At the Savoy in Mayfair

Last week it emerged that the refurbishment of the Savoy in Mayfair may end up costing as much as £200 million, twice what it was supposed to. The London debut of Gilbert and Sullivan's Mikado financed the hotel's original construction in the 1880s, but you'd presumably need a whole karaoke bar full of Mikados to pay for the current refit; and there is no celebrity alive today that could guarantee such a vigorous return on your investment as the actress Lillie Langtry once did.

It was Langtry's arrival at the Savoy, along with that of the singer Nellie Melba that first made the place famous. “Lillie Langtry took a suite at £50 a year with an extra £30 for the services of a maid, valet and chambermaid,” writes Stanley Jackson in his history of the hotel. “At Savoy Court she sipped her usual morning glass of champagne at eleven while receiving friends and admirers like Arthur Bourchier with whom she played in As You Like It; Alfred de Rothschild, a hypochondriac who was never without an armoury of pills and powders; her monocled solicitor, Sir George Lewis; Oscar Wilde, who of course affected to despise the neo-Georgian decorations; and an endless procession of lovers, jockeys, spongers and fortune-tellers.”

But just as significantly it was Langtry who convinced the Savoy's owner Richard D'Oyly Carte to employ César Ritz as the hotel's manager. Ritz, who later founded the eponymous chain of hotels, managed to persuade the secluded London society of those days that it was more chic to have dinner at the Savoy Restaurant on Sunday evenings than in their own homes. Then Langtry lobbied for licensing laws to be extended so that people could keep drinking until half past midnight. Gradually the whole pattern of London social life changed. I should definitely start taking that much interest in my local.

Ritz also brought with him Auguste Escoffier, one of the greatest chefs in history, who, like Langtry, died in Monaco on today's date. By 1890, Langtry had finished her long affair with the Prince of Wales, but they would still have encountered each other often in the Savoy Restaurant. A bit awkward, maybe, but totally worth it for the food. The cooking back then wasn't much like how we think of French food now: garlic, for instance, was taboo, so if Escoffier wanted to use it he had to do so without his customers ever realising. But even without garlic it was delicious. Hard to see how that could possibly be true, but contemporary reports are adamant. One of Escoffier's most famous dishes was the Consommé Zola, named after the writer, who stayed in the Savoy in 1893. I look forward to Gordon Ramsay, who is running the new Savoy Grill, coming up with a Beauman Madras.