- Charles Francatelli was a real chef, was an amazing chef.
One of his books is called The Modern Cook.
You'd absolutely define him as a European, Italian parentage, raised in London, learned his trade in France.
He was only at Buckingham Palace as the Queen's chef de cuisine for three or four years, I think maybe even less.
He was quite tempestuous, but I love Francatelli's, his attempts to change the way society saw food.
You see a lot of Francatelli finishing off amazing dishes just because dramatically that's the bit that's interesting.
We work from actual accurate recipes for a scene the night before Francatelli's due to open his restaurant.
The art department just made these unbelievable trays and confectioneries and they're all from his various books.
His favorite book of mine is called A Plain and Simple Cookery Book For the Working Classes and is one of the very few, very, very, few, very first cookbooks aimed at people who have basically no money and in the forward he says, "The fact that you've got no money shouldn't mean that you shouldn't be healthy."
Jenna, on my last day of shooting, gave me, it may not be a first edition, it might be a second edition, but it's a very, very, very old copy of one of Francatelli's books.
Jenna and Tom gave it to me and it's illustrated, it's beautiful, yeah.
So I've got a few of them on my bookshelf now.
(light piano music)
