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Unique Cottages | Electric Scotland's Classified Directory

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The Edinburgh Balmoral


But although the hotel was suffering from years of neglect, the magic was still there largely thanks to the dedication and loyalty of the staff - and by the time the North British clock stopped there were only 60 employees in a building which once gave work for more than 350.

The old place has a powerful effect on most people who work there. "Its ugly but beautiful", says Banyard and other members of staff talk about camaraderie, character and family spirit. Owners have come and gone and there are gaps in the documents and records of the building but the thread of continuity runs in the stories of staff who worked there for years.

Together butcher Bob Cunningham (1929-1954) and sauce chef Jackie Monteith (1938-1987) can account for almost 60 years. They recall the heydays before the Second World War when Chef Alfonse Favage ruled the hot and noisy empire of the kitchen, with an insistence on quality and simplicity (just one vegetable or a garnish of cress with grilled meat); a stickler for punctuality and hard work, all argument ceased when he appeared and by his decree rewards were dispensed or withheld. Two bottles of free beer a day for chefs (lemonade for apprentices), according to the judgement of M. Favage.

It was a world of bizarre and wonderful contrasts. Pale green damask table clothes decked the restaurant tables and a lunch of roast lamb was around nine shillings - about a week's wage for a young trainee chef as Monteith remembers without resentment. Guests sat down to choose from a menu offering perhaps "ptage aux huitres" followed by "grouse en chaudfroid" unaware that just beneath this oasis of quiet luxury was the mezzanine floor of the kitchen, an oddly international underworld where apprentices wheeled out waste by the barrow, former prisoners from Saughton scrubbed and spread sawdust on the floor, and everyone spoke French. Scots like Cunningham and Monteith struggled to learn the foreign language of cuisine and so did the young Italian Renato del Vecchio when he joined as commis waiter in 1969 with barely a word of English.

 

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