Hotel Bemelmans

€œLudwig Bemelmans was the original bad boy of the New York hotel/restaurant subculture.€ €“Anthony Bourdain

Probably Bemelmans€ best work and certainly his most famous essays, Hotel Bemelmans brilliantly evokes the kitchens, back passages, dining rooms, and banquet halls of Bemelmans€ years at the Hotel Splendide a thinly disguised stand-in for the Ritz. It's a strange, fabulous, and sometimes terrible universe populated by rogues, con-men, geniuses, craftsmen, lunatics, gypsies, tramps, and thieves and it's all here in bitingly funny detail. Twenty-four of the tales are vintage Bemelmans, two have never before been published, and the lot is accompanied by 73 of Bemelmans€ original, charming drawings.