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from the pages of
August 2004
Changing of the Guard
by Michael Ballon
The closing this year in New York City of 3 the most established
and famous classical French restaurants, along with the passing of one
of the Berkshire's legendary French chefs, signal and end of an era.
In this past year Lutece, La Cote Basque, and La Caravelle all closed,
and Chef Jean Morel, who made Hillsdale a culinary destination with
Hostellerie Bressane, passed away. The whole food scene in the
Berkshires, as well as the rest of the country, is strongly influenced
by trends in Manhattan, so what happens there matters.
In many ways it represents the end of an era, when the standard for
food was classical French cuisine. Those who today dine on sushi and
fusion cuisine may have trouble remembering a time when
those styles didn't even exist. But in the post war era through the
70's, the standard by which sophisticated restaurants were judged was
French. The chefs were French, the staff was French, and the wine list
was almost exclusively French. The menu was largely composed of the
codified and traditional standards of the French repertoire: quenelles
of pike, tournedos of beef and grilled Dover sole, Hollandaise based
sauces, food wrapped in puff pastry, and dessert soufflés. Table side
service was the norm, and no waiter could get a job without being able
to bone a Dover sole with grace and style. In many ways there was
something like an Olympic standard for food, and one was judged by how
well one executed the pre conceived standards of classical cuisine.
Dinner out was a dressy affair, and maitre d's always sat stylish women
in banquettes facing outward, so everyone could see.
There are still restaurants with dress codes, and if you look hard
you can still find restaurants which only serve classical French cuisine,
but they are fewer and further between. Celebrities still flock to
trendy new restaurants, but they are much more likely to be casually
dressed.
The social and political changes which swept this country in the
60's weren't just limited to sexual mores and anti war protests. Chefs
began experimenting with new combinations of ingredients and
international cusines, and creativity became the standard by which chefs
were judged, not the ability to faithfully reproduce an established
repertoire. There were many excesses in the movement which became known
as nouvelle cuisine, and some chefs went places which were better off
unvisited. Kiwis, pink peppercorns, and micro greens became ubiquitous.
Nonetheless many of the trends are still with us today. We expect chefs to plate and design food in the kitchen,
and table side service is much more uncommon. Many restaurants combine ingredients and cuisines which would have been unthinkable years ago.
Menus may contain French Italian, southwestern and Asian influences, sometimes within a single entree.
Even the most ardent Francophile would admit that American wines are among the finest in the world,
and California vineyards which didn't even exist a generation ago are found on the lists of the most exclusive French restaurants.
As a young cook just beginning on the job training in New York City
and dreaming of perhaps someday being able to open my own restaurant in
the country, my first visit to Hostellerie Bressane in Hillsdale was a
revelation. I had been to France and been exposed to good French food,
and I knew that there were great French restaurants in Manhattan, but to
discover one in Hillsdale was unexpected. I studied the composition
of the menu, and the depth and breadth of the wine list. I ordered
things I'd never had before, and then looked in cookbooks to try to
figure out how they were made. Jean Morel's achievement in creating an
extraordinary French restaurant did not go unrecognized. Each year the
French government gives an award to the chef owner of French
restaurant, and the roster of winners is impressive. Most of the winners
of the M.O.F, as the award is known, are in major cities like Paris,
Lyon, and New York City, and they include some of the world's great
French chefs, including Andre Soltner of Lutece, and Jean Louis
Palladin of the famed Watergate hotel. So when Hostellerie Bressane in
Hillsdale won, the world took notice. I will always have fond memories
of the many great meals I had there, and be appreciative of the
encouragement and support he showed me.
While the style and standards of these restaurants no longer exists,
chefs who think they can leap into fusion cuisine without a strong
foundation in the classical repertoire are on thin ground. Creativity
and improvisation are important skills, but the foundation of French
classical cuisine still has much to teach us.
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