Escoffier.   Georges Auguste     - Two Escoffier menus.
Ritz Carlton Restaurants on board the Hamburg Amerika Line ships.
A Lunch and Dinner menu from the S.S. Amerika passenger liner, March 1908.
Menu 1. Dinner dated March 14th 1908 - 177x117 mm. A folded card with a very good drawing of the SS Amerika on the front cover. Inside a 12 course dinner in English and German with French and a few US dishes. On the back cover is the music programme with a lovely drawing of a violinist. Clean and handsome. Menu 2. Lunch dated March 12th 1908 - 130x90 mm. . A folded card with a header titled ‘A Suggestion' on the front cover. Inside a plain 6 course lunch in English and German. On the back cover are a couple of glue strips that suggest this menu was pasted into a folder at some time. All text and menu borders in gilt. The guttering has been strengthened but still a clean and handsome item. Overall in very good condition and housed in a handsome cardboard folder covered in grey marbled paper with a label on the front cover. A rare item of Escoffier ephemera.
- The Hamburg Amerika Liner company requested Auguste Escoffier and Cesar Ritz’s services for the planning and inauguration of the Kitchens and Restaurants on the brand new liners "S.S. Amerika" and the 'S.S. Kaiserin Auguste Victoria. Both of these ships were built side by side at the Harland Wolff shipyards in Belfast. 'Amerika' was launched first on April 20th 1905, According to the Morton Allan Directory of European Passenger Steamship Arrivals (Baltimore: 1987), the “S.S. Amerika" sailed between Hamburg and New York from 1905-1913. For the year 1914 it sailed between Hamburg and Boston; the Amerika's last U.S. arrivals were to Boston on 19 June and 24 July 1914. In 1912, it was the first ship to warn Titanic of icebergs. The kitchens and dining rooms of the liners S.S. Amerika and S.S. Kaiserin Auguste Victoria opened with the very original a la carte restaurants. The service on board all of those liners was called the “The Ritz Carlton Restaurants”. There had never been an a’la Cartre restaurant of any kind on a ship before. Adding the names of Escoffier and Ritz to this novel enterprise and the interest, support and demand completely filled the dining rooms every day. The new restaurants became stunning successes. They even had to significantly expand the kitchen of the 'S.S. Kaiserin Auguste Victoria' after the first voyage. Escoffier’s secondment from the Carlton Hotel to the Hamburg Amerika line was to last until 1915 and would further help to cement his reputation as the gastronomic Master craftsman of the age.

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Ephemera category
ref number: 11214