“Caterer and Hotel Keeper”, Magazine from 29th of November 1996.

This article was published in “Caterer and Hotel Keeper”         Magazine from 29th of November 1996.

The article describes the difficulties that one has to overcome when preparing and waiting on the table on the luxury train Orient Express.

Chef Christian Bogdiel is the sole chef who doesn’t allow garlic to be served on the luxurious train. The reason for this is: the passengers who travel together for more than 41 hours don’t want to have an unpleasant smell.

A good organization is the key to success for the three restaurants which serve brunch, lunch and dinner, for 125-200 persons on the route Venice to London and back. Afternoon tea and breakfast are served in the compartments.

One has to pay a lot of money to enjoy the culinary art of the chef and the beauty of the landscapes.

The menu is conceived according to the season of the year, and it changes each week. The menu offers a choice of two starters and two mains.

The food is supplied from Paris: lobsters, langoustines, asparagus, artichoke, beef fillet. The person who is supplying is the Chef, who has no hesitation in rejecting the non-quality products.

His team has 1 sous-chef, 2 team leaders and 2 chef helpers, who work in two small rooms, in between the three restaurant wagons.

The chef has been taught at Saint Lazaire school, learning quality French cuisine. He inspires himself with new ideas in his journeys around the world, in Asia, Africa.

Luxury is something I can’t afford, such as a journey with Orient Express, or a Bugatti Veyron, or a house in Seychelles.

The image of the luxury is Versailles, but it is also a house built with state of the art building materials, and latest technology.

To me, to be able to do whatever  I want, whenever I want, it’s a luxury.

And, nevertheless, the perception of the luxury is also a matter of civilization and period in time. Something that was a luxury a few decades ago, a car for example, now is commonplace. A few hundreds of years ago, to get education, to go to school was a luxury, now school is compulsory education.

For what is stands for from historical point of view, and for the services that it provides, I would like to take a journey by Orient Express, but this is just in theory.

Actually, I wouldn’t enjoy to take this trip, because it’s not my style, I couldn’t feel comfortable in this immovable atmosphere, in this old fashion train.

And, on top of that, I take into consideration the time element. This journey takes too much time, and I don’t have enough patience for it.

I believe many people take this journey out of snobbery, they want to show everybody that they have the money to afford it, and then to brag to their friends about it.

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