Paul Bocuse, Joël Robuchon, and Roger Vergé.
When I began working for Reuters just
out of college in the summer of 1987, these were
the only Chefs in France whose names I recognized. If you had
asked me for specifics about why they were so famous, I would have
been lost for words. All I knew was that I had heard of them.
But a decade later -- and well before my present-day interest in the
cuisine of France began to blossom – there would be one more Chef
whose name I would know: Alain Ducasse. And unlike the others,
I could tell you exactly why I'd heard of him. He had been
awarded six Michelin stars for his two flagship restaurants, the
first Chef in nearly 60 years to be so honored (Eugenie Brazier, a
Chef with two restaurants in the Lyon area, held three stars each
from 1933 to 1938). Yes, Alain Ducasse had, in the eyes of
many, accomplished the impossible by taking both Restaurant Alain
Ducasse in Paris and Le Louis XV in Monte Carlo to three Michelin
star status. The result? Alain Ducasse became in the
eyes of many not just a famous French Chef, but
the great Chef of France.
Here in New York, I still remember the buzz in
1997 when the announcement came that Laurent Gras, who had worked for Ducasse in Paris,
would become the Chef at Peacock Alley in the Waldorf Astoria.
Would New Yorkers finally be able to get a taste of the master's
cooking, from his former Chef de cuisine at the Paris restaurant?
As it turned out, the best was yet to come...or so we thought.
For in the spring of 2000 New Yorkers learned that Alain Ducasse
would open a gastronomic restaurant at the Essex House on Central
Park South, in the space formerly occupied by Les Célébrités.
The restaurant would have just 65 seats, and there would be no
turning of tables. If you were fortunate enough to secure a
table, it would be yours for the evening—something
unheard of in New York. Also, most ingredients were
going to
be sourced from within the United States; lobsters from Maine would
be served, not Brittany blue lobsters from France. And since Chef Ducasse would be
putting his own name on the door (the last time he would ever do
this, he said), New Yorkers fully expected a restaurant equal to his
Paris and Monte Carlo restaurants. With such expectations, the reservations flooded in. Apparently there
were over 2700 reservations before the restaurant opened.
But
once Alain Ducasse at the Essex
House opened its doors a few months later, to say that things didn't work
out as planned would be a great understatement. Yet Alain Ducasse and Chef de cuisine Didier Elena did not
throw in the towel. Together they turned things completely around
in the kitchen. And
in December 2001, just 18 months after
the less-than-stellar opening, Alain Ducasse at the Essex House was rightly awarded four stars by The New
York Times. William Grimes, the Times restaurant critic, noted "Mr. Ducasse, a Chef in the classic
French tradition, promised New York a great restaurant. Now he has
delivered it. He came, he stumbled and he stayed. And now he has conquered."
But sadly, the restaurant appeared to
stumble again.
And in
early 2005, the Times took the restaurant down from four stars to
three. What happened? I believe that first and foremost,
Per Se happened. Thomas Keller's triumph at the Time Warner
Center in New York set a new high water mark for excellence in
French-influenced cooking, making the ongoing inconsistencies in the
cooking and the service at
Alain Ducasse at the Essex House that much more glaring and tougher
to overlook.
Another thing that went wrong was the
appointment of Christian Delouvrier to be the new head Chef in 2004.
While there is no doubting Chef Delouvrier's exceptional talents as a Chef
(he was, after all, the Chef in charge when the Michelin inspectors
were visiting the restaurant), this Chef at
this restaurant was in retrospect a mismatch if there
ever was one. Praised as as a New York Chef in touch with "New
York sensibilities" (whatever those are), he generated a menu hailed
by one critic as "Manhattan-modern". Mmmm...isn't this the
kind of cooking that New Yorkers were already getting their fill of
at restaurants like Daniel and
Chanterelle?
There's the rub. People go to Alain Ducasse at the Essex House
(and willingly pay Alain Ducasse prices) not for "New York" French cooking,
but for Alain Ducasse French cooking. A great Alain Ducasse
Chef working in New York does not necessarily have to be in touch
with the sensibilities of New Yorkers. He need only
be in thorough and complete touch with the sensibilities of just one man, his
boss Alain Ducasse.
Fortunately, the Times downgrade served as the needed wake up call.
Christian Delouvrier was shown the door. As Alain Ducasse
explained, "'I am at the top in Paris, in Monte Carlo and in Tokyo, and I cannot
remain with three stars in New York. I knew we could not
regain four stars with Christian Delouvrier at the helm, and I had
to make important changes in the dynamic of the kitchen. I needed
someone who has worked longer with me. And once I make up my mind I
move fast. The life of this enterprise depends on it.''
Now the right man is
in the
kitchen, and his name is Tony Esnault. Born in the small town
of Saumur in France’s Loire Valley, he worked at Carré des
Feuillants in Paris and then at the famed Auberge de L’Ill in Alsace
before going to Monte Carlo in 1996 to join Alain Ducasse at Le Louis XV, where he stayed
for three years. In addition to his duties in this
three-Michelin-star kitchen, Esnault traveled with and assisted Chef
Ducasse at gala dinners around the world, from Japan to Brazil.
Just prior to taking the helm in New York this past May, he was the
executive Chef at The Dining Room at The Ritz-Carlton in Boston,
where the excellence of his cooking led Food & Wine Magazine to name
Chef Esnault "Best Hotel Chef of America" in 2004.
After the first-ever New York
Michelin Guide awarded the restaurant
three stars in last
fall, I
was curious to return and find out for myself if these stars were in
fact merited.
What I found made me happy indeed. Although Christian
Delouvrier was gone, the cooking under Tony Esnault had a harmony
and a level of excellence that, in my opinion, surpassed even the
cooking of Didier Elena. (My main fear about returning to
Ducasse was that no matter how good the cooking would be, it would
never reach the level eventually achieved by Chef Elena.). A
dish I sampled from the fall menu particularly worth mentioning was
the foie gras terrine with mission fig jam. Rich
and intense, it is one of the best foie gras preparations I ever
had.
Another dish was an exceptional rack
of lamb ‘au sautoir’, accompanied by a condiment of dried
fruit and piquillos, served with creamy quinoa on the side.
The rack of lamb, extraordinarily tender and perfectly cooked, was
the best lamb I have ever eaten. The fruits and piquillos
highlighted the
lamb while not overwhelming it.
As for the service, while much improved from earlier
visits, it continued to lack the seamless consistency that the cooking
under Tony Esnault had achieved. There were still too
many small service mistakes. Water glasses were not promptly
refilled, napkins were often (but not always) replaced during a
restroom break, and a partially used helping of unsalted butter was
removed, but not replaced until about 20 minutes later. That
said, I left the evening convinced that yes, on the basis of the
cooking, this restaurant does
indeed merit three Michelin stars.
So I was eager to return once the winter menu came out in
mid December. Now, after several subsequent visits since that
fall dinner; I have the confidence to report that Alain Ducasse at
the Essex House has finally become what it set out to be:
thegreat New York French restaurant.
Only Thomas Keller's Per Se at the Time Warner Center plays in the same space.
And the service has
greatly improved to the point where, yes, it is consistently seamless, fully
complementing the extraordinary cooking instead of distracting from
it.
What makes Alain Ducasse
at the Essex House the best French restaurant in New York? One
must begin with the reservation. The initial policy that the table you book is yours for the evening
has -- thank goodness -- not changed. As Alain Ducasse explained to The New York
Times the year the restaurant opened, "'Time is a luxury, and a
restaurant is a place of luxury,' Mr. Ducasse said on the phone from
Paris, emphasizing the importance of 'hospitalite' and 'convivialite' as if they were
constitutional rights inseparable from a three- or four-hour meal.
'We should not impose time limits.' Otherwise the restaurant will
not be a place where New Yorkers can find sanctuary from their
mortal enemy: 'le stress.'"
When entering the restaurant, one is immediately
struck by the elegance of this intimate dining room and its well-spaced tables. Once seated,
you are soon offered a
glass of champagne. (In my opinion, a
truly great French meal should always begin with a glass of champagne.) And what an array of choices, brought before you on a trolley. My advice is that if
a "grower champagne" from a small producer is available, try that.
My favorites to date are the 1996 Pierre Moncuit Blanc de Blancs and
the nonvintage Bruno Paillard rosé. (A word of caution: don't
hesitate to ask about the cost of a particular offering; you may be
surprised at the cost of some of them!)
Next, you are brought two small
Gougères filled with a silky Béchamel sauce.
Eat them whole, or you will soon be requesting some soda water for
your tie or dress. Then there are the waters. A most impressive
choice is offered, both sparkling and flat. For
flat waters, there is Voss from Norway, Evian from France, and a
bottled water from Saratoga Springs, to name a few. And if you
are not comfortable with these offerings, there are additional selections your waiter can retrieve if so requested.
Two butters
are then placed on the table, salted and unsalted, both from France. These are
for what is probably about the best bread service in the United States.
There is a choice of epi, baguette, salted brioche, and my personal favorite, the
black olive brioche. Only the bread service at Joël Robuchon at The Mansion in Las Vegas
is comparable. If bread does indeed set the tone tone for the
evening at a restaurant, you know from tasting these breads -- the
handiwork of Sandro Micheli, the restaurant's superb pastry and
dessert Chef --
that you are in for quite some evening!
For your dinner, there are three
different menus offered. The à la carte menu is available with
three courses (appetizer, one meat or fish course, and dessert) or
four (appetizer, a fish and meat course, and dessert) at $150 and
$175 respectively. There is also a seven course tasting menu
for $225 which includes cheese (available for an additional $21 when
ordering à la carte), and, for winter, a six course tuber
melanosporum black truffle menu at $290 which includes a truffled
brie de Meaux composed cheese course and concludes with a "chocolate
declination" of ganache/mousse/nougatine and black truffle ice
cream.
But even if you do not have the black
truffle menu, do indeed order one or two of
the black
truffle dishes when ordering à la carte, which is what I have often done
when ordering the four course menu. For an appetizer, my very
favorite is the warm mosaic of selected vegetables with black
truffle condiment. This is one of the finest vegetable dishes
I have ever tasted, and the black truffle condiment lifts the
flavors to a higher dimension. As for the meat course, the blue foot chicken with
rainbow Swiss chard and black truffles is excellent.
And the lobster, poached with salsifis,
spinach and black truffles, is just extraordinary. (The
best lobster dishes I have ever had have been at this restaurant:
the current lobster dish and the lobster medallions served atop a
butter tart with citrus marmalade when Didier Elena was the Chef.)
Before describing more of the dishes, I need to
briefly explain the Alain
Ducasse "60% ingredients / 40% technique" style of cooking. Several descriptions I have
seen of the
Alain Ducasse have
either been oversimplifications (ex. "for Ducasse the focus is the
ingredients") or descriptions like "Baroque" that sound
impressive, but don't tell you very much. That said, I will
now do my best to provide an overview of the Ducasse style in
laymen's terms.
Generally speaking, the cooking of Alain Ducasse is more robust
and full flavored than, say, the mild and delicately flavored cooking
found at Guy Savoy in Paris or Robuchon in Las Vegas. And unlike other famous Chefs, Alain Ducasse
is not really associated with classic recipes he created. In
fact, with the exception of the Baba with rum (a dessert served at
all the Ducasse gastronomic restaurants), there is not a single dish
that one immediately associates with this Chef. How different from
Chefs such as Thomas Keller, who is known for masterpieces like
"Oysters and Pearls" or "Peas and
Carrots", or Alain Senderens and his classic lobster with vanilla
sauce.
So if Alain Ducasse is not associated with recipes, what
exactly is his culinary contribution? The best
answer I have comes from the
Epicurious website: "Ducasse
revolutionized classical French haute cuisine by incorporating less
hallowed, robustly flavored provincial foods from southern France
and Italy and by placing more emphasis on ingredients as the alpha
and omega of good cooking. His food is focused and innovative
without being conceptual; it's refined and exquisitely restrained."
Yes, for Alain Ducasse, the overriding
principle is that the ingredients are indeed paramount. But
how does this principle work out practically in the dishes served at
the Essex House? His dishes
(desserts being an exception) almost always feature one ingredient
as king, with additional ingredients subservient to that one
ingredient. These dishes come together in basically one of three ways.
The first way is to
feature an ingredient with other ingredients very much in the
background, with the purpose of the other ingredients being to
further heighten the main ingredient. In other words,
additional ingredients are
there primarily to lift up the main ingredient, much like servants
lifting up their master on a sedan chair, calling
little or no attention to themselves. Examples of such dishes
include the warm mosaic of selected vegetables and fruits with
"navette" oil and the Cobia served in peppermint broth (pictured).
Is the Cobia exceptional? Absolutely. And you say you can't
taste the peppermint? Possibly not. The
peppermint is present not to call attention to itself, but
to further heighten the taste of the Cobia.
The second way the Ducasse principle works itself out is by having
a main ingredient placed with other ingredients that are far more
pronounced than the first way. The most notable
examples here are the black truffle dishes and the Australian barramundi
with chocolate dolce forte. For the barramundi, the sauce has
a richer, more intense flavor. It is not the nearly-invisible
player as with the navette oil or the peppermint broth, but instead
takes a place like a fine supporting player with a magnificent
actor, where the performance of the supporting player heightens the
performance of the lead actor.
The third way an Alain Ducasse dish
comes together is to place the main ingredient alongside several
different ingredients, where the ingredients again are not in the
background, but form an ensemble designed to heighten and broaden
the full range of the main ingredient.
The best example of such a dish is the wild Scottish partridge "sur
canapé". It is served with a chicken liver mousse, foie gras
and cognac "pie", chestnut purée, and roasted winter fruits.
To truly enjoy this dish, one should first cut a small piece of some
of the most delectable poultry breast you will ever eat, to taste
the rich, buttery texture of the partridge apart from the
accompaniments. Next, place a bit of the "pie" on your fork
along with a piece of partridge. Then, working clockwise, the
results will astound you. Each accompaniment serves to show
off the impeccable partridge in a unique way, much like different
opera soloists would
show off a remarkable lead tenor through the singing of different
duets and trios. At Alain Ducasse, the results of assembling
dishes in such a manner are
nearly always magnificent.
For appetizers, they are all worth
having. However, while I continue to recommend the foie gras
terrine, the fall menu preparation with mission fig jam is tastier
than the current accompaniments of crunchy watermelon
radish and mango chutney. As for the meat and fish dishes, you
may have guessed that my favorites are the lobster and the wild
Scottish partridge. Also, if you have heard of the blue leg
chicken and have been wanting to try it, you can do no better than
Chef Esnault's current preparation for one served with rainbow Swiss
chard, black truffles, and cooking jus. Of all the main course
entrees, only the Millbrook venison served with beets, sweet
potatoes and shaved pear was not as special as it could have been.
For venison, the very best is the white fallow venison, which I
don't think this was. In any event, very fine venison is I
believe best enjoyed in whole servings, not as smaller medallions as with this
preparation.
Of
course, such magnificent cooking must certainly be accompanied by
fine wines. And so they are! If Tony Esnault is the star
of the restaurant, then there is no more critical co-star in the
front of the house than André Compeyre, one of the most
knowledgeable and talented sommeliers around. Ably
assisted by Jennifer Malone and Jura de Almeida, he consistently
comes up with original, superb pairings for each dish you order.
André's passion is to see to it that the right wine is paired with a
given dish, regardless of the wine's origin. Thus, in the
course of a single dinner you may be taken on a far-reaching wine
tour, drinking wines from France as well as far-off places like
Israel, Greece or Slovenia. As an example, here is the most recent menu
I enjoyed with the terrific wine pairings selected by André:
Champagne: Nv
Bruno Paillard – Rosé
Amuse Bouche
Foie Gras /
tapioca ravioli, celery, sunchoke broth, black truffles
Wine pairing: 2002 Marcel
Deiss – Engelgarten (Alsace)
Chatham Cod,
fennel (some braised, others raw), Taggiasca tapenade,
clear essence
Wine pairing: 2004 Jonathan
Tihsbi – Special Reserve Chardonnay
(Galilée, Israel)
Steamed Dover
Sole, periwinkles, sautéed mizuna, confit potato pearls,
sauce "Vin jaune"
Wine Pairing:
2004 Vin de Vienne – La Chambée (Condrieu, France)
Wild Scottish
partridge "sur canapé", roasted winter fruits
Wine Pairing: 2000 Château Clarke
(Moulis en Médoc, France)
White box, roasted
pineapple, soft vanilla biscuit, coconut / lime sorbet
Warm apple, quince
gelée, Earl Grey ice cream, crispy layers
Wine Pairing:
2002 Sigalas – Vinsanto (Santorini, Greece)
Friandises and
Gourmandises
|
After dinner, you will certainly want
some cheese. And cheese at an Alain Ducasse restaurant is not
to be missed. On the menu, you will see "cheese, perfectly
matured" and I assure you that "perfectly matured" is no idle boast. The
cheese cart (pictured) is impressive and diverse. If there is
one offering not to miss, it is the Stilton cheese, the best Stilton
you have ever tasted. (Also, ask for an extra slice of that
extraordinary country bread that accompanies the cheese.)
For dessert, my very favorite is the
gorgeous pear soufflé with Bartlett compote, 'beurre salé' and caramel
ice cream, a dessert in the grand French tradition if there
ever was one.
But having tried all the desserts, there isn't a single one I
wouldn't recommend. Other notable desserts are (from left to
right, below) the bitter chocolate hedgehog with caramelized
almonds, the Gianduja 'sablé' with chocolate and orange granité, the
warm apple balls between crispy layers with quince gelée and Earl
Grey ice cream, and the Baba "Monte Carlo style" with a rum of your
choice—the classic Alain Ducasse
dessert. And after dessert comes the candy and dessert
cart. If you only have room for one single thing at this
point, do not miss out on a delicious Cannele cake, based on a
classic recipe from Bordeaux. Also, feel free to take a
lollipop home.
An evening at Alain Ducasse at the
Essex House offers one of the very few truly extraordinary dining
experiences available in North America. The pacing of a meal
here is flawless. One is neither rushed nor placed in a
position of having your dinner unnecessarily dragged out. For
restaurants in the United States that Alain Ducasse might himself describe
as "resolutely French", only Joël Robuchon at The Mansion offers a
comparably exceptional experience. I congratulate Yannis
Stanisiere, the restaurant manager who has brought the level of
service to such a consistently high level. Among his able
assistants, I want to especially commend Patrice Lenouvel, whose
level of service equals the best to be found anywhere. Morale
throughout the restaurant is again very high. Why should it
not be?
Maurice Graham Henry
February 27, 2006
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