes, but also encompass his philosophy of cooking. It would be a book only he could write. Escoffier had not only revolutionized, or excuse me, had not revolutionized French food.

Many of his dishes were, let me read that over again. Escoffier had not revolutionized French food, many of his dishes were, let me read that over again. Escoffier had not revolutionized French food. Many of his dishes were versions of classic preparations after all. The flavors were familiar. This is such an important part. But he had altered the formulas, the equations in some fundamental way. Partly this was a result of his having drastically streamlined the work of the chefs in his kitchens.

The division of labor and the increased specialization precision and speed dishes were far less complicated than before go back to building the ritz and the dedication you receive from cesar ritz he moves his entire family into the hotel before it's complete cesar and mary rich moved into the apartment on the top floor of the unfinished hotel. The building was a construction site. They hadn't planned to be living in the hotel with two small children before construction was complete, but the renovation was far enough long to make the building habitable. I can't pronounce that word. And Ritz was obsessed. This was his hotel, the Hotel Ritz, the one he had always dreamed about. Every lesson he had ever learned in his years as a hotelier would be brought into bear. Every compromise he had been forced to make before would be avenged.

Every detail would be perfect. And so we see the love of detail, just for the light bulb, just the lighting in the dining room. This is what he does indirect light was key no bare bulb should ever be visible very important sentence coming here this despite the fact that current fashion dictated just the opposite that the bulbs were visible he didn't think that was a good idea he and marie began a series of experiments in the dining room she would sit quietly while he and one of the electricians patiently tried out different shades, materials, and colors over and over and over again for hours. That's just on the lighting in the dining room. But we see this level of obsessiveness

is also wearing on him. She had never seen her husband so intent and so restless as he was in the weeks and the months after leaving the Savoy. Ritz was pushing himself to the limit to get the hotel open and to make it perfect. He'd always been a perfectionist, but this was different. Everything was riding on the success of the Hotel Ritz. His pride, his self-confidence, his very spirit depended on it. and there were moments when he was overwhelmed by doubt this is the main theme in this book right a black mood would descend i'm getting old he would say this was a constant refrain he was so full of energy and ambition yet also prone to melancholy and then he starts doubting himself he's telling her and what have i accomplished

nothing that's a ridiculous statement he's not. He's not being rational there. There would be no doubt when he was done just what he had accomplished. The Hotel Ritz would bear his name for a reason. So he's paying attention to a little small detail. When you pay attention to little small details, you can invent solutions to problems that are never even discussed. Talks about he noticed women didn't know where to put their purses, so he winds up putting these little hooks, first hotel and restaurant to put the little hooks where women could put their purses. Again, a tiny detail, a solution to a problem

no one had even put into words, but one that Ritz, in his obsessive way, had noted and now acted upon. It had always been his philosophy, repeatedly explained to all his employees, to anticipate guests' wishes before the guests did. Now, as he was designing his own hotel, that carefully intuitive sort of thinking informed every decision. Ritz was always pleased, but never satisfied.

So going back to Escoffier, he's very, very deep into this project. And this is interesting. He innovates, but he knows that time is the best filter ascoffee designed the kitchens at the hotel ritz exactly the way he wanted them it was the first time he controlled every aspect of his workspace and equipment from the placement of the ovens and the organization of various stations to the design of the plates and the serving dishes see ritz just leaves them alone he's like this guy's gifted i'll just leave him alone um ascoffee required the direct he talks he, he doesn't want, uh, the newly popular electric oven had no place in Escoffier's kitchen.

Escoffier required the direct heat and flames of real fire. So he innovates, but he's also a traditionalist. All the pots and pan were pots and pans were copper or cast iron. Escoffier did not care for aluminum pans and utensils now being imported from America. They were inferior quality. Yes, he was an inventor. He'd been thinking about this recently as he worked on his cookbook. So much had changed during his lifetime. New ingredients, new flavors, new techniques. Yet good cooking remained rooted in tradition and quality.

I would say you could say good business is also rooted. Fundamentals of good business don't change. Too many chefs were bastardizing the proper methods, taking shortcuts. Their ignorance and technique and training leading to mediocrity.

Part of the problem was a hunger for the new. Novelty by hook or crook, Escoffier wrote in his book. I want to go back to this main theme of this book, because I think it applies to a lot more than just Caesar Ritz. Your mind will play tricks on you. It is inevitable.

We've got to find ways to get control of our mind. The hotel's finished. It's about to open. Ritz was filled with overwhelming pride and, at the same time, a creeping sense of inadequacy. He's talking about all the people he's inviting, their royalty what would they think of him of his audacity would they laugh at the sight of his name displayed so boldly on the side of his building uh so he has like he has like investors and people he respects come and look at the hotel this line of thinking was ridiculous

his investors were right the hotel was stunning surely ritz's name by now was worthy of respect he still worried his reputation was in doubt so it opens it's just as everybody says it's the greatest hotel in the world um so now once the paris thing's open he's like all right we're going back to london because we're getting our revenge um it says it was pride that brought them back to london the chance to return triumphantly to the city that they had left in shame. Escoffier and Ritz were both looking for redemption. Or was it revenge? Ritz had heard about a new hotel under construction

to be called the Carlton. So the guy started developing it, runs out of money, Ritz takes it over, and that's going to be the Carlton Hotel. And the goal is very simple. Carlton would be better than the Savoy. As Ritz prepared for the launch, he found that it had become easier. There was by now a new formula. Everything he learned at Savoy and then at the Rome Grand and the Hotel

Ritz would be brought to bear at the Carleton. So just another example where some of all of our experiences, everything we learn, and as we continue to learn more and to get more experiences throughout life, we were able to apply those lessons to the work that we're doing that's why it's so important to have the lessons and to actually have the experiences it makes i don't even say it makes it easier but you're able to do more the more you know the more you can do there was no there was truly no one in the world better equipped to this is a result of that there was truly no one in the world better equipped to open this sort of hotel and restaurant than Cesar Ritz and August Escoffier. It goes back to throughout as he achieves these things, he constantly looks back to where he where he came from to think that his parents had lived and died in a tiny village, had never even

left Switzerland, not once. And here he was, the proprietor of the Hotel Ritz in Paris, the most famous hotelier in the world. And he was now opening a new property in London. So I'm going to fast forward Hotel Ritz and the Carleton Hotel, widely successful. And this is where Ritz, we get to the unhappy ending of his life. He winds up having a nervous breakdown. He's at the hotel, at the Carleton Hotel, rather. They're having this elaborate event.

His best client, the most famous person, Prince of Wales, now King, King Edward. And they're going to have, he wants to have, there's this coronation. And he has everything planned. And then Edward has like appendicitis. So everything is canceled. And then all the guests cancel their reservations at the restaurant, the hotel, everything else. And this just triggers Ritz. And he has a mental breakdown, a full-on nervous breakdown that he never recovers from.

Ritz remained serenely calm as he unwound the elaborate event. He was in shock. At about 3 o'clock in the afternoon, in the middle of a conversation with the staff, he collapsed, unconscious, falling to the floor. When he woke up, he was delirious, incoherent. He was sent home in a carriage and helped into his house. Marie was scared. She had never seen her husband like this. He seemed not even to recognize her as he lay in bed moaning. The doctor came and gave Ritz a sedative. Sometime later, he fell asleep. The doctor called it a

complete nervous breakdown. It was what he had always feared, he fell asleep. The doctor called it a complete nervous breakdown. It was what he had always feared, he said. Ritz had pushed himself too hard, and the shock of the sudden cancellation had been too much. How long will it be until, Marie asked, like, until he recovers? Maybe a few months, the doctor replied. Maybe a year, maybe longer. Ritz never recovered. Not really. At least he was never the same. Ritz receded into a twilight of melancholy, brought low, at age 53, by mental illness and exhaustion. Escoffier, meanwhile, continued to run the kitchens at the Carlton and did so for years.

They both look back with amazement at what they achieved together in the 1890s how different the world was then and how they how the how they themselves had changed it and so as Ritz is falling apart Escoffier is achieving some of the greatest uh success of his life this comes just a few weeks after Ritz collapses Escoffier meanwhile finished the translation of the book is called the culinary guide the success of the book is called The Culinary Guide. The success of the book was everything he'd hoped for, cementing his reputation as the foremost chef of all time.

Oh, excuse me, of his time. The era of Ritz and Escoffier as a team had come to an end. The partnership that changed the very nature of luxury of hotels and restaurants was over. It was a partnership that spanned almost 20 years

from Monte Carlo and Lucerne to London, Paris, and London again. And so we see the sad ending, the death of Ritz, and the birth of a new luxury brand. And I am worse than a dead man, he said to Marie a few years later after he first fell ill, for my working life has ended. So over a series of years, he starts withdrawing from each company. And sometimes he'll have like a brief part where he can actually contribute and parts where he can't even leave a room.

His memory had begun to fail him. Whole periods of his life seemed to go blank. For fear of these lapses, he dared not any longer mingle with people. He began to avoid all social contacts. For hours, he would remain shut up in his room, brooding. Nothing I could say could cheer him up or distract him ritz had detached himself from reality almost entirely he'd become a kind of ghost not long after he had moved to a private hospital and that's where he winds up dying

a german shipping company approached the board of directors of the carlton about licensing the company's name for a restaurant on board a new ship. They would call it Ritz Carlton Restaurant. So Escoffier, Ritz's widow, and his board of directors decided to license that name, the name of the trademark. They allowed the use of the Ritz name and thus was born a new luxury brand, one that was soon also licensed to a British American hotel company, which opened the first Ritz-Carlton Hotel in New York City in 1910. And Cesar Ritz dies in 1918. Escoffier outlives him for about 20 years, and I'll end here where he's meeting with Ritz's widow. Escoffier enjoyed his fame.

He had retired from the Carlleton in 1920 and moved to his villa in Monte Carlo, surrounded by family. He traveled often, visiting culinary exhibitions and receiving honors. And he towered over the food world, training a legion of protégés. When Escoffier visited Marie at the Ritz, they would laugh at the recognition he and César had achieved. Ritz would have been amused and astounded to hear the title of the new Fitzgerald story published in 1922, A Diamond as Big as the Ritz. The story referred to the Ritz Carlton Hotel in New York. He would have been proud, and even more so at the word ritzy, a synonym for style and glamour being bandied about in conversation.

Could there be any greater compliment? Ritz had entered the lexicon. And that is where I'll leave it. Buy the book using the link that's in the show notes and you'll be supporting the podcast at the same time. If you want to further support the podcast even more, you can actually buy a gift subscription. There's a link in the show notes to do that as well. That is 185 books down, 1,000 to go. And I'll talk to you again soon.