"French bistro food is my favorite - steak
frites, a two-inch high quiche with bacon and onions, a salad with an
egg on top finished with a perfect vinaigrette, a croque madame, some
oysters and a glass of champagne. These are foods that represent the
most important kind of cooking there is because they're rooted in
tradition. So when I thought of opening a restaurant that's more casual
than The French Laundry, I decided to explore and deepen the culinary
heritage that I admire so much. A Bouchon can be, and should be,
whatever you need it to be. It's a casual place, a social place, a place
where people come to relax talk and to eat. A kind of home." ~ Thomas
Keller
When Thomas Keller imagined
opening a second restaurant in Napa Valley, next door to his French Laundry,
he envisioned a place serving food that excited him in a different way from
the food at The French Laundry. He craved food that was less complicated,
and a place that was more casual, where he could go every night after work.
And that was how Bouchon was born. Bouchon cooking is about elevating to
elegance the simplest ingredients, because the best food isn't necessarily
what is served at white-tablecloth restaurants, and the best meals--as most
Chefs will tell you--don't require the most expensive ingredients or lots of
them or lots of steps. The only thing that's required is that you care about
all the stages of the process--the slow browning of sliced onion for an
onion soup, the proper cutting of the potatoes for a gratin, the right
amount of salt on a raw chicken, how long you cook a pot de crème. All the
emblematic bistro dishes are here, interpreted and executed as they've never
been before. The confit of duck, country-style pâtés, soupe à l'oignon
gratinée, steamed mussels, steak frites, gigot d'agneau, all achieve the
impossible: They get even better.
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