{"id":6995,"date":"2024-02-25T15:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-02-25T15:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/?p=6995"},"modified":"2024-02-24T17:35:54","modified_gmt":"2024-02-24T17:35:54","slug":"basque-fact-of-the-week-restaurateur-henri-soule-and-la-cote-basque","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/2024\/02\/25\/basque-fact-of-the-week-restaurateur-henri-soule-and-la-cote-basque\/","title":{"rendered":"Basque Fact of the Week: Restaurateur Henri Soul\u00e9 and La C\u00f4te Basque"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"has-cyan-bluish-gray-background-color has-background\">This one maybe goes in the &#8220;if&#8221; category. <em>La C\u00f4te Basque<\/em> has been in the news a lot lately. <em>La C\u00f4te Basque<\/em> is a chapter in an unfinished novel by <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Truman_Capote\">Truman Capote<\/a> named after a famed New York restaurant &#8211; it is about New York socialites and is being brought to the small screen as part of <em><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Feud:_Capote_vs._The_Swans\">Feud: Capote vs the Swans<\/a><\/em>. Of course, the name <em>La C\u00f4te Basque<\/em> is intriguing to someone who runs a blog about all things Basque. The restaurant was opened by Henri Soul\u00e9 who was from very near the Basque Country. Several places refer to him as being Basque, though I&#8217;ve had a hard time definitively pinpointing if he was Basque or not. If anyone has more information, I&#8217;d more than welcome it. In any case, it is an interesting story and Soul\u00e9 certainly lived and worked in the Basque Country.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"alignright size-medium\"><a href=\"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/lepavillonhenrisoule.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" src=\"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/lepavillonhenrisoule-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-6996\" srcset=\"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/lepavillonhenrisoule-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/lepavillonhenrisoule-768x576.jpg 768w, https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/lepavillonhenrisoule.jpg 830w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Henri Soul\u00e9 at Le Pavillon. Photo found on <a href=\"https:\/\/restaurant-ingthroughhistory.com\/2022\/01\/30\/famous-in-its-day-le-pavillon\/\">Restaurant-ing through history<\/a>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Soul\u00e9 was born in 1903 in Saubrigues, France, just slightly north of Baiona and Biarritz though strictly outside of the Basque province of Lapurdi. In fact, Wikipedia says he was born in Baiona, but, when he died, Soul\u00e9 requested to be buried in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.saubrigues.fr\/index.php\/portfolio-2\/histoire\">Saubrigues<\/a>, which strongly hints at his strong connection to that town. And other references say he was born in Saubrigues. Perhaps incidentally, Soule is the French name for the Basque province of Zuberoa&#8230;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>In any case, when he was fourteen years old, Soul\u00e9 left home and began working as a busboy at <a href=\"https:\/\/books.google.com\/books?id=bbcnx7VG2xgC&amp;pg=PA254&amp;lpg=PA254&amp;dq=%22the+continental+hotel%22+biarritz+henri+soule&amp;source=bl&amp;ots=0YkBi_E0Ol&amp;sig=ACfU3U3q3Xjfi-57ReXhRuwl-tJg5nWTjg&amp;hl=en&amp;sa=X&amp;ved=2ahUKEwjTwfjLm7OEAxVxMDQIHSq4B3wQ6AF6BAgUEAM#v=onepage&amp;q=%22the%20continental%20hotel%22%20biarritz%20henri%20soule&amp;f=false\">the Continental Hotel<\/a> in Biarritz. He had been recommended by his uncle who was a baker in Baiona. It wasn&#8217;t long before he was in Paris where, by the age of 21, he became the city&#8217;s youngest ma\u00eetre d&#8217;h\u00f4tel. In 1926, he worked in London, at the Tocadero Restaurant in Piccadilly Circus with one goal being to learn English.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>In 1939, he was asked to run Le Restaurant Fran\u00e7ais which was part of the French pavilion at the World&#8217;s Fair in New York City. When World War II began, he decided to stay in the United States and, in 1941, he opened his first restaurant, <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Le_Pavillon_(Henri_Soul\u00e9_restaurant)\">Le Pavillon<\/a>. It became &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/qz.com\/816889\/people-dont-like-french-food-as-much-as-they-used-to-because-french-restaurants-are-pretentious\">the undisputed top-ranked establishment in America<\/a>&#8221; and &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/restaurant-ingthroughhistory.com\/2022\/01\/30\/famous-in-its-day-le-pavillon\/\">produced this country\u2019s finest French cuisine<\/a>.&#8221; <\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>In 1958, he opened <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/La_C\u00f4te_Basque\">La C\u00f4te Basque<\/a> on the site of the old Le Pavillon, which had moved to another location. The walls were painted with murals of <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Saint-Jean-de-Luz\">Donibane Lohitzune<\/a> (Saint-Jean-de-Luz). When it started taking clientele away from Le Pavillon, Soul\u00e9 sold it but he bought it back only a few years later. It was only a year later that he died of a heart attack, either in the men&#8217;s room or on the phone yelling at a union official. When he died, there were some twelve restaurants that had grown out of Le Pavillon.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>As food writer Patric Kuh <a href=\"https:\/\/www.southernfoodways.org\/striving-toward-purpose\/\">describes him<\/a>, &#8220;He was Basque, and he liked to eat flaked salt cod with warm boiled potatoes and chopped parsley.&#8221; He was once described by food critic Gael Greene as &#8220;pasty faced&#8230; with owl eyes,&#8221; but also as a &#8220;showman, snob, perfectionist, martinet, con-man, wooer and wooed master of haute cuisine.&#8221;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Soul\u00e9 was also known to be tyrannical in both his dealings with his staff and his clientele. He supposedly hired criminals to intimidate his staff when they tried to strike for better wages and hours. He controlled where customers sat &#8211; he wanted to &#8220;bestow&#8221; the best, most visible seats to those he deemed worthy and favored. Those who he did not favor got seated in &#8220;Siberia.&#8221; And he cowed to no one, even having a public spat with the Kennedys during <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/John_F._Kennedy\">John F. Kennedy<\/a>&#8216;s presidential run about a photographer he refused to evict. <\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>When he died, he <a href=\"https:\/\/content.time.com\/time\/subscriber\/article\/0,33009,842530-2,00.html\">left his two restaurants<\/a> to his widow Olga, who was living in Baiona, and his sister Madeleine. This was surprising to those who knew him, as no one even knew he had a family back in France. They had all assumed that Henriette Spalter, who started as a coat-checker, was his wife, though in reality she was his mistress. Spalter bought La C\u00f4te Basque and continued its operation until 1979, when she sold it. It closed permanently as La C\u00f4te Basque in 2004. Le Pavillon didn&#8217;t last nearly so long, closing in 1971.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Primary sources: <em><a href=\"https:\/\/books.google.com\/books?id=HWKZCwAAQBAJ&amp;printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&amp;q&amp;f=false\">Ten Restaurants That Changed America<\/a><\/em> by Paul Freedman, <em><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Henri_Soul\u00e9\">Henri Soul\u00e9<\/a><\/em>, Wikipedia; <em>Dining at the Pavillon<\/em> by Joseph Wechsberg<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This one maybe goes in the &#8220;if&#8221; category. La C\u00f4te Basque has been in the news a lot lately. La C\u00f4te Basque is a chapter in an unfinished novel by Truman Capote named after a famed New York restaurant &#8211; it is about New York socialites and is being brought to the small screen as [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6996,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[836,16,19],"tags":[235,3915,3920,3917,3916,3918,3919],"class_list":["post-6995","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-basque-fact-of-the-week","category-food","category-people","tag-biarritz","tag-henri-soule","tag-john-f-kennedy","tag-la-cote-basque","tag-le-pavillon","tag-saubrigues","tag-truman-capote"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/lepavillonhenrisoule.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2sYNu-1OP","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6995","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6995"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6995\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7013,"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6995\/revisions\/7013"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6996"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6995"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6995"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6995"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}