Louis Eustache Ude

Louis-Eustache Ude, (''ca'' 1769 –b10 April 1846), chef and author, was the best-known French chef in London before Alexis Soyer's reign in the kitchens of the Reform Club (1837–50). Ude was the chef at Crockford's. the fashionable gentlemen's gambling and eating club in St James's Street, London.

Though his father, a chef at Louis XVI's Versailles, got his son an apprenticeship in the kitchens there, cuisine was not yet the young man's interest. Having apprenticed himself to a jeweller, then to an engraver, and after several other jobs, Ude was finally ''chef d'hôtel'' for Madame Mère, the mother of Napoleon. Having served in that capacity for some time, with the return of peace he made his way to England, where he remained for the rest of his career. For two decades he was ''chef d'hôtel'' to William Philip Molyneux, 2nd Earl of Sefton at Croxteth Hall, near Liverpool. Lord Sefton kept a great table, and paid Ude handsomely, 300 guineas annually. When Lord Sefton died in 1838, he left Ude an annuity of 100 guineas, though the chef had long since departed his service.

Ude had moved to the kitchens of George III's second son, Frederick Augustus, Duke of York. The Duke's death in 1827 left Ude free to take up the position of ''chef de cuisine'' at the club being established by William Crockford, and here Ude made his greatest reputation. His starting salary at Crockford's was £1200 per year. When he left in September 1838 over a salary disagreement (he was making a princely £4000 a year), and retired, his place was taken by Charles Elmé Francatelli, until Crockford's closed in 1845.

Ude was the author of two learned cook books, ''The French Cook'', published in 1813 while he was still attached to Lord Sefton, and republished in numerous editions throughout his lifetime, and, reflecting a phrase of Michel de Montaigne, ''La Science de Gueule''.Cook's Info: Louis-Eustache Ude
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He is buried at Kensal Green Cemetery, London.

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{{Authority control

English chefs
French chefs