Nobody Knows the Truffles I've Seen

Book excerpt: Born raconteur George Lang tells the Horatio Alger story--as only he can tell it--of his extraordinary life. Born in Hungary, only child of a Jewish tailor and destined for the concert stage, at nineteen he was incarcerated in a forced-labor camp, never to see his parents again. After he landed in New York in 1946, a whole new world opened up as he switched from the violin to the kitchen. Soon he was orchestrating banquets at the Waldorf for Khrushchev, Queen Elizabeth, Princess Grace, and the like. He invented a new profession: as the first restaurant consultant, he explored Indonesia and the Philippines to bring back exotic tastes for the 1964 World's Fair, and pioneered upscale restaurant complexes within shopping malls. Finally he resurrected two great landmarks: the Café des Artistes in New York and Gundel in his native Hungary.