Nathaniel Newnham-Davis (journalist)

[2] In 1894, Newnham-Davis retired from the army with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel, and joined the staff of The Sporting Times, remaining with the publication until 1912.

[4] He wrote the story for several ballets, and was co-author of a show, Lady Madcap, in collaboration with Paul Rubens and Percy Greenbank, produced in London in 1904.

"[10] The Gourmet's Guide to Europe was published in an American edition in 1908, when The New York Times called it "a veritable masterwork of its own genre".

Among them were "the Colleen", who "prattled incessantly of horses", "the Little Prima Donna", "the Dean's Daughter," and "Miss Brighteyes", a débutante who distressed her host by drinking lemonade with caviare.

[13] In a 1952 article about Newnham-Davis, entitled "A Gourmet in Edwardian London", Elizabeth David detailed some of the menus presented to the Colonel and his companions in the last years of the Victorian era and the first decade of the 20th century.

[14] A fairly typical example was "oysters, soup, sole, a fillet of beef cooked with truffles and accompanied by pommes de terre souflées, wild duck à la presse, a pudding and an ice-cream (bombe Midland)".

"[16] Despite Newnham-Davis's efforts to remain impartial, Elizabeth David concluded that his personal favourite was the Savoy Hotel.

[17] There, in the 1890s, Escoffier's mousse de jambon, "served on a great block of ice and melting like snow in the mouth", was declared a masterpiece, and his bortsch was held by Newnham-Davis to be the best soup in the world.