THE SILVER FOUNTAIN
by
Michael Legat



Jean-Paul Fontaine came to London with a burning ambition; to be the proprietor of an exclusive restaurant. But despite his sound training in the eating houses of Paris, he soon found that the London of the 1870s offered no easy entree to a penniless young waiter. Even after his marriage to the half French Madeline, one misfortune after another seemed to dog the young couple. At last, however, their dreams were fulfilled, and the Silver Fountain opened its doors in a quiet corner of Soho.

It was the start of a love affair with catering that was to carry succeeding generations of the Fontaine family to Paris and on to New York, that was to bring heartbreak and tragedy to the Fontaines' daughter, Chantal, and that was to establish the family among the most successful and exclusive restauranteurs in the world.

In a family saga that follows the fortunes of three generations and moves from the 1870s to the 1930s, Michael Legat presents an unusual and fascinating portrait of the restaurant business and the people who run it, with all the complex interplay of good food presented with excellent service in a congenial and appealing ambience. Meticulously researched, it describes a family totally absorbed in the drama of preparing and serving food, obsessed with a passionate love of culinary invention that threatens to destroy their own human relationships.

The Silver Fountain was first published by Souvenir Press in 1982
and republished in 2001 by House of Stratus.



The Silver Fountain is now out of print.