George Lang, the Hungarian-born restaurant owner and cookbook author, has died at the age of 86. His career in the world of gastronomy was marked by establishments such as the Caf\u00e9 des Artistes in New York. In the early 1990s, Lang helped breathe new life into the Gundel restaurant in Budapest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to his wife, Jenifer Harvey Lang, her husband died on Tuesday. He had been receiving treatment for Alzheimer\u2019s disease for some time, the New York Times reported.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
George Lang \u2013 whose original name was Gy\u00f6rgy Deutsch \u2013 was born in Sz\u00e9kesfeh\u00e9rv\u00e1r on 13 July 1924. As a teenager, he moved to Budapest, where he learnt to play the violin. During the Second World War, he escaped from a forced-labour camp and, in an attempt to save his life, joined the Arrow Cross. Whilst \u201ehiding\u201d amongst the fascists, however, he rescued Jews; they later testified on his behalf when he was captured by the advancing Soviet forces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lang was eventually smuggled into Austria in a coffin. In 1946, he arrived in New York with just a few dollars in his pocket. He did not speak English, and his dream was to become a concert violinist. However, after hearing Jascha Heifetz play, he came to the conclusion that he would have to seek his fortune in another field, which he eventually found in the world of restaurants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He quickly rose through the ranks, first becoming a chef, then a banquet manager, and finally developing new restaurant concepts whilst working for an organisation called Restaurant Associates. He was a founding partner of the Four Seasons restaurant and, in 1970, set up his own consultancy firm \u2013 the first of its kind in the United States.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In 1975, a member of the management team at the Hotel des Artistes asked him to take over the hotel\u2019s restaurant, which, under his leadership, became one of the city\u2019s favourite haunts. He never lost touch with his Hungarian roots either; in the 1990s, he helped breathe new life into the Gundel restaurant in Budapest.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
George Lang, a Hungarian-born restaurant owner, has died at the age of 86\u2026 In the early 1990s, Lang helped breathe new life into the Gundel restaurant in Budapest.<\/p>","protected":false},"featured_media":17811,"template":"","publikacio":[139],"class_list":["post-17812","sajto","type-sajto","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","publikacio-index"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gundel.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sajto\/17812","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gundel.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sajto"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gundel.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/sajto"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gundel.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sajto\/17812\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gundel.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17811"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gundel.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17812"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"publikacio","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gundel.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/publikacio?post=17812"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}