He wrote a food column for the Daily Telegraph, and produced his first guidebook in 1956.
He was the son of a restaurant owner in Budapest whose businesses were destroyed during and after WWII.
He managed several restaurants before opening his own place which served classic French cuisine.
Conscripted (by his own account) into the fascist-supporting Hungarian forces in 1941, so technically an enemy combatant before his escape to London. This is probably the reason for not being granted any honor by the British government.