The People's ChefDuring the first half of the nineteenth century, Alexis Soyer, a Frenchman from Meaux, was the most famous cook in London. A combination of chance, talent and social conscience took him into many of the great events of his time. Born in 1810, he cooked his way through the Paris July Days in 1830; he oversaw the building of London's most modern kitchen at the Reform Club, where he ran the kitchen from 1837 to 1850. He designed a model soup kitchen