Franz Pfordte

Franz Pfordte

Franz Pfordte (born January 23, 1840 in Delitzsch , Saxony , † January 28, 1917 in Hamburg ) was a well-known German chef in his day .

Live and act

Franz Pfordte was born in Delitzsch in Saxony on January 23, 1840. In 1858 he came to Hamburg and worked in the “Wilkens Keller” restaurant. Wilkens Restaurant already had a very good reputation.

In 1859 Wilkens handed over his restaurant to Franz Pfordte. In 1878 Pfordte bought new premises in the center of Hamburg and founded the “Pfordte” restaurant.

Emperors, kings and grand princes as well as other socially significant personalities, among them Bismarck and Moltke , frequented Pfordte's restaurant.

Pfordte was an avid fan of the French culinary classics . He oriented himself on Antoine Careme , Urbain Dubois and Émile Bernard . However, his sensitive feelings told him that he should not present the art of these great French people indiscriminately to the German and especially the Hamburg audience. So he refined the recipes until he believed he had found the taste of the guests.

Pfordte's ambition was to raise everyone who honored his restaurant to be as fine a gourmet as he was himself. In Hamburg, people began to be proud of the man whose cuisine was famous far beyond Germany's borders and whose house was a major attraction in the city.

Franz Pfordte, merchants' collective grave (II g), Ohlsdorf cemetery

In 1909, when he was already considered the Grand Old Man of his guild, the restaurateur moved to the newly opened " Hotel Atlantic ", where he acted as restaurant director and, together with his first chef, Alfred Walterspiel , took care of the culinary art in the palace on the Alster the Hotel Atlantic thus far-reaching world fame.

To emphasize the importance of the kitchen, the hotel was given the name "Atlantic - Pfordte", which was affixed in huge letters to a roof grille above the facade.

At the World Exhibition in Paris in 1900 , he ran the German restaurant.

Franz Pfordte is commemorated on the collective grave plate Merchants (II g) of the Althamburg Memorial Cemetery, Ohlsdorf Cemetery .

Quotes

The Berlin columnist Pem wrote in the Neue Berliner Zeitung / 12 o'clock newspaper in 1929 :

“'Pfordte' - that's my Hamburg experience. - This restaurant - or better known as the dining kitchen - is definitely finer than any guest. The waiters hover silently over the thick runners; no mundane noise disturbs the enjoying palate; the plates, platters and cutlery seem to be made of velvet, if not of soundproof metal. One would prefer not to order anything at all; the waiter knows everything better - you think. The menu promises complicated exoticism that does not disappoint. "

Detlev von Liliencron praised Pfordte in rhyming form:

“The best place to eat in the world is Hamburg, this noble beefsteak cake. / And here, but seldom without a lot of money / Quite excellent indeed, at Pfordte. "

Von Liliencron also mentioned him in his poem Banished :

"Only yesterday I ate a dinner from Pfordte, / And, afterwards, a piece of cake from Kranzler."

Wolf Graf von Baudissin (Baron von Schlicht) stated in his biography:

“Linsingen sometimes loved to drive from Lübeck to nearby Hamburg to eat with the world-famous Franz Pfordte. He often invited a few of his lieutenants to accompany him to Hamburg, of course at his own expense, and to be his guests there. The gentlemen did not have to be told twice, of course, but when they had feasted at Pfordte one evening ... "

And the journalist Eugen Wolf wrote:

“To be able to sit with little Franz Pfordte in Hamburg only once again for an hour, at the snowy-white table covered with fine glasses, washed, combed, fully dressed! then I wanted to go back out into the dirt, into the privation, in an unwashed pot, steam Morton's greasy Australian mutton and choke it down from ice-cold iron plates while the fat is curdling! "

literature

• Franz Pfordte: Cooking recipes Edited by Mrs. Henny Pfordte, Hamburg, 1927.

Web links

• Legends of culinary art: Franz Pfordte (history, recipes, menu cards)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Pem : A dinner is being celebrated . In: Neue Berliner Zeitung / Das 12 Uhr Blatt , April 4, 1929, p. [3].
2. ↑ Eugen Wolf : My walks. Inside China. German publishing house 1901.