Alexis SoyerSoyer was a talented, dashing, flamboyant, French egocentric whose gastronomic genius was the rage and envy of mid-nineteenth-century England. He served as cook to various French and English notables between 1821 and 1837. Among them was Prince Poligac of the French Foreign Office, the Duke of Cambridge, the Duke of Sutherland, the Marquis of Waterford, and William Lloyd of Aston Hall, Oswestry. He was widely known for his triumphant tenure as master chef of the London Reform Club, a post he accepted in 1837. The day of Queen Victoria's coronation, June 28, 1838, he executed one of the greatest culinary extravaganzas of all time: a breakfast for two thousand people at Gwydyr House, where the club was temporarily housed. His banquet de luxe for 150 guests for Ibraham Pasha on July 3, 1846, has also become a culinary legend. Read More Read Less