The generally accepted history of Olivier salad begins with its inventor, the famous Moscow chef Lucien Olivier, about whom V. A. Gilyarovsky was the first to write about in Moscow and Muscovites. Moscow gourmet without his French salad was “lunch not at lunch”, but the chef kept his recipe, at least salad dressing, in the strictest confidence. According to Gilyarovsky, the French chef’s salad became the signature dish of the Hermitage and later spread to Moscow taverns. From the records of E.P. Ivanov, it is known that waiters in Moscow were recruited mainly from Yaroslavl residents, some of them were not immediately given the names of dishes of complex restaurant cuisine, and they called Olivier salad “livelle”. At Testov’s, Olivier was served as an appetizer for bison. According to a study published in 2017 in the Kommersant newspaper, there is no confirmation of Gilyarovsky’s version. Lucien Olivier was allegedly a native of Moscow, Nikolai Olivier, who later changed his name for marketing purposes, and he served not as a cook at the Hermitage restaurant, but as the manager of the hotel of the same name. How he was related to lettuce is unknown
