North has I.B. Blain as cook for Norfolk Hotel - dismissed 1908

Gazette - 15/8/1908 - HBM Court of Appeal for Eastern Africa - C H Ringer and another v Jean Baptiste Blanc

Law - Ringer v Blanc - September 1908 - M. Blanc was the cook of the Norfolk Hotel, Nairobi, at a salary of Rs. 300 per mensum. The manager was dissatisfied with M. Blanc's cooking, and proceeded in the Town Magistrate's Court, Nairobi, for cancellation of the contract under the Master and Servants Ordinance, 1906. The Magistrate took evidence and came to the conclusion that the responsibility for the bad cooking was divided between  the Manager and M. Blanc, and did not cancel the contract. M. Blanc was dismissed from the Norfolk Hotel, and brought an action in the High Court for damages. ………… Justice Bonham-Carter gave judgement for M. Blanc for Rs. 2,435.50, and refused to take any evidence as to the quality of the cooking, holding that the matter was 'res judicata' in the Town Magistrate's Court. Against this decision the Norfolk Hotel appealed ……….. It appears that the Respondent was employed as cook at the Norfolk Hotel, Nairobi, under a contract; but owing to his cooking being unsatisfactory the Apellant Sidaner, who was manager of the Hotel, took out a summons against him, under the Master and Servants Ordinance, on the 6th January 1907, desiring to have the contract cancelled. …………. At the hearing a quantity of evidence was called by Apellants to show that the Respondent's cooking was bad, and that complaints were made; and by the Respondent to show that the bad cooking was the result of the bad meat and vegetables, etc. being supplied to him by the Apellant. After hearing all the evidence the Magistrate said he was unable to fix the blame and dismissed the case. ……..

Nicholls - Norfolk Hotel - With its French chef Louis Blanc, it was in a different class from the other Nairobi hotels and soon eclipsed them

Mills Norfolk - A.E.T. Imbert 'Bill' could also remember the French chef Louis, who had a furious row with an Arab Somali servant and chased him round the kitchen and put a long, sharp knife through his face". That would have been Louis Blanc, the hotel's proudly advertised 'French chef late of New York's Waldorf Astoria' and whose name  would later crop up yet again in a curious Norfolk Hotel ghost story.