Georges Auguste Escoffier (1846-1935) was born in a village near Nice called Villeneuve Loubet. His father, a blacksmith, arranged for his thirteen-year-old son to work in one of the better restaurants in Nice. When Escoffier was nineteen, the owner of the most fashionable Paris restaurant, the Petit Moulin Rouge, invited him to join his team. From Paris he went to Monte Carlo, and in 1884 met Cesar Ritz. In 1890, Escoffier and Ritz were called to the Savoy Hotel in London as "chef des cuisines and head of restaurant services" and "general manager" respectively. They went on to open the Ritz Hotel in Paris and the Carlton Hotel in Haymarket, London, and Escoffier published the first edition of Le Guide Culinaire in 1903. He retired at the age of seventy-three, but remained involved with each new French edition of the book until 1921, when the fourth edition appeared.
Strong>Translators H. L. Cracknell and R. J. Kaufmann met while they were both working at London's Savoy Hotel in the late 1940's; a kitchen where the shadow of its first chef, Escoffier, still cast its influence. Both have served as lecturers in cookery in a number of technical colleges, and are holders of the Maitrise Escoffier and Cordon Culinaire, both awarded by the Conseil Culinaire Francais.