For various reasons, I am currently staying in the UK and visiting London a lot. And while in an Austrian deli in London, I had a rather insipid Sacher-torte, the famous chocolate cake invented in 1832 for important dinner guests of the then Austrian State Chancellor, Prince Wenzel von Metternich.
The apprentice chef who invented the cake was 16-year-old Franz Sacher, who had to take over the culinary duties that evening due to the sudden illness of the main chef. Sacher was plainly informed by Metternich: “I hope you won’t disgrace me tonight.”
