‘The original bad boy of the New York restaurant/hotel scene… No one has ever surpassed the master’ Anthony Bourdain 路德威‧白蒙是奧地利裔的美國插畫家，1914年16歲的他，隻身一人從奧地利來到美國尋找新的方向，在親戚引薦下，開始在高級飯店的工作，白蒙也是在這時候，確定自己想成為職業插畫家的目標。在飯店，白蒙有數不盡的題材可以畫，無論是忙碌混亂的出餐時間侍者和廚師的大戰、或觀察飯店形形色色的住客，白蒙總是能用他寫意、幽默又充滿趣味的筆法將這些情境勾勒成一張張有趣的插圖。Hotel Splendide是白蒙的回憶錄，Hotel Splendid也象徵著當時白蒙工作16年的麗池卡頓酒店。 Welcome to the grand Hotel Splendide, where hilarity and chaos reign. In the mirror-lined dining halls, the champagne is constantly flowing; in the kitchens downstairs, malcontent waiters incite revolution. In this classic memoir, Ludwig Bemelmans encounters eccentricity on every level of the hotel hierarchy as he works his way up from busboy at the restaurant's most undesirable table, to assistant manager of the magnificent private banquets. There may be Russian ballerinas and Wall Street tycoons to entertain, but there is also Mespoulets, the world's worst waiter, to contend with and a murder plot against Monsieur Victor, the authoritarian maître d'hôtel, to solve. Accompanied by Bemelmans' own witty illustrations, this account of a bygone era of extravagance is as charming as it is riotously entertaining.