Escoffier vs Carême: should the kitchen serve the guest or the spectacle?

Monsieur Carême, I stripped away your towers of sugar and your inedible centerpieces so the food might reach the diner hot, in order, and simply delicious.

And in doing so you starved the eye, Auguste; I called architecture the noblest of the arts, and pastry its finest branch, for a table must astonish before the mouth is opened.

But your guests admired marble palaces while their sauces congealed — my brigade de cuisine serves ten men in courses, each plate perfect at the perfect moment.

Then you have built a very efficient factory, my friend, while I built a cathedral; posterity may dine at your line, but it will still gasp at mine.