A Culinary Journey Propelled By Presidents' Tastebuds

Presidents. Have you ever wondered about the tastebuds of these powerful gentlemen who ran our country?  You might be surprised.  In honor of Presidents’ Day TravelsinTaste created a virtual culinary roadmap throughout Las Vegas, a city where people and presidents alike can find a modern adaptation of their favorite bites.

Our Founding Father George Washington may not have actually cut down a cherry tree, but his tie to cherries has lasted for centuries. For these reasons, he’d most likely enjoy libations such as the non-alcoholic house-made cherry yuzu soda at Jean Georges Steakhouse or the Cherry Limeade at Fleur by Hubert Keller.

 Thomas Jefferson and John F. Kennedy were both major fans of fine French cuisine, who isn’t?, and often had it served in the White House. President Kennedy even hired renowned French Chef Rene Verdon to run the White House Kitchen. If they visited Vegas, we think they’d be delighted by Le Cirque at Bellagio’s new Executive Chef Gregory Pugin, formerly of Veritas in New York City, a protégé of Gault Millau’s Chef of the Century Joël Robuchon. They might even try the classic Terrine de Foie Gras Poire Belle Hélène which is lillet marinated foie gras terrine with poire williams gelee, almond and orange blossom bavaroise, and a chocolate nougatine, Better yet try the Chef of the Century’s signature  La Langoustine, a truffle langoustine ravioli with chopped cabbage, at Joel Robuchon Restaurant.

 Theodore Roosevelt was a traditionalist who preferred simplicity in hearty helpings and might have truly enjoyed a meal at NOBHILL TAVERN by Michael Mina at MGM Grand. Perhaps trying either the Shelton Farms Chicken Breast with cauliflower puree, roasted cauliflower, golden raisins and chicken jus or a 12 ounce wood-fired ribeye. Two of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s favorite foods were cheese and fish, so perfect restaurants for him would be Onda Ristorante & Lounge at The Mirage for its extensive cheese menu and signature seafood dishes or Julian Serrano at ARIA Resort & Casino where Chef Serrano lovingly prepares ceviches and a Spanish cheese platter celebrating his homeland.

 Lyndon B. Johnson was a big steak eater, so he’d love Jean Georges Steakhouse at ARIA, especially with its special February Beef Tasting Menu. Executive Chef Robert Moore has created an exquisite five-course tasting menu highlighting beef from Rangers Valley in Brisbane, Australia. The region’s cooler climate provides a stress-free life for the cattle under the watchful eye of certified Japanese Kobe ranchers, allowing for the production of extraordinary cuts of beef. Chef Moore’s menu features Rangers Valley Angus 300 beef prepared in four cooking styles: Hand-Cut Wagyu Steak Tartare, Charred Chili-Rubbed Angus 300 Rib Eye Skewers, Angus 300 Braised Short Rib and a 21 Day Dry Aged Grilled Angus 300 NY Strip.  The divine JG Candy Bar adds a sweet, finishing touch for dessert.

Read about other presidential culinary traditions here.

Michelin Stars Align for Seven NYC Restaurants

According to the latest edition of the Michelin guide, dining in New York got a little finer over the last year.
The city is now home to seven restaurants that earn the French dining guide’s three-star designation, its highest rating. Last year, the culinary guide said that five New York restaurants merited three stars.

Restaurateur Danny Meyer’s Eleven Madison Park, which has made dramatic changes to its menu under chef Daniel Humm, is arguably this year’s biggest winner, jumping from one to three stars in Michelin's view. The new guide, to be released Wednesday, also bestowed three stars on Chef’s Table at Brooklyn Fare, an 18-seat restaurant that is part of a Downtown Brooklyn grocery store. Chef’s Table was last year’s sleeper surprise when it earned two stars. Other restaurants in three-star territory include Daniel, Jean Georges, Le Bernardin and Masa.

Now in its seventh edition in New York, the guide’s anonymous inspectors review hundreds of restaurants. This year 62 city restaurants received stars, up from 57 last year. The guide is closely watched by chefs and food-world insiders. While chefs frequently grumble about the guide’s sometimes arbitrary designations, celebrations nearly always ensue when a restaurant receives a star.

Read the complete story here.

French Restaurant Hands Back Michelin Star to Bring in the Diners

The only Michelin-rated restaurant in the southern city of Nimes has handed back its star to become a humble brasserie, in the hope of enticing back people put off by the higher prices that come with the accolade. 

Le Lisita, opposite Nimes' famous Roman arena, clinched its first star from the fabled red restaurant guide in 2006. 

But Michelin stars come at a price for chefs, as the guide expects a standard of service requiring more staff, which pushes up the price of a meal even before ingredients are bought.

Chef Olivier Douet said he had initially cherished the coveted accolade but that the 2008 financial economic crisis forced him into a painful rethink. 

"I am not spitting in the soup – to have a Michelin star is a distinction, a very important recognition of merit," he said.  However, he added that the onerous demands of the gastronomic restaurant barely allowed him to break even. 

Such demands are said to have led top chef Bernard Loiseau to commit suicide in 2003 after it was rumoured he was to lose one of his three Michelin stars. 

"In a starred restaurant, there is one waiter for five to six people. With a brasserie, a waiter can look after twenty to thirty customers," he told Le Parisien newspaper. 

He will now offer a menu with starter and plat du jour for €23.60 (£20.79), which he hopes will allow him to triple the number of clients.

Like other aspiring chefs, Mr Douet had grand plans to expand his Michelin-starred eatery, located in a large property, to a luxury hotel project but "the bankers are scared to lend in a time of crisis to institutions like ours". 

The Lisita hopes to capitalise on a French fashion for lively, high quality and affordable brasseries and "gastro bistros", which are doing a roaring trade along with "restauration rapide" – the French take on fast food.

Many Michelin-starred restaurants, meanwhile, are struggling. 

Read the rest of the story here.

Sixty Great Chefs + Versailles = An AVERAGE Meal?

VERSAILLES – The generals in crisp white uniforms plotted their strategy in the grand Hall of Battles in the Palace of Versailles. They were there not to recall the military victories of France’s past depicted in the graphic paintings lining the walls, but to celebrate the ritual of dining.

Inspired by the United Nations designation last year of the French meal as part of the "intangible cultural heritage of humanity", 60 of the world’s big-name chefs gathered at Versailles on Wednesday to help prepare a $1,270-a-head dinner for 650 guests in black tie, fancy dress and a fair amount of fur and feathers.

The dinner was a public relations extravaganza for the Relais & Chateaux hotel and restaurant group, which brought in its own chefs and paid $114,000 to rent Versailles for the night. (The cost of electricity, water, security and staff members was extra.) Les Grands Tables du Monde sent several chefs of its own.

Versailles is the most glorious chateau in the world, the place where Louis XIV raised fine dining to an art. But it is also a museum without a kitchen. A long, white marble corridor with sculptures of kings and noblemen had to be lined with 17 portable work stations, each consisting of one table, one oven and one electric burner, but no gas or running water.

“Let’s be honest,” said Patrick Henriroux, chef of the two-star Michelin La Pyramide in Vienne near Lyon. “This is not about creating in a kitchen. It’s more like cooking on a camping trip.”

As vice-president in charge of the grand chefs for the group, Mr. Henriroux was camp director. He organized his high-profile and potentially high-maintenance gastronomic greats in teams of three before deploying them to their humble work stations. With so many knives, “I had to make sure they got along,” he said.


Daniel Humm of New York’s Eleven Madison Park paced up and down the long corridor. Hélène Darroze, one of only two women among the five dozen chefs, was hugged and kissed a lot. Marc Meurin of Le Château de Beaulieu bonded quickly with his kitchen-mate, Philippe Mille of Les Crayères in Reims. “We’ve been great friends for an hour already,” Mr. Mille said. For their brief time together, three-star Michelin chefs Marc Haeberlin, Michel Troisgros, Jean-Michel Lorain, Annie Féolde, Jean-Georges Klein, Patrick Bertron, Régis Marcon and Eric Pras and all the two-stars, one-stars and no-stars worked as equals.

By most accounts, even their collective talent could not overcome the logistical hurdles. Most of the raw materials had to be pre-cooked and prepared off-site by the caterer Potel et Chabot. The chefs were asked to offer inspiration from their signature dishes, but their task was less to cook than to slice, dice, heat and accessorize food wheeled in on metal racks or stacked in white boxes.

Adding to the complexity of the meal, each chef prepared one course for about forty people. The cold appetizer chefs chose scallops or lobster; the hot appetizer chefs sea bass or morels, and the hot main course chefs duck or saddle of lamb.

One chef ranted that the 2002 Dom Pérignon Millésime Champagne was insufficiently chilled. Another searched fruitlessly for more squares of Savoy cabbage.

Guests muttered that the caviar dollops on the lightly smoked sea bass were too cold, the gelled Breton lobster claws too bland and the canard de Challans too naked. “Where were the great sauces to celebrate history and tradition?” said Jean-Claude Ribaut, the food critic for Le Monde. “Everything was a little flat, just average.”

Louis XIV might not have been entirely surprised.

Read the complete story here.

Charlie Trotter, a Leader Left Behind?

Charlie Trotter stood in his chef’s whites before an audience of high school students in the Studio Kitchen, the private-dining annex to his eponymous restaurant here. The students, dressed to the nines and seated at a banquet table, were from Providence-St. Mel, an academically rigorous Catholic school in the city’s rough East Garfield Park neighborhood.

They were there as Mr. Trotter’s guests, part of what he calls his excellence program, wherein, three nights a week, 50 weeks a year, youths from disadvantaged backgrounds are treated to an elaborate multicourse tasting menu, a tour of the restaurant and a succession of inspirational speakers, often including the chef himself.

As waiters whirled around the students, removing empty plates and filling Champagne flutes with sparkling organic grape juice from Germany, Mr. Trotter listened approvingly as a commis named James Caputo expounded upon the importance of discipline and teamwork. When he was done, Mr. Trotter thanked him and asked him to hang on for a moment. “Chef, ” Mr. Trotter said, “on a scale of 1 to 10 -- 1 being, oh, I don’t know, a Russian gulag, and 10 being nirvana -- how would you rate what it’s like to work for me?”

“Ten, easily,” Mr. Caputo said.

At this, Mr. Trotter pretended to look affronted. “Ten? That’s all?” he said.

This was obviously shtick, but it was also a sly acknowledgement of his reputation as fearsome autocrat. Though he can be genial and very funny, he has never been able to shake his label as a tyrant of fine dining.
In fact, it’s the main way his name has been coming up of late. Grant Achatz, the chef and an owner of the Chicago restaurant Alinea, devotes an entire chapter to Mr. Trotter’s scariness in his new memoir, “Life, on the Line.”

Otherwise, Mr. Trotter hardly seems to figure in the national food conversation anymore. In the very years when Chicago has gloried in newfound recognition as a major restaurant destination, with the spotlight trained upon alumni of Mr. Trotter’s kitchen like Mr. Achatz, Homaro Cantu (of Moto), Giuseppe Tentori (of Boka), and Graham Elliot (of Graham Elliot), the man who put the city on the fine-dining map has somehow fallen below the radar.

November’s inaugural Michelin guide to Chicago restaurants was telling. Alinea, the standard-bearer of technologically forward cuisine, got three stars, the guide’s highest rating, as did the modernist seafood restaurant L2O. The one-star tier was rife with relative newcomers of gonzo-hipster bent like Longman & Eagle, where the menu features a wild-boar sloppy Joe. In between, at a dutiful but unsexy two stars, was Charlie Trotter’s.

“I’d be lying if I said I don’t feel sad about that,” Mr. Elliot said. “I mean, I wanted to quit every day I worked there, but I’m proud that I got through it, and in some ways I look at Charlie as my father. To see him getting two stars instead of three, and not getting any articles or anything, it makes you feel bad — like seeing your dad lose his job.”

 Read the complete story here.