Café Gerbeaud

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Gerbeaud Gasztronómia Ltd.

logo
legal form AG
founding 1858
Seat Budapest
management Katalin Pintér, Gyöngyi Vlasics, Zoltán Hamvas, Sándor Kovács
Branch Pastry shop
Website www.Gerbeaud.hu

Exterior view of Café Gerbeaud on Vörösmarty Tér
Inside view of Café Gerbeaud

The Café Gerbeaud on Vörösmarty tér 7 in the Hungarian capital of Budapest is one of the largest and most traditional coffeehouses in Europe. The company was a purveyor to the court .

Even today it is in the style of the Wilhelminian era, with its stucco , the chandeliers , the cladding made of various precious woods and the furniture .

history

The café began its rise with the third descendant of a confectioner dynasty , Henrik Kugler (actually: Heinrich Kugler; 1830-1905). He acquired his knowledge and experience mainly during his apprenticeship and traveling years in eleven European metropolises, including Paris . He then opened his pastry shop on Erzherzog-Joseph-Platz in 1858 , which soon became one of the best in Pest . Special features were the Chinese and Russian tea specialties as well as his ice cream creations, which were praised by the Budapesters as the "best ice cream from Pest".

In order to be closer to the center of the city, moved Kugler his business in 1870 to the then Old Theater Square ( Régi Színház tér , 1874: Gisela place and Gizella tér , since 1926: Vörösmarty tér ) . His coffees, liqueurs and candies were particularly popular with his customers at that time. But the Kugler cakes and mignons also found strong sales, perhaps because it was the first time that Kugler made it possible to take them home wrapped on a paper tray. Guests in Kugler's pastry shop included Franz Deák and Franz Liszt .

In 1882 Henrik Kugler first met Émile Gerbeaud (1854–1919) on a trip to Paris and immediately recognized his talent and entrepreneurship. Emil Gerbeaud, who also came from a pastry family, was born in Geneva and gained his experience in countries such as Germany , France and England . Kugler invited him to Budapest to make him his business partner. After Kugler's retirement in 1884, Gerbeaud acquired the business for 600,000  guilders , but kept the café's original name.

Numerous innovations went hand in hand with Emil Gerbeaud's entry into the business. With new products such as butter creams, Parisian creams, hundreds of types of biscuits , sugar confectionery , and a wide variety of sweets, he broadened the range considerably. In order to be able to offer his customers this wide range of products, he hired a large number of new employees, especially in sales and service. At the end of 1899 he already had around 150 employees, many of whom had only come to Budapest to learn and work at Gerbeaud. Gerbeaud had a very good business sense and gradually equipped his bakery with modern machines in order to be able to meet the increasing demand. The name Gerbeaud soon became synonymous with quality and the art of baking. Since the lavishly designed paper boxes for cakes to be delivered outside the home, already introduced by Henrik Kugler, were very popular with customers, Gerbeaud continued this tradition and even began to design them himself.

Gerbeaud was also respected internationally. He was invited as a jury member to both the Brussels (1897) and the Paris World Exhibition (1900), where he was awarded membership in the French Legion of Honor in Paris . But he was also awarded numerous national and international prizes.

After Henrik Kugler's death in 1905, Gerbeaud founded Gerbeaud A.-G. in 1908 under the name of Heinrich Kugler's successor. a stock corporation with which business was continued. Gerbeaud paid close attention to technical developments, and as early as 1909 he made parking spaces for automobiles next to carriages available to visitors to his café.

In around 1910, Gerbeaud sought advice from Henrik Darilek (1878–1963) when it came to decorating the interior of his pastry shop, primarily using marble, fine woods and bronze. The stucco on the ceiling was made in the Rococo style by Louis XV. prepared. The chandeliers were inspired by the Maria Theresa style. Both French tables and secessionist tables, which Gerbaud had brought from the World Exhibition in Paris, were provided for the guests .

Although the First World War did not leave the Gerbeaud's home unscathed, Gerbeaud managed to lead his business successfully through these difficult years. Emil Gerbeaud died on November 8, 1919 and bequeathed the business to his wife Esther, who ran it until 1940.

The name of the café has remained until today, with the exception of the period from 1950 to March 1984 when it was called Vörösmarty . In 1995 the German entrepreneur Erwin Franz Müller acquired the Gerbeaud confectionery and had it extensively renovated so that the traces of the last 50 years can no longer be seen. Today the café appears again in its original style planned by Emil Gerbeaud.

In 2009, the Gerbeaud pastry shop opened in Tokyo.

See also

literature

  • Ingrid Haslinger, Erika Patka, Marie-Luise Jesch: The sweet luxury. The Hofzuckerbäckerei and the former kuk Hofzuckerbäcker Demel, Gerbeaud, Gerstner, Heiner, Rumpelmayer, Sluka. An exhibition by the Looshaus culture group. Agent's work Geyer + Reisser, Vienna 1996, ISBN 3-9500302-4-7 .
  • Cukrászda. Confectionery . Advertising leaflet by Café Gerbeaud, Budapest, no year (2011)

Web links

Commons : Café Gerbeaud  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 47 ° 29 '49.3 "  N , 19 ° 3' 1.5"  E

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b daily report. (...) Hofzuckerbäcker Heinrich Kugler †. In:  Neues Wiener Abendblatt , No. 48/1905 (XXXIXth year), February 17, 1905, p. 4, column 3. (Online at ANNO ). Template: ANNO / Maintenance / nwg.
  2. ^ Hungarian General Credit Bank. In:  Neue Freie Presse , Morgenblatt, No. 13671/1910, March 20, 1910, p. 16, column 2. (Online at ANNO ). Template: ANNO / Maintenance / nfp.
  3. ↑ Die Konditorei Gerbeaud ( Memento of the original from October 4, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved from Budapest.info on January 20, 2013  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.budapestinfo.hu