André Noël, born in Périgueux in 1726 and died in Berlin on May 4, 1801, was a French chef in the service of King Frederick II of Prussia.

He created famous dishes for the royal table, such as a "bombe de Sardanapale", but is also credited with making a pheasant pâté that La Mettrie is said to have enjoyed to the point of dying of indigestion.

[2] According to Friedrich Nicolai, the "bombe de Sardanapale"[note 7] was Frederick II's favorite dish which was frequently served at the royal table between 1772 and 1779.

[34][35][36] It is mentioned in a 137-verse poem by Frederick II, Epître au sieur Noël maître d'hôtel par l'Empereur de la Chine, published in Potsdam in 1772.

[42] Pierre René Auguis proposes a third version: according to him, the king, tasting what Carlo Denina called "infernal cuisine",[26] chose the ingredients, or rather demanded the incorporation of some, and Noël named the dish:[note 8] He imagined a combination of ingredients so violent as to outrage any other man: Noël protested against such an unhealthy dish, but obeyed repeated orders.

[50] He notes that Frederick II's cook prepared "admirable" soups, dishes "mostly in the French style and some of extraordinary strength", made with "all sorts of extremely delicate things".

[53][10] Pierre Lacam and Antoine Charabot credit André Noël with the invention of the pastry wheel: Wanting to make a frangipane tart without "banding it as usual",[note 9] he took "a scrap spur from the stables" and made "fluted strips to toast it on and around".

[58] Friedrich Wilhelm Barthold, one of the first to refer to La Mettrie's death as a "bombe de Sardanapale", adds, however, that only Casanova seems to have known that Noël was the cook of the dish.

[59]This is an anachronism on Casanova's part: It was in 1751, before Noël arrived in Potsdam, and not in 1764, that La Mettrie died of having eaten a pâté that Madeleine Ferrières wondered was from Périgueux,[60] Antoine Louis Paris asserted that it was made by "a cook who passed for very skilful" who had arrived from Paris,[61] Voltaire, that it was "sent from the North",[62] Frederick II, that it was "a whole pheasant pâté",[63] and Voltaire, again, that the ginger masked the presence of spoiled meat.

He confessed that one of the principal organs of a good cook, the nose, had brought him out of the underworld, and apostrophized the company with these words: The smell of pheasants and truffles draws me from Paradise.

[2][note 13]André Noël is one of the characters in the historical novel Potsdam und Sans-Souci (1848), written by Eduard Maria Oettinger.