NEW YORK — Christian “Hitsch” Albin, who fed the world’s luminaries for decades as executive chef of The Four Seasons — a restaurant that invented the “power lunch” — died Saturday in New York, five days after being diagnosed with cancer, the restaurant’s owners said. He was 61.
The Swiss-born chef’s hearty laughter filled the ritzy Manhattan restaurant’s kitchen for 36 years, serving guests from Jacqueline Onassis and Elton John to President Clinton, Princess Diana and Martha Stewart.
A bigger-than-life man, he put in 14-hour days at the restaurant off Park Avenue. With him in the kitchen, The Four Seasons won a James Beard Award, equivalent to a culinary Oscar.
The storied dining room has hosted the Dalai Lama, Madonna, Bill Clinton and Mary J. Blige — a networking mecca of money, clout, good looks, even global spirituality.
But fame never interested Albin. Instead, he enjoyed feeding hungry deliverymen and workers who came his way.
The Four Seasons is an international publicity machine and, despite its age, still a place to be seen. It even earned landmark status in 1989.
But its chef had not been feeling right lately.
He finally went to the doctor last Monday, when he was given his diagnosis.
He lived in Palisades, north of New York City in Rockland County.
Raised in a Swiss village near the town of Flims, he trained in Switzerland before moving to the United States in the early 1970s.
He is survived by his wife, Hani, his son and daughter and two grandchildren.
