This book reminded me of A Gentleman in Moscow. The different personalities of the restaurant and hotel shine through in these pages. The book was written decades ago and has been rereleased by Pushkin Press this year.

"Acerbic, colorful, and spirited stories from a bygone era: behind the scenes in a grand NY hotel, from the author of the Madeline books.

Picture David Sedaris writing Kitchen Confidential about the Ritz in New York in the 1920s, which had the style and charm of The Grand Budapest Hotel...

In this charming and uproariously funny hotel memoir, Ludwig Bemelmans uncovers the fabulous world of the Hotel Splendide - the thinly disguised stand-in for the Ritz - a luxury New York hotel where he worked as a waiter in the 1920s. With equal parts affection and barbed wit, he uncovers the everyday chaos that reigns behind the smooth facades of the gilded dining room and banquet halls.

In hilarious detail, Bemelmans sketches the hierarchy of hotel life and its strange and fascinating inhabitants: from the ruthlessly authoritarian maître d'hôtel Monsieur Victor to the kindly waiter Mespoulets to Frizl the homesick busboy. Illustrated with his own charming line drawings, Bemelmans' tales of a bygone era of extravagance are as charming as they are riotously entertaining."

If you only know Bemelmans from Madeline let me enlighten you...

If you’ve ever wanted to know what it was like working in a luxury hotel in New York in the 20’s you have to pick up Ludwig Bemelman’s Hotel Splendide. It’s a quick and easy read that gives you a glimpse into the style, charm, humour, and chaos that is the Hotel Splendide. His personalized illustrations added a nice touch to these tales. Thank you to NetGalley and Pushkin Press for this eARC in exchange for my honest review.

Before he was the writer and illustrator of the Madeline books, Ludwig Bemelmans was a down-at-the-heel waiter for the Ritz Carlton in New York City. The stories in Hotel Splendide are clearly based on his time racing to and fro across the hotel serving the guests, honing his eye for caricature. Reading the stories in this collection was like reading a strange cross between Anthony Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential and the stories of the Russian satirist, Teffi. On the one hand, there is the grit of Bourdain in Bemelmans’s description of life in service to people who really couldn’t give a monkey about him unless he screws up. On the other, there’s the lightness of someone who doesn’t take himself too seriously.

Originally published in 1941, this collection of linked short stories covers some months in the life of an unnamed narrator as he makes his way from busboy to waiter at the Hotel Splendide. As busboy, the narrator begins under the ignominious tutelage of Mespoulets. Mespoulets, we learn, is the waiter of a special section of the dining room where the maîtres d’ exile guests they do not like. Mespoulets teaches him French grammar and how to skirt the edges of the hotel’s regulations—that is, how not to get fired. The staff are underpaid. The hotel’s manager is a dictator. The guests are oblivious to how they appear to the people who deliver their food and drinks, clean their rooms, and hold open the doors as they pass. If they knew how close the staff were to Bolshevism, the post-World War I guests would quiver in their pearls.

Each of the stories shows our narrator working his way up the staff ladder while trying to figure out what he wants to do with his life. In one story, he accompanies an old friend (he and the friend were born in Regensburg, Austria) back to the old country to show their old, abusive teacher how much they’ve come up in the world…only to learn that this teacher has fallen so far on hard times that it’s not worth it to rub the old bastard’s face in their pinstripes and largess. (For history nerds like me, there are some really interesting details about hyperinflation that come up when the narrator’s friend tries to cash some of his travelers’ checks.) Status plays a huge role in these stories. The narrator and several other characters he meets along the way have frequent epiphanies about what really matters in a city gone nuts for getting rich, flaunting wealth, and showing off. That sounds a little depressing but Hotel Splendide was a very fun read. I have no idea how Bemelmans managed to pull off such a comical tone while working with such potentially fraught material.

For readers looking to travel back to a glamorous (as long as you don’t look too closely) hotel at the height of 1920s New York, Hotel Splendide is the perfect vehicle.

This book is very, very dated. I'm sure it was considered funny at the time it was published, but now, it just seems sad. The working conditions and living conditions are awful by more contemporary standards. If you have an interest in early 20th century New York City history, this book would be a fine piece of primary source material. But otherwise, it's a peek into another time that might make you cringe.

A very charming and warm account of a 1920's hotel and the people who work there and visit there. The illustrations perfectly reflect the time and allow the reader to immerse in hotel life easily.

This is a lovely book. It encapsulates a time and place with humour and, at times, pathos. Hotels have a whole culture of their own, like other large buildings or institutions and Bemelmans was able to encapsulate it by shrewd observations. His characters are engaging, and his caricatures in words and drawings have survived because of their unique qualities. Long may it remain in print.

This ARC was provided to me via Kindle, from Pushkin and #NetGalley. Thank you to the publishers, NetGalley and the author for the opportunity to preview and review. Opinions expressed are completely my own.

A humorous commentary on life as a spectator.

This book had some delightful moments in it. They detailed colorful stories of Ludwig's time in various roles at the Hotel Splendide. At a hotel where service is key, and the staff sometimes lived at the hotel due to its busyness, Ludwig describes each gaffe of his coworkers with hilarity. The trepidation of the weighty moments can be felt in his descriptions of the scenes, where we never see the end coming. Each chapter is also accompanied by an individual drawing of the story. I would recommend this book to the adults who remember the Madeline books, but not the children.

He is best known for his delightful tails about Madeline. Anyone who recalls those stories with fondness may enjoy spending time with the author in this amusing title. Included here are fifteen chapters about life at a fictional hotel that is based upon the New York Ritz. Relax, travel back in time to the 1920s and enjoy this memoir of a bygone time.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Pushkin Press for this title. All opinions are my own.

Delightful, Extravagant, Eccentric…
1920’s New York, the Hotel Splendide. Amidst this delightful, extravagant and rather majestic place chaos and eccentricity abound in bucketfuls. A classic of a memoir in every way, recounting tales of the hotel both upstairs and down, from staff to the guests. Extremely amusing, delightfully witty, keenly observed and enhanced with wonderfully done and quite charming illustrations. A joy.