The Savoy Hotel is a hotel located on the Strand, in the City of Westminster in central London. Built by impresario Richard D'Oyly Carte with profits from his Gilbert and Sullivan operas, the hotel opened on 6 August 1889. It was the first in the Savoy group of hotels and restaurants owned by Carte's family for over a century. It was also the first luxury hotel in Britain, introducing electric lights throughout the hotel, electric lifts, bathrooms inside most of the lavishly furnished rooms, constant hot and cold running water and many other innovations. Carte hired manager César Ritz and French chef Auguste Escoffier, who established an unprecedented standard of quality in hotel service, entertainment and elegant dining, attracting royalty and other wealthy guests and diners. Winston Churchill frequently took his cabinet to lunch at the hotel.
The hotel became Carte's most successful venture. Its bands, Savoy Orpheans and the Savoy Havana Band, became famous, and other entertainers (who were also often guests) included George Gershwin, Frank Sinatra, Lena Horne and Noël Coward. Famous guests have included Edward VII, Enrico Caruso, Charlie Chaplin, Harry Truman, Judy Garland, Babe Ruth, Laurence Olivier, Marilyn Monroe, John Wayne, Humphrey Bogart, Elizabeth Taylor, Barbra Streisand, The Beatles and numerous others.
The hotel is now managed by Fairmont Hotels and Resorts. It has been called "London's most famous hotel" and remains one of London's most prestigious and opulent hotels, with 268 rooms and panoramic views of the River Thames across Savoy Place and the Thames Embankment. The hotel closed in December 2007 for extensive renovations and reopened in October 2010.
Having seen the opulence of American hotels in his many visits to the U.S., Carte decided to build the first luxury hotel in Britain to attract foreign clientele as well as British tourists who had travelled to London for theatre and sightseeing. Opened in 1889, the hotel was designed by architect Thomas Edward Collcutt, who also designed the Wigmore Hall. Carte chose the name "Savoy" to memorialize the history of the property. His investors in the venture were, in addition to relatives, Carl Rosa, George Grossmith, Francois Cellier, George Edwardes, Augustus Harris and Fanny Ronalds. His friend, the composer Sir Arthur Sullivan, was a shareholder and sat on the Board of Directors.
The hotel was built on a plot of land, next to the Savoy Theatre, that Carte originally purchased to house an electrical generator for the theatre (built in 1881), which was the first public building in the world to be lit entirely by electricity. The construction of the hotel took five years and was financed by the profits from the Gilbert and Sullivan partnership, particularly from producing The Mikado. It was the first hotel lit by electric lights and the first with electric lifts. Other innovations included private, ensuite bathrooms in the majority of its 268 rooms, lavishly appointed in marble; constant hot and cold running water in each room, dinner dances, glazed brickwork designed to prevent London's smoke-laden air from spoiling the external walls, and its own Artesian well.
In 1890, Carte hired the hotel's first famous manager, César Ritz, who later became the founder of The Ritz Hotel. Ritz brought in his partners, chef Auguste Escoffier, and maître d'hôtel Louis Echenard. Ritz put together what he described as "a little army of hotel men for the conquest of London", and Escoffier recruited French cooks and reorganised the kitchens. The Savoy under Ritz and his partners was an immediate success, attracting a distinguished and moneyed clientele, headed by the Prince of Wales. Aristocratic women, hitherto unaccustomed to dining in public, were now "seen in full regalia in the Savoy dining and supper rooms". The hotel was such a financial success that Richard D'Oyly Carte bought other luxury hotels.
In 1897, Ritz and his partners were dismissed from the Savoy. Ritz and Echenard were implicated in the disappearance of over £3400 (£290,000 as of 2011), of wine and spirits, and Escoffier had been receiving gifts from the Savoy's suppliers. The Savoy group purchased Simpson's-in-the-Strand in 1898. The next year, Carte chose M. Joseph, proprietor of the Marivaux Restaurant in Paris, as his next maître d'hôtel and in 1900 hired George Reeves-Smith as the next managing director of the Savoy hotel group. Reeves-Smith served in this capacity until 1941. The Cartes expanded the hotel in 1903–04, building new east and west wings and moving the main entrance to Savoy Court on the Strand. At that time, the hotel added Britain’s first serviced apartments, with access to all the hotel’s amenities. There were many famous residents, such as Sarah Bernhardt and Sir Thomas Dewar, some of whom lived there for decades. Spectacular parties were held at the hotel. For example, in 1905 American millionaire George A. Kessler hosted a "Gondola Party" where the central courtyard was flooded to a depth of four feet and scenery erected around the walls. Costumed staff and guests recreated Venice. The two dozen guests dined in an enormous gondola. After dinner, Enrico Caruso sang, and a baby elephant brought in a five foot birthday cake.
Richard's son, Rupert D'Oyly Carte, became chairman of the Savoy hotel group in 1903 and, after the death of his stepmother Helen Carte in 1913, the controlling stockholder. In 1919, he sold the Grand Hotel, Rome, which his father had acquired in 1896. In the 1920s he ensured that the Savoy continued to attract a fashionable clientele by a continuous programme of modernisation and the introduction of dancing in the large restaurants. It also became the first hotel with air conditioning, steam-heating and soundproofed windows in the rooms, 24-hour room service and telephones in every bathroom. It also manufactured its own mattresses. One famous incident during Rupert's early years was the 1923 shooting, at the hotel, of a wealthy young Egyptian, Prince Fahmy Bey, by his French wife, Marguerite. The wife was acquitted of murder after it was revealed that her husband had treated her with extreme cruelty throughout the six-month marriage and had stated that he was going to kill her.
The hotel is famous for its entertainers. George Gershwin gave the British premiere of Rhapsody in Blue at the hotel in 1925, simultaneously broadcast by the BBC. The Savoy Orpheans and the Savoy Havana Band were described as "probably the best-known bands in Europe" and broadcast regularly from the hotel. Carte engaged Richard Collet to run the cabaret at the Savoy, which opened in April 1929. Lena Horne and others made their British debuts there. Frank Sinatra played the piano and sang there. More recently, Amy Winehouse and Michael Ball entertained guests.
Until the 1930s, the Savoy group had not thought it necessary to advertise, but Carte and Reeves-Smith changed their approach. "We are endeavouring by intensive propaganda work to get more customers; this work is going on in the U.S.A., in Canada, in the Argentine and in Europe." In 1937, George VI became the first reigning monarch to dine in any hotel when he attended a private dinner at the Savoy. In 1938 Hugh Wontner joined the Savoy hotel group as Reeves-Smith's assistant, and he became managing director in 1941.
The hotel has two well-known restaurants: the Grill Room (usually known as the Savoy Grill), on the north side of the building, with its entrance off the Strand, and the Savoy Restaurant (sometimes known as the River Restaurant), on the south side, overlooking the River Thames. The grand River Restaurant, facing the Thames, has long been famous for its inventive chefs, beginning in 1890 with celebrity chef Auguste Escoffier. Escoffier created many famous dishes at the Savoy. In 1893 he invented the pêche Melba in honour of the Australian singer Nellie Melba, and in 1897, Melba toast. Other Escoffier creations were bombe Néro (a flaming ice), fraises à la Sarah Bernhardt (strawberries with pineapple and Curaçao sorbet), baisers de Vierge (meringue with vanilla cream and crystallised white rose and violet petals) and suprêmes de volailles Jeannette (jellied chicken breasts with foie gras). Another signature dish is the Omlette Arnold Bennett.
Under Ritz and Escoffier, evening dress had to be worn in the restaurant, and Ritz was innovative in hiring popular musicians to play background music during dinner and in printing daily menus. Even today, elegant dining at the Savoy includes formal afternoon tea with choral and other performances at Christmas time. The Savoy has a Sunday brunch including free-flow champagne, and special events, such as New Year's Eve dinner. Kaspar, a 3-foot high art-deco black cat sculpted in 1926 by Basil Ionides, is used as an extra guest when thirteen dine, to stave off bad luck. He is given a full place setting and served each course. August Laplanche was head chef at the hotel from 1946 to 1965, Silvino Trompetto was maître-chef from 1965 to 1980 and Anton Edelmann was maître chef des cuisines for 21 years, between 1982 and 2003. As part of the 2010 refurbishment, the restaurant has been completely redecorated in the art deco style, with a leopard pattern carpet. The head chef is Ryan Murphy.
Gordon Ramsay has managed the less formal Savoy Grill in recent years, employing his protégé Marcus Wareing, during which it earned its first Michelin star. The Grill was originally "where people go to eat a modest luncheon or to dine on the way to the theatre without spending too much time or too much money." It later became "the home of power lunching in London". Reopening in November 2010, the chef patron is Stuart Gillies and head chef is Andy Cook. Also part of the hotel buildings is Simpson's-in-the-Strand.
The American Bar at the Savoy Hotel first introduced cocktails to Europe. The term American Bar comes from the 1930s. Bar owners in Europe renamed their bars "The American Bar" to designate the sale of American cocktails.
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