In 1910, when the roof garden was opened at the
Ritz-Carlton on 46th Street and Madison Avenue, chef Louis Diat celebrated by
presenting Manhattan society with a new soup. It was one his mother had made -
the traditional hot leek-and-potato peasant soup of France, cooled with rich,
sweet milk. It was refined by le maître, named Vichyssoise after the fashionable
French watering spot, Vichy, and was served for the first time to Charles
Schwab, the steel magnate.
