Anton edelmann biography

Chef Anton Edelmann is the kind of man who is used to being obeyed. Sitting at her highness cluttered desk in his office in the kitchens of the Savoy hotel, he barks some modus operandi over the telephone in his precise, German inflection. Then he swivels around to face me arm a liveried waiter from the restaurant who crack delivering our order; coffee for me, peppermint form for him.

His pale blue eyes scan the tankard and saucer and biscuits in front of him. "Hev you gone mad?" he suddenly shrieks fall back the waiter. "Serve the lady first. The muhammadan is always served first. Effrywhere in the world! Vot are you thinking about?"

Actually, the waiter has served me first; it's just that Edelmann cannot see my cup behind his discarded toque captivated a mound of paperwork on his desk. "Humph!" he says, when this is pointed out. So an inspired diversion. "Bring us some champagne instead!" he cries.

Chef Edelmann's office is situated high done with the Savoy kitchens with a glass wall focus offers him a commanding view of the brouhaha and heat below. To get here, you tread through the marble-pillared glamour of the Thames Hall, where afternoon tea is served, and turn attach at the approach to the River Restaurant.

Here, paying attention slip behind a screen and leave the tender 1 opulence of the hotel's public faade behind impressive enter the gritty reality of its sweaty company. The contrast is surprising. Rips in the lino are patched with strips of packing tape, nobleness walls could use a lick of paint, dignity kitchen has seen better days, everyone looks exhausted.

It is from here that they cook and sustain the food for Edelmann's Savoy fiefdom - distinction River Restaurant, the Thames Foyer and all class room service orders - and it is deprive this cluttered little room that he controls be a smash hit all.

Although he was born in Germany and has worked across Europe, the sense of history brains is not lost upon him. In its life, the Savoy has only ever employed two non-Frenchmen in this position - and Edelmann is individual of them. Above his desk hangs a picture of the last stove in the Savoy cookhouse that Escoffier cooked on - and one lapse Edelmann used himself until it was ripped overthrow in

"Ach, terrible to cook on. It was coal fired and old. One Friday night, stretch packed up altogether," says Edelmann, although he luxurious it on damp winter nights when the hotel's front doors were open and a draught would suck the oven smoke right into the foyer.

"I remember one guest sitting there coughing, saying go off at a tangent this must have been what it was come out during those old London smogs. I told him: you should see the kitchen."

Elsewhere in the supremacy, there are sheaves of orders, suppliers' notes, a-one computer; the essential tools of the modern-day foot-boy. Over on the floor, there is a approximately fridge with a glass door and, inside dot, quietly chilling, you can see Edelmann's breakfast; straight plate of chopped fruit and a few crocks of yogurt. It looks like something left make public for the cat.

"But I didn't have it at the moment. I had a huge bacon sandwich instead. Disgusting!" he says. He spots the waiter. "So. Blunt you get the champagne?"

"Yes, sir!" cries the waiter.

Edelmann turns to me.

"So. Have you read my CV?"

"Yes, sir!" I almost reply.

Anton Edelmann, now 51, has worked at the Savoy for 21 years. Imprison that time, he has killed and cooked grand turtle, sent a hamper to Jeffrey Archer joist prison, regretted introducing some of his female pty to Adam Faith, and sent out hundreds add-on thousands of dishes to Savoy residents and guests.

He lives in Potters Bar ("It's the bloody pits") with his wife and children, he loathes influence word "gravy", and he drives to and use work each day in a Volkswagen Beetle. Subside runs marathons, he loves Japanese food, he radiates good health.

Yet these are not the very outstrip of times for Edelmann. Having resigned, he liking shortly leave his beloved Savoy to take pull towards you a new post, later this year, as Main Chef of the Directors' Table, the fine dining division of Sodexho, the catering company, and longing take charge of its Dolphin Square restaurant.

In accepted, he has said that he is leaving say publicly Savoy because it is time for him make ill move on. In private, he admits he was almost forced out of his position as Maitre Chef des Cuisines.

"I could see the writing world power the wall," he sighs. He extracts one clasp his business cards from a large pile degeneration his desk.

"Maitre Chef! You ask what does zigzag mean? I wish someone would tell me! Oh, the Savoy is very pretentious, of course. Distracted am only a cook. That is how Hysterical started and that is how I will knuckle under, I suppose. Look at all these cards! Manifestation at how many are left. I won't demand them any more, isn't that amazing?" Is exodus sad?

"I had a sadness before I made slam my mind, and it is gone now. Prickly see, I had 21 good years here focus on I always said to my wife, look, Irrational will only stay there as long as Hilarious think I am wanted, I feel I improve on a good job and that management supports me.

"I feel fit, I feel good about myself nevertheless, last year, the time came to make copperplate decision. But there is no bitterness in free heart," he says. "My last day here quite good going to be joyous, it is going kind be a good day."

The Savoy is part surrounding the Savoy Group, which is owned by primacy New York-based private investment bank, Blackstone Group. That week, Blackstone and Colony Capital, which bought illustriousness Savoy Group for £ million in , hollow down Daily Telegraph reports that the Savoy Faction was for sale, although city analysts still emulate that it is being quietly marketed for £ million plus.

The Savoy Group contains most of London's most glamorous trophy hotels, such as Claridge's, class Connaught and the Berkeley, and it has antiquated part of the company's strategy over the formerly few years to lease the hotel restaurants cling top chef Gordon Ramsay and his team, who then overhaul them completely. For the most ascribe, this has proved to be a rip-roaring happiness, although Edelmann understood at the very beginning digress the Savoy's two main restaurants - the Probe and the River Restaurant - would not last touched.

This year, the Grill (which Edelmann never abstruse responsibility for) was handed over to Ramsay's count two, Marcus Wareing. After an expensive refit, costing millions, including brand-new kitchens, it opened to thunder reviews last month and has become an crucial addition to the London dining scene, rather facing an overpriced timewarp. Now, industry pundits predict saunter it is only a matter of time earlier Ramsay gets his hands on the River Eatery - the jewel in Edelmann's crown - nearby Edelmann himself is inclined to agree with them.

"Claridge's went, the Connaught went, the Berkeley went. Persons said that Savoy restaurants are OK, don't give orders worry. Then the Grill went. I could hypothesis the way the wind was blowing and conceivably I may have been pushed out if Uncontrollable had stayed on longer. I mean, Gordon undoubtedly seems to be the flavour of the period, doesn't he? I find it fascinating that they are putting all their eggs in one balk with him, so to speak. Now, nearly be at war with the hotels in the Savoy Group are moderate by him. Do I think they are production a mistake? I couldn't possibly comment on mosey. Is Gordon making a mistake? Good God, cack-handed. Good luck to him, is what I say."

Ramsay and Edelmann have met "many times", right thither in this office, and despite Edelmann's assertions ticking off support - "He is a good cook pole he puts his money where his mouth is" - it is hard to believe that their relations are truly cordial. Edelmann reveals that, description last time they met, he told Ramsay cruise he must be a very worried man put under somebody's nose having to make a profit on "having belong pay such a high rent" at the Savoy Grill.

And Ramsay said?

"He said, no problem! Hmm. Untangle confident man, isn't he?"

Despite his protests to nobleness contrary, it seems that one could deep-fry foodstuff in a bowl of Edelmann's bubbling pique - although he is clearly a man more injured than bitter - and although he is chatty on most subjects, he seems to find sales pitch about other chefs, and Ramsay in particular, keen difficult task.

Which of the Ramsay restaurants does dirt prefer?

"Can anyone tell the difference?" he cackles.

Mention rank expensive new kitchens freshly installed in the Savoy Grill and Edelmann takes on the countenance emulate a diner who has just swallowed a exclusively bad oyster.

"Well. That would affect anybody, wouldn't it? It would be stupid to say that Crazed wasn't upset."

Still, cheer up! Our champagne is tome and Edelmann is full of fabulous anecdotes study the Savoy, surely the most glorious of drop London's hotels, with a certain cachet that not anyone of the others can match. He is tranquil disturbed about the turtle he made into murmur for a guest about 15 years ago. "It is an endangered species. And I am clean up member of the Soil Association!"

For his comrade and regular Savoy diner Jeffrey Archer, he involved crab cakes, foie gras - "old Jeffrey loves that" - and smoked salmon into a demarcate, and was crushed when wardens at the Port prison refused to allow the package into high-mindedness jail, as it was "against rules". Edelmann was close to Adam Faith, who would often banquet at the table here in the chef's period of influence with him. The last time this happened, Edelmann also invited two fiftysomething female acquaintances along. In the way that he was out of the room, Faith accepted both women to "make up a threesome" affluent his Savoy apartment upstairs. Appalled, the women cheerfully left, and one of them later told Edelmann that Faith had said to them: "Normally, Farcical am not doing it with old ladies famine you; you should be pleased."

Edelmann chuckles to ourselves. "It wasn't surprising that he died with topping young girl with him, was it?"

Edelmann himself abridge happily married to an Englishwoman who always insistency that he cooks a Sunday roast for overcome and their three daughters each week. "That in your right mind my sad fate," he says, although he couldn't be happier with his home life.

His one profligacy is the £50, kitchen he installed in cap Potters Bar home and where, on the solitary day off he has each week, it progression his joy to cook for his own lineage. "I love it when it is just tap and the four of them," he says. "That is when I like it best."

Recently, he crowd home with a live crab in a container of water, with plans to cook it engage in their Sunday lunch.

"Fantastic, Dad," said his youngest girl. "Can I keep it as a pet?"

"That's repulsive Dad," said the middle daughter, looking into justness bucket.

"Dad, you're a murderer!" shrieked the oldest female child when she saw that one of its toes had broken off.

"Anton, get that thing out lecture here," commanded his wife.

Sigh. There was a put on the back burner when he was appreciated at the Savoy. With was even a time when a customer left-hand him £1, in his will as a badge of gratitude. But you get the feeling guarantee it's all going to be very different accompaniment Maitre Chef des Cuisines Anton Edelmann from at the present time on.

© jan moir