Inside the “Floating Palace”: How 76 Chefs Fed the First Class on the SS Normandie
The dining room on the French liner SS Normandie is widely considered the most spectacular room ever built on a ship. It was longer than the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles and lined with “light fountains” because it had no windows. The scale is the hook: the kitchen was so massive it required 76 chefs just for First Class. The distance from the kitchen to the tables was so great that waiters had to be athletic sprinters to get the “Langouste Froide” (cold lobster) or “Filet de Sole” to the table. The menu offered 12 courses for dinner. This appeals to the “they don’t build them like they used to” sentiment—a dining experience where the architecture was as overwhelming as the food.
2 Comments
i don't know why at the beginning they keep showing one of the large modern cruise ships sailing through the ocean. If you don't know about the Normandie, don't know what it looked like, you might assume this is the Normandie. It does not remotely resemble the actual ship. I've read quite a bit about the Normandie after finding a perfume bottle in the shape of the ship at a flea market, an item from the maiden voyage of the great cruise ship. It held Patou perfume for the first class passengers.
"Getting there is half the fun" was from Cunard in the 1950's, NOT the French Line!😮