Rosa Lewis, née Ovenden (1867 – 1952) was a British chef and owner of The Cavendish Hotel in London, located at the intersection of Jermyn Street and Duke Street, St James. Known as the "Queen of Cooks", her culinary skills were highly prized by Edward VII, with whom she was rumoured to have had an affair in the 1890s.[1][2] She was also called "The Duchess of Jermyn Street."[3]
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She was born in Leyton, the fifth of nine children. Her father was a watchmaker and later an undertaker.[4]
She left school at 12 to go into domestic service,[5] working her way up to cook. She claimed that the great chef Auguste Escoffier, then at the Carlton Hotel, taught her about cooking. It was he who named her the "Queen of Cooks".[4] One of her employers was Lady Randolph Churchill.[5] One day, Rosa chased Lady Churchill's then ten-year-old, red-haired son Winston out of her kitchen, shouting "Hop it, copper knob."[4]
She married butler Chiney Lewis in 1893. However, she did not think much of her husband. "My family said that if I did not marry Mr. Lewis they would shoot me. ... So we were married and I threw the ring at him at the church door and left him flat."[1]
There are several versions describing how she met Edward VII. According to Time Magazine, it was Lady Randolph who introduced them.[1] However, the Cavendish Hotel biography states they first met while she was employed by Philippe, comte de Paris; he complimented her for the excellence of the dinner.[5] In any case, he enjoyed her cooking very much. It was suspected by some that he helped her purchase the Cavendish Hotel in 1902.[1][3] Another admirer of her culinary skills was Kaiser Wilhelm II, who presented her with his portrait. During World War I, she had it hung in the men's toilet.[3]
Richard Hillary knew her, and wrote in The Last Enemy:
Lewis died in her sleep on November 8, 1952 at the age of 85.[7] She was buried in Putney Vale Cemetery.
The 1976-77 BBC television series, The Duchess of Duke Street, starring Gemma Jones, was loosely based on her life.[8] It is said that some of the scenes in Vile Bodies by Evelyn Waugh also were inspired by the Cavendish Hotel under Lewis' management, [9] in which she appears as her fictional counterpart Lottie Crump.[10]
On 16 November, 2006, Gemma Jones unveiled Westminster City Council's 68th commemorative Green plaque to Lewis, near the entrance to the old hotel in Jermyn Street.