Los Angeles : Shindler's Dish

Shindler's Dish: Burger Queen, Amy Pressman

BuzzEditor — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 20:23:00 GMT

When word spread across the blogosphere that Nancy Silverton was planning to open a hamburger stand in the original Farmers Market, my reaction was: well, of course she is. Nancy made her bones by redefining (and refining) bread in Los Angeles at her iconic La Brea Bakery. After that, she changed the way we perceive pizza at Pizzeria Mozza. Then, she opted to fool around with mozzarella in its myriad forms at the adjacent Osteria Mozza. That she would focus her seemingly faultless sense of taste on the Great American Burger is natural. Indeed, if anything, she's a bit behind the curve – more than a few boldface names have foie grased and short-ribbed their creations already.

But there's no way that Nancy won't do something unique – it's not in her DNA to do the same old, same old. And so, we called her to find out where the process stands. But since chef Silverton would (famously) rather spend her time in the kitchen pounding bread dough, spinning pizzas and playing with soft cheese than actually talking about what she's doing, she had her partner in the burger project, Amy Pressman, call us back.

Amy, it should be added, may be the most famous chef in Los Angeles that you've never heard of. She's a diminutive sprite of a woman, who was one of Wolfgang Puck's original line cooks at Spago. In the years since, she's created the menu for the much-loved Parkway Grill in Pasadena (along with many of the other restaurants owned by the Smith brothers). For a decade, she ran the outlandishly indulgent Old Town Bakery. She's had her hand in a multitude of other restaurants, always behind the scenes. But when it comes to Nancy Silverton's burger joint, she's the designated spokes-chef. She's also having the time of her life – reinventing the burger is a lot more fun than reinventing the wheel.

Merrill Shindler: Amy! You and Nancy! All these years after you worked together at Spago – you're back together again!

Amy Pressman: Nancy is a partner in the burger place. She's intimately involved with the food. But she's not going to be behind the counter every night, like she is at the Mozzarella Bar at Osteria Mozza. Our arrangement is she'll be there as much as she can, and I'm happy to have her there as much as she can be. But right now, she's deep into it – we're figuring out every aspect of the burger. The meat, the bun, the toppings, the cheese – there are lots of parts.

MS: Where in the market will it be?

AP: It's in the old Du-par's Bakery. It's a two-story building – a stand downstairs, sit-down upstairs. The upstairs will open up, so it's sort of a crow's nest. You'll be able to look over the market, not just into it. At the moment, we call it Market Burger. We were thinking of Grass Burger, but Market Burger is what we're calling it right now.

MS: How did you and Nancy come together on burgers?

AP: We did a burger night at a small restaurant called Canelé. It was really fun. And we both share the same passion, always searching for the best of everything, and making it ourselves if we can't find it.

MS: Have you had fun researching burgers?

AP: I'll tell you, I've probably eaten more in the past six months than in the five years before it. It never ends. We've tried every component we could get our hands on. I'm extremely passionate about the possibilities of using grass-fed beef from Sonoma Direct. And Nancy has come up with a blend of Harris Ranch beef that's fabulous. We're dealing with some really juicy, delicious hamburgers.

MS: Where have you been going to taste burgers? You've got to do research after all...

AP: I grew up in Pennsylvania, eating at a place called Charlie's. It doesn't exist anymore. But I can still remember what it tasted like. It was the best. I've gone to every place that people recommended – and especially to taste the Daniel Boulud burger in New York. He started the upscale burger trend. It's an amazing thing – foie gras and rib-eye in a burger. You'd be hard-pressed to finish it, and feel good afterward.

MS: What's feeling good afterward got to do with it?

AP: I'm much more into feeling good after you eat something than Nancy is. That's been a point of disagreement for us. But then, Nancy never finishes what's on her plate. She's a taster, just eating a bite. So, it's not an issue for her. It is for me – I finish everything. I used to eat the double cheeseburger with chili, bacon and a fried egg at Fatburger after a night of working at Spago. The whole burger.

MS: What makes a great burger?

AP: It's all about the proportions. The meat, the cheese, the bun, the crunchiness of the bun, the toppings – everything has to work together. Get one element out of whack, and it falls apart. I was at a place the other day, the burger was really good. But the bun was so over-toasted it cracked when you bit into it. That ruined the experience. It's all got to work.

MS: And when do you open?

AP: Not till next summer. The building is a tear-down. We're building it like a burger – from the ground up.

– Merrill Shindler

Shindler's Dish: Soul-to-Seoul Cooking

BuzzEditor — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 20:22:00 GMT

Gyenari

Photo: courtesy of the restaurant

There are two menus available at Culver City Korean Gyenari, one titled "Old World," the other "New World." And yet, there's a good deal of overlap between the two, both of which were created by Next Food Network Star finalist Debbie Lee (who's finished up her tenure as consulting chef at the restaurant). Her "Seoulful Suppers" include both classic galbee (beef short rib) and galbee pot pie with ginger soy gravy. We chatted with Lee to learn about her unique perspective on Korean cuisine, which comes from, well, not having eaten it as a child.

Merrill Shindler: You have a Western twang to your speech. Is that a Southwestern Korean accent?

Debbie Lee: I grew up in the American Southwest, in Arizona. I didn't grow up eating Korean food. I grew up with the cooking of the South. When my parents came here from Korea, they settled in the Deep South. So what my mother cooked was soul food – fried chicken, grits and gravy, black-eyed peas. I come from a Korean family that didn't eat Korean food.

MS: How did you discover your culinary heritage?

DL: I had my first taste of kimchee when I was six years old. We came to LA and stayed with my grandparents. There was a family gathering, and my grandmother forced me to eat kimchee. My reaction was, "What is this? It's interesting." I started to like it. I guess it was in my DNA.

MS: So, if it weren't for your grandmother, you might be cooking nouvelle Cajun instead of nouvelle Korean?

DL: It was my grandmother who introduced me to the wonders of Korean food. She doesn't speak any English – I don't speak any Korean. But we communicated through food. She would cook from 5:45 in the morning till 11 at night. I'd stay in the kitchen with her, hours in the kitchen. We used sign language. Which is how I learned to make kimchee, and everything else.

MS: Did you love it from the first day?

DL: Not really. I didn't like everything. At first with mandoo, the Korean dumplings, I wouldn't eat them because everything was so mushed up with onions inside the dumpling. I'd only eat the won ton skin, not the filling.

MS: Before your grandmother took you under her wing, did you have any interest in cooking?

DL: Even in Arizona, my life was built around food. When I was five years old, I went to a bookstore. And the book I picked out was a cookbook. The next weekend, I made my parents stay in bed. And I made them breakfast from that book. The kitchen was a mess. But I was learning to cook.

MS: And where did cooking take you?

DL: I worked as a caterer for five years. I consulted at The Counter – I went with the owner to every burger place in LA to see what was being done right. We came up with a great burger. Not a Korean burger, an American burger.

MS: And you brought a breath of fresh air to the Next Food Network Star competition.

DL: Honestly, I entered on a fluke. I had stopped cooking. A friend who had a PR company needed some demos done for a client, and she put me on the KTLA Morning News. It was great. The next week there was an audition for Next Food Network Star – thousands of people showed up. I made the cut, and wound up as one of the final three. For me, that was a huge win.

MS: And it got you back into the cooking game. Gyenari was exactly the right restaurant, at exactly the right time.

DL: Gyenari is a flower that blooms just once a year. A long-lost cousin, William Shin, opened it with Danny Kim and Robert Benson. I didn't know a relative was behind it when I showed up. And I realized it was my little cousin, Will. I guess all Koreans really are related.

MS: And what was the concept? You have a huge Korean community to draw from – but Culver City is far from K-town, so the cooking has to appeal to Anglos as well.

DL: The idea was not to do a generic Korean restaurant. We decided to do cooking with classic integrity, but with a modern twist. I wanted to pay tribute to my grandmother, to go back to the old world, and bring it to the new world. You can eat the simple meal of a peasant, or the 12-course feast of a king or queen. It's also how people are eating these days in Korea – nouvelle Korean is all the rage. So we get lots of people from Koreatown. Gyenari lives in several different worlds. And they're making some wild cocktails in the bar. It's all so LA.

– Merrill Shindler

Shindler's Dish: Peel(ing) Back to Basics

BuzzEditor — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 18:07:00 GMT

Two decades after he opened his landmark Campanile with his then-wife Nancy Silverton, Mark Peel has a new cookbook called New Classic Family Dinners (written with Martha Rose Shulman) – an unexpected title from a chef famous for his refined Mediterranean fare. But then Peel has always harbored a secret love for down-home American cooking. One of his first jobs was as a fry cook at a 24-hour freeway truck stop in the San Gabriel Valley (where he grew up) called Cindy's. And he says that in a lot of ways, the more than 200 deeply American recipes in New Classics is simply a summation of everywhere he's been – and where he thinks cuisine is going.

Merrill Shindler: Mashed potatoes? Mac 'n' cheese? Chicken pot pie on the cover? Say what?

Mark Peel: Honestly, this is my home cooking. Chefs get lazy on their day off. After a week cooking, maybe you broil a chicken, you grill some ribs. And what I realized was that I loved cooking the clichés and making them fresh again. So many of these dishes began with the old tired recipes from 50 years ago. I love those old recipes – they say so much about a fresher, more innocent time. Chicken cacciatore, clams casino, eggplant parmigiana. They were done and overdone so much, we forgot they could be good. But at some time, at some point in the past, they were really good. Once upon a time, they were cooked with passion.

MS: Do you cook these dishes at Campanile? I mean...meatloaf?

MP: I've cooked a lot of them, especially at the family-style dinners we do on Mondays. We offer three courses for a set price, with all the plates in the middle of the table like you're eating at home. It's been very successful – people like feeling as if they're eating with their family. Over the year, I've tried to work those meals around themes. I'll do a few weeks of Greek dishes, a few weeks of Italian dishes. And I've found myself gravitating to old-fashioned American cooking. Like mashed potatoes – real mashed potatoes with a lot of butter, a lot of cream. I use obscene amounts in my mashed potatoes.

MS: So, you're the Maestro of Mashed Potatoes. But most of us know you as the Guru of Grilled Cheese...

MP: Thursday night is grilled cheese night. It's so much fun. Everyone understands grilled cheese – butter a pan, put cheese on a slice of bread, cook until melted. So, we raised the bar. We use really good bread from La Brea Bakery, the country white, which is perfect for grilled cheese. We use cave-aged Gruyère, the best butter. Just starting with that, you've already got a great dish. But then, we have add-ons – marinated onions, whole grain mustard, you can get it open face with burrata, stewed garbanzos with roasted tomatoes, crisp garlic chips, you can go on and on. Grilled cheese is like a fugue – you can do so much with it.

MS: Ok, there's a lot of wiggle room with grilled cheese. But c'mon – mashed potatoes are, you know, mashed potatoes. Right?

MP: It's so easy to do them right. But so many people do them wrong. You peel them. Then you steam them instead of boiling them. They come out drier that way – you want them drier. Then you combine two parts mashed potato, one part cream and one part butter. Puree them by pressing them through a sieve. A masher works fine if you don't have a sieve.

MS: So...that's 50% potato...and 50% cholesterol. Sounds like my type of dish. But I'm lazy. How about putting it through a Cuisinart?

MP: Don't put it in a Cuisinart. The machine breaks up the starch cells. The result is the potatoes seem greasy. You can put in all the butter and cream you want, and it won't seem greasy. But the Cuisinart is too rough. And I've got to emphasize that the potatoes have to be dry. Otherwise, the dish is too watery. Great mashed potatoes are halfway between a solid and a sauce. They're so soft, so good and so easy.

MS: I grew up on Kraft mac 'n' cheese. What could be better than that? I mean, it glowed in the dark.

MP: Sorry, but Kraft ruined mac 'n' cheese. Mac 'n' cheese is a casserole, not a fluorescent thing on a plate. I love variations – adding Gorgonzola, truffle oil. A great mac 'n' cheese is made from good macaroni, the dry stuff in the box is fine, cooked al dente. Then, you make a béchamel, a thickened cream sauce. You swirl in good cheese, like cheddar or mozzarella. I love wild mushrooms in my mac 'n' cheese, though they're not absolutely necessary. Fresh or dried – they're so different. They're like a drug.

MS: Years ago, you told me you were a fan of the roast chickens kept on the hot shelves at Ralphs supermarket. Is it as good as the roast chicken in the book?

MP: The roast chicken in the book is great. But Ralphs is just down the block from the restaurant. After a long day in the kitchen, it's really close.

– Merrill Shindler

Shindler's Dish: Amazing Grace

BuzzEditor — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 19:36:00 GMT

Amy Knoll Fraser

Photo: courtesy of Grace

After seven years on Beverly Boulevard, Grace Restaurant is preparing to move Downtown in fall 2010. For those of us who had long written off the area as a culinary black hole, it's a sobering notion – in addition to a number of new openings, restaurants from the Westside are actually migrating to the rough streets of Old Los Angeles.

Grace's new home, St. Vibiana Cathedral, which dates back to 1876, narrowly avoided the wrecking ball in 1996 before being saved by developers Tom Gilmore and Richard Weintraub. In the decade since, the cathedral has turned into one of Downtown's destination event spaces. We asked Grace co-owner Amy Knoll Fraser – wife of, and partner with, chef Neal Fraser – about the process of moving from an orthodox Jewish neighborhood to a venerable Catholic church.

Merrill Shindler: How did you discover that St. Vibiana was available?

Amy Knoll Fraser: It happened quite by accident. We were doing a catering event at St. Vibiana. I took a tour, and the hair on the back of my neck stood up. I knew we had to do this. But we were too involved with opening bld. So, we put off any thoughts about it for a long time. But I had fallen in love with it.

MS: It can't be easy moving into a church that's 133 years old.

AKF: The cathedral was completed in 1876, but the refectory was built in the 1930s. So, it's a pretty substantial Spanish-Baroque concrete building. There's not a lot of structural work to be done – except that we've got to add on a new two-story building to house the kitchen.

MS: Aren't there things you have to do when you move into a church? I thought there was a decommissioning ceremony. Maybe not bell, book and candle, but something?

AKF: As it turns out, no ceremony is required. When Tom Gilmore and Richard Weintraub purchased the building in 1996, they restored it and did a retrofit. At the same time, they removed most of the religious elements. It was decommissioned. Now, it's just a building with history.

MS: No ghosts?

AKF: It doesn't feel haunted at all.

MS: And who was St. Vibiana? I get the feeling she's not the Patron Saint of Sous-Chefs.

AKF: St. Vibiana has an interesting story. She's actually the Patron Saint of Nobodies; no one knows how she became a martyr. Her remains were discovered in the 1800s. She was discovered in a church catacomb in Rome – she had a laurel around her head that indicated she was a virgin martyr. Apparently her parents had been martyred, and she was forced into prostitution. When she refused, she was sent to a mental asylum, where she was flogged to death. Her remains were in the old cathedral, and now they're in the new cathedral just a few blocks away.

MS: How did she get from Rome to Los Angeles?

AKF: The Bishop of Los Angeles brought her remains over, so the cathedral could be named after her. This is the only church named for St. Vibiana. She's only known in Los Angeles.

MS: Why aren't you keeping the original Grace open after you move Downtown?

AKF: For us, there can never be two Grace Restaurants. We're very hands on. We need to be present, working with our staff everyday. If there were two Graces, one of them would suffer.

MS: Will the menu change at all?

AKF: It will be Neal's style of food, which means it's always changing, always evolving. There'll also be four private dining rooms, where we can go a little crazy with special menus, carving carts and the like. And there'll be a separate menu for the bar. It's "Grace, The Next Generation."

MS: And it's "Grace Goes Downtown."

AKF: It's really fantastic to be part of Downtown. There's so much positive creative energy. It's palpable, you can feel it on every block.

MS: Fall of 2010 is just one year away – can you do it?

AKF: If all goes well we will. But you know how these things go.

MS: Yes. Let us pray…

– Merrill Shindler

Shindler's Dish: Mixing It Up at Copa d'Oro

BuzzEditor — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 21:03:00 GMT

Vincenzo Marianella

That everything comes full circle in the world of food and drink is axiomatic – all you have to do is stand still, and the taste for whatever it is you crave, from beef Wellington to Spam kebabs, will come back into style. But the degree to which the finely made cocktail, exquisitely fashioned by the master mixologist, has caught fire is something of a shock.

After a decade or so of gooey martinis (thanks Sex and the City!), I figured it'd be shots and beer, or boilermakers, that would become popular again. Instead, we've vaulted headlong into a realm of esoteric drinks made with arcane ingredients by people who actually know what they're doing – fellows who do their shaking and stirring at hot spots like The Roger Room, The Edison, The Varnish...and Copa d'Oro in Santa Monica.

One of the most highly acclaimed of the new breed of mixologists, Copa d'Oro's Vincenzo Marianella is easy to find at the bar – he's the exotic-looking fellow from central casting, with the D'Artagnan mustache and chin whiskers, who never stops moving. And what keeps him busy isn't just mixing gin and vermouth: the bar is situated just a couple of blocks from Santa Monica's twice-weekly Arizona Avenue farmer's market, where Marianella and his staff purchase fresh ingredients for the drinks listed on the Market Menu – basil, mint, rosemary, sage, apple, blackberry, cranberry, grape, grapefruit, orange, passion fruit, strawberry, raspberry, guava lychee, mango, papaya, pear, pineapple, apricots, nectarines, white peaches, plums, watermelon, celery, cucumber, ginger, jalapeño and red bell peppers. As it says on the menu, "Select from our market-fresh herbs, fruits and vegetables to flavor your cocktail. Leave the rest to us..."

Which is exactly what I did one fine evening earlier this summer. I told Italian-born Marianella – who mixed cocktails in London, New York, San Francisco and Australia before coming to LA to stir things up at Doheny and Providence – that I disliked sweet cocktails, and preferred gin or vodka flavored with bitters. His response? "Too generic. I need to know, do you like an aromatic cocktail, like a Manhattan or an Old Fashioned? Or perhaps something like a whiskey sour or a margarita?"

I told him a Manhattan-like libation sounded wonderful. And his hands began moving. He used Martin Miller's gin, Marie Brizard Apry, Regan's orange bitters and a touch of maraschino. The drink he handed me, in a martini glass, looked like a captured Caribbean sunset. It reminded me of the quote, found on the Copa d'Oro menu, from great elbow-bender Ernest Hemingway: "Drinking is a way of ending the day."

And how, I wondered, does Marianella end his day? "With tequila," he said. "I love tequila. It is very complex, very herbal, very much of the land." But not, I said, in a frozen margarita. "Ah yes," he said, "the frozen margarita is a great invention, very refreshing. But it has to be made right. Here, we make it right. It's not a Slurpee. It's a drink."

– Merrill Shindler

Shindler's Dish: Astrological Eats

BuzzEditor — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 18:57:00 GMT

Signs of Taste

Photo: Courtesy of Amazon

The other day, I came across a unique volume titled Signs of Taste: A Gastrological Guide and Recipe Book by Steven Mark Weiss, which attempts to connect the signs of the zodiac with culinary preferences. I've long felt that astrology is about as useful as FEMA in helping the world deal with its woes. But Weiss, a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America, brings a combination of wit and knowledge to his theory that we're not just what we eat – but also what our star signs determine we're going to eat.

Reading through, I discovered that Aries lives for ice cream and frozen yogurt. Taurus likes breakfast in bed. Gemini is a big escargot eater. Leo likes baked goods and a cup of coffee. Virgo lives for chocolates. Libra's idea of a good time is a bowl of soup and a chicken salad sandwich (is that a good time for anyone?). Exotic Scorpio loves fish. Sagittarius spreads peanut butter on everything. Capricorn could eat meatloaf every day. Aquarius goes for soufflés and mousse. And Pisces lives for artichokes.

I'm a Cancer by birth, having arrived in the world early in the month of July. I've long heard that my sign means I like food (no kidding!) and that I'm insecure (no kidding again!). But according to Signs of Taste, I'm happy to live on shrimp cocktails and steaks. And spaghetti is my favorite dish. Which is odd, for even when mercury is retrograde, and the world is going to heck, I don't eat shrimp cocktails. Never have, never will. Like all the Cancers I know, I live to eat, rather than eating to live.

Because we're homebodies, Cancers love comfort foods that offer immediate gratification. You can often find us making a fine meal of canned Mexicorn and Sara Lee chocolate cake. A special evening for a Cancer involves a Trader Joe's frozen pizza, and a Diet Coke. When we go out, Cancers like to go to cafeterias like Souplantation, where there are lots of choices, and they can put all the condiments they want on their food. We live for McDonald's french fries. We never eat cottage cheese; it's too cold and clammy.

It's a fun parlor game. But I'm also reminded of what writer Charles Lamb observed two centuries ago: "Nothing puzzles me more than time and space, and yet nothing puzzles me less, for I never think about them either."

– Merrill Shindler

Shindler's Dish: Raising the Barra on Mexican Food

BuzzEditor — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 20:57:00 GMT

Mexico Restaurante y Barra

Photo: Natasha Bedu

The ebullient Larry Nicola has been a fixture on the Los Angeles dining scene for decades. Indeed, the Nicola family has been feeding the Southland pretty much since Pluto was a pup, having started out in SoCal as grocers. Larry – who's been well-described as a "serial restaurateur" – first shot to fame with LA Nicola in the Silver Lake section of town. He then headed for Beverly Hills to open Nic's, where patrons step into the ice-cold Vodbox to suck down elegant tumblers of vodka. And now he's in West Hollywood – in the heart of Boy's Town – offering his take on Mexican food at his garishly colorful Mexico Restaurante y Barra. We caught up with him over a margarita... or three...

Merrill Shindler: Have you gotten any letters from the legal department of Mexico, asking for its name back?

Larry Nicola: They're waiting at the gates. I'm a big lover of Mexico and the food of Mexico. I guess as long as the food stays good, they'll let us keep the name. [Orders a margarita.]

MS: Aside from your obvious love of tequila, why a Mexican restaurant?

LN: It all started with the old sign in front of the restaurant. I saw it in a store called Sonrisa, and I fell in love with it. Everything from the tablecloths to the beers started with that old sign that said "Mexico" on it. I've never created a restaurant out of a sign before. Everything else came from the family name, like LA Nicola. But this was inspired by a sign.

MS: There are Mexican restaurants all over town. For us, Mexican food is more American than a hamburger. How do you stand out from the usual guac-and-chips crowd?

LN: The goal was to make you feel like you're in Mexico. The food is different. It's simpler, cleaner – not just melted cheese on tortilla, but like a mother would make in Mexico. I always ask my cooks how their mothers would make the food on the rancho in Mexico. I want the food to be their food – not our version of their food.

Larry Nicola

Photo: courtesy of Mexico Restaurante Y Barra

MS: Which is why there's no enchilada-and-tamale combination plate?

LN: That's food for gringos. I want the food Mexicans eat at a fiesta. We try to make our meals like a party. All our plates are colorful. There's a spark of color everywhere. We've been asked if we bought every gallon of bright paint in town. I guess Carmen Miranda is an inspiration too.

MS: You're so authentic, you don't offer iced tea – no iced tea in the land of the iced-tea obsessives!

LN: They don't have iced tea in Mexico, so we don't have iced tea. They have agua fresca, which is what we serve. People ask for what they think a Mexican restaurant should serve. But if it's not authentic, we don't do it. And we don't serve bad tequila. We only serve the best tequila we can find. Take a sip – see how good it is. You can drink a lot of this tequila. But it can be dangerous.

MS: Does not being Mexican get in the way of cooking Mexican food?

LN: Mexican cooking is in my blood. It's in my soul. Growing up in SoCal, I spent a lot of my life there. I was hired to be executive chef at two major hotels in Mexico. I went down there to spend weeks researching food all over Mexico.

MS: You've been creating restaurant concepts for decades. Don't you ever want to buy a McD franchise and settle down?

LN: A lot of people from my generation, the Boomers, like to re-create themselves. We're ageless, we're restless. I thought it was time to do something new. I love being here. And anyway, the space was available. It had a wood-burning oven, which I wanted. Wood-burning ovens are sexy. And, anyway, my cousins have the lease on the building. So, it was meant to be.

– Merrill Shindler

Shindler's Dish: Building a Better Bel-Air

BuzzEditor — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 20:02:00 GMT

The Bel-Air's famous swans will be taking a trip this fall.

Photo: courtesy of the hotel

As we recently reported, the Hotel Bel-Air will close September 30 for an 18-month renovation. Since its conversion to a hotel in 1946 (it was originally built by oil tycoon and real estate developer Alphonzo Bell as his office space), this shaded oasis on Stone Canyon Road has provided an island of serenity in the midst of the urban chaos of Los Angeles.

Over the years, it's been a haven for bold face names, including Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, John and Jackie Kennedy, Ronald and Nancy Reagan, Oprah Winfrey, Prince Charles and Princess Diana, Grace Kelly, Marilyn Monroe, Cary Grant, Judy Garland, Martha Stewart, Bill and Hillary Clinton and Michael Jackson – among many others. Zagat Buzz chatted with the hotel's general manager, Tim Lee, about what people can expect when the hotel reopens in 2011.

Merrill Shindler: The Bel-Air may be the most iconic hotel in Southern California. Why mess with perfection?

Tim Lee: The last renovation was in 2006. It was just a refurbishment, just soft goods. The guestrooms need modernization. There's no cell phone access here in the canyon. Our guests need their cell phones to work, it's a hardship for them to have no access – we're going to correct that. There are so many details that need to be upgraded. To us, every guest that steps across our bridge is a celebrity.

MS: One of the biggest changes is that you're building a spa.

TL: We're adding a spa because our guests do not like to leave the property – once they're here, they stay here. There'll be seven treatment rooms and three spa suites. The spa will be surrounded by the beauty and landscaping of our grounds. We're also adding seven new villas on the property.

MS: How are the guests who have reservations after the hotel closes dealing with the shock and the pain?

TL: We've contacted all our guests with reservations beginning October 1. We don't want [them] to live through construction noise. They come here for a magical setting – it's calm and tranquil. Luckily, the Dorchester Collection has a sister property in town, the Beverly Hills Hotel, so they'll be staying there until we restore this grand old lady. Our guests have been coming here for years. They take as much pride in the Bel-Air as we do. And we'll be pampering them at the Beverly Hills with massages and spa treatments and the beautiful bungalows.

MS: How about the neighbors? They can't be happy to have a major construction project going on in their well-tended backyards.

TL: Our neighbors are completely supportive of what we're doing. We haven't had a single complaint. In fact, our immediate neighbors are timing their renovations to coincide with ours. [Some] are even letting us use their property for parking. We have no problems. Once we close, the quicker we can finish. We're keeping our construction to nine to five, so the noise won't bother anyone.

MS: I'm worried about the swans. Will they be going to the Beverly Hills Hotel as well?

TL: Our swans Chloe, Athena and Hercules – eight-year-old mute swans – are our signature and our logo. We have a special veterinarian who takes care of [them]. We're finding a home for the swans where they can live well while we remodel. We've talked to several reserves. The swans will be back when the renovation is finished, in excellent shape.

MS: And what sort of shape will the bar and the restaurant be in? They rank No. 1 in Zagat surveys for Appeal and Decor, respectively. How can you possibly make them better?

TL: The restaurant redesign is being done by the Rockwell Group. [The rooms are being redecorated by Alexandra Champalimaud.] Changes are important. But we're not making changes for the sake of making changes. Our main focus is that we don't alter the magic. There is no other place in the world like this. There's never a good time, but, if ever, this is the best time. We hope to come back with the economy in full bloom. Eighteen months – and we'll be back.

– Merrill Shindler

Shindler's Dish: Shin Okinawa Izakaya

BuzzEditor — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 21:30:00 GMT

Shin Okinawa Izakaya

Photo: courtesy of the restaurant

The island of Okinawa, in Japan's southern Ryukyu chain, is actually closer to China than it is to Japan. Which does much to explain the cooking of Okinawa, which is Japanese by default, but Chinese and Southeast Asian by proximity. It's a cuisine that seems to go in and out of focus as you try to get a handle on it – a shape-shifter of a cuisine, that assumes the form of whatever style of cooking is at hand. It's wondrous – but befuddling.

And, far as I can tell, it's also rarer than proverbial hen's teeth in these parts. Amidst our plentiful plethora of Japanese eateries, the only place to specialize in the rarefied cooking of Okinawa is a groovy little pod mall hang called Shin Okinawa Izakaya. And even at Shin Okinawa, they hedge their bets. There are two menus – one of Japanese dishes, the other of dishes from Okinawa. The Japanese menu looks fine – but been there, done that. It's the Okinawan menu that drew me in. And even though it was in English, some subtitles wouldn't have hurt.

The cooking of the islands is variously referred to as Okinawan (which is just one island), and Ryukyuan (which is the whole 600-mile-long island chain). Whatever you call it, it's definitely…different. At a quick glance, you'll notice a taste for shredded pig's ear (it's called mimiga, an ingredient far more Chinese than Japanese), along with the Southeast Asian staple of green papayas, the Chinese bitter melon, seaweed flavored with aloe vera and stir-frys called both champlu and mbushi. The cuisine is also big on the towel gourd (luffa), and our old friend the sweet potato. The very first dish on the Okinawan menu is a salad of bitter melon, ham and cream cheese in a plum dressing. As Dorothy might say, "Toto, I don't think we're in Kyoto anymore."

Fortunately, the servers at Shin Okinawa are anxious to help with ordering, for they recognize that even for those of us who have a penchant for Asian cooking, the menu can be a bit, well, foreign. After pointing out that there was a special on cold beer (if I recall correctly, the first beer was $1, down from the $5 normally charged – how could I resist?), my server suggested that I get the Thai-style green curry, which is marked on the specials menu with the words "Waitress Recommended." Portions tend to be small, but that's actually a good thing, for there's a lot to taste.

There's a saying that on Okinawa, the cuisine "begins with pig and ends with pig." At Shin, there's a stir-fry made with Spam and vegetables and a stir-fry made with pork and tofu. There's grilled pork sausage, grilled pork spareribs and grilled pork leg, not to mention stewed variations. And this is particularly porky pork – the pork belly in particular (called raftei) has an aroma that fills the air for some distance around. It's like sitting in a balloon filled with pork.

Of course, since Okinawa is an island, there's plenty of competition on the menu from seafood. A great way to begin a meal is with the sunui usachi, a paper-thin variety of seaweed marinated in rice vinegar: it makes your tastebuds pop to attention. If you have a taste for little fish, there's always the suku garasu – a dish of crunchy baby fish, pickled in salt, then served over Okinawan tofu, which has a greater solidity than regulation tofu. (Reportedly, more tofu is eaten on Okinawa than anywhere else in Japan. The tofu is, for the most part, sold dry rather than in water, which gives it its distinctive flavor and texture.)

It's probably important to order a plate of hiraya-chi – Okinawan-style pancakes, which remind me of the kimchee pancakes so popular in Korean cooking (at $6 per order, how can you go wrong?). And if you want to get deep into the cooking of Okinawa, be sure to get one of the several black rice dishes. It comes plain; mixed with ground beef, lettuce and tomatoes (a rice BLT?); or fried with the ingredients of the day.

For dessert, there are several fruit sorbets, a deep-fried sweet potato bal, a coffee parfait and Okinawan donuts, which look a lot like beignets. Oddly, the Okinawan tangerine that shows up on the flavored-beer list doesn't appear on the dessert menu; a glass of tangerine juice makes a wonderful dessert all the same.

– Merrill Shindler

Iconic Dishes: Dr. Hogly Wogly's Three-Way

BuzzEditor — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 21:28:00 GMT

Dr. Hogly Wogly's Three Way

Photo: Claire Thomas

You'll find the city of Tyler at the east end of Texas, north of Galveston and Beaumont. This is prime barbecue country, gathering its influences from both the South and the West, from the beef eaters of Texas and the pepper aficionados of Louisiana. For a taste of Tyler around these parts, you need look no further than Sepulveda Boulevard. Dr. Hogly Wogly's BBQ is basically a shack, albeit a comfortable one – the people who make great 'cue don't put much stock in frills and folderol. Its "Three-Way" lets diners choose a trio of meats from the following: brisket, hot nubbly links, spareribs (the hypertrophic size allows you to sink your choppers into them without hitting bone in the middle of a chew), plus sliced pork or chicken. The accompanying puffy, baked-in-house bread makes a perfect sop for the hot (but not too hot) sauce. Options for sides include baked beans, coleslaw and spud salad, and, for dessert, sweet potato pie, pecan pie and ice cream ($21.95–$24.95, comes with two sides and half a loaf of bread; 818-780-6701).

–Merrill Shindler

Shindler's Dish: John Sedlar Settles Down

BuzzEditor — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 20:08:00 GMT

John Sedlar

Photo: courtesy of the restaurant

Chef John Sedlar may have earned his stripes under the French legend Jean Bertranou at L'Ermitage, but he came into his own with the introduction of Modern Southwest cuisine at his first restaurant, St. Estephe, a notion he explored further at Abiquiu and Bikini. His latest concept is the wildly popular Rivera (his middle name), which sits a block away from the Staples Center and the LA Live complex. The new venture is on its way to being one of Downtown's dominant destinations – though like the development of Downtown itself, it's taken awhile.

Merrill Shindler: You've been gone from the culinary scene. John – where've you been?

John Sedlar: I was going to take a couple of months off and travel. I wound up taking off 15 years. I did absolutely every single thing I'd dreamed of doing. I had the time to do it all. I went a lot to Spain, Mexico, South America and spent lots of time in Peru, in Central America.

MS: And what brought you back?

JS: I went to a charity dinner at Chez Mélange, where I was invited to cook with other chefs. I found myself wondering why they had asked me. I hadn't cooked in so long. I hadn't been in a kitchen. Working that night with people like Susan Feniger and Mary Sue Milliken, I was reminded how much I had missed it. I decided it had been long enough, and I had a lot of new ideas.

MS: How does a chef stop cooking? Isn't it in your blood?

JS: Well, I guess I never really stopped – you're right, there's no way to stop. And people kept knocking on my door, asking me back. I was approached with so many concepts, and I had to relearn a lot of things. I hadn't managed a restaurant kitchen in 15 years. So much had changed. The foods that were available had changed – they were so much better. The vendors and suppliers have so much passion now for what they sell.

MS: Had you kept up with the restaurant scene?

JS: I had. But I also had to reintroduce myself. I was dazzled by the level of quality that had become the standard in Los Angeles. We used to have a few great chefs. Now, we have a lot of great chefs, masters of fusion, highly creative people who work wonders when it comes to transforming raw ingredients. I was dazzled by how good the food had become. And I realized the bar was set very high.

MS: How much does food drive your life?

JS: I take four or five trips a year, and they're always about food. They're always driven by the restaurants, the markets, the street vendors. I love art, I go to the museums. But really, they're a way of filling in the time between meals. If I could, I'd eat all the time.

MS: So, when you were in Peru, did you taste all 2,000 types of potatoes?

JS: Every one I could. The ingredients down there are so earthy, every bite tastes like it comes from the soil – the dried potatoes, the sweet potatoes, the blue potatoes and the many chiles, so many chiles. Coming from New Mexico, I thought we had a lot of chiles. But Peru has so many I'd never seen before. And I tasted all of them.

MS: Did you try the guinea pig?

JS: If you're in Peru, you have to try guinea pig. It has about the same amount of meat that you'll find on a quail.

MS: So ultimately, what brought you to Rivera?

JS: I wanted to get back in the kitchen. I had so many ideas. And then, we found this space, this long space – it's very unusual. I found some wonderful partners, hypercreative. The design of the restaurant is a function of my sense of food. Our designer, Eddie Sotto, he understood that the restaurant had to reflect my life. The bullfighting photos on the wall, the glow from the bottles of tequila – it's all so imaginative. I feel very much at home here. The windows are floor-to-ceiling. The light is amazing. Every ingredient is visible. This restaurant is very much alive.

–Merrill Shindler

Shindler's Dish: Occidental Eats

BuzzEditor — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 21:44:00 GMT

Union Hotel

Courtesy of the restaurant

There's an obscure rhetorical concept known as "metonymy," which James Thurber described as a condition in which the container becomes the thing contained and, in a linguistic inversion, the thing contained becomes the container. That is: were I holding a bottle of milk in my hand, and were you to threaten me, I might say, "Get away, or I'll hit you with the milk" – metonymy!

A fine example of metonymy of a certain kind is a town that is known for a particular kind of restaurant. Take, for instance, Occidental, CA. Though the town is home to the highly regarded French spot, Bistro des Copains, for those of us who have journeyed there for years, the name of the game in Occidental is Italian food, served family-style at long shared tables, in rooms that hold 500 folks.

Waitresses cruise the restaurants of Occidental with rolling carts, on which they carry Brobdingnagian tureens of soup, bowls of salad, platters of pasta. Wine flows with abandon. The noise is joyous, interspersed only with the occasional gasp of palatal pleasure or cry of digestive pain. The sentence heard most often is, "How do they expect me to finish all this?'' They don't – doggy bags are ubiquitous.

At one time, there were three Italian family-style restaurants in Occidental – the Union Hotel, Negri's and Fiori's. Fiori's (which was owned by Negri's) was the newest of them, and hence had the least loyal following; a few years ago, it turned into a Southwestern restaurant called Altamont. Which left the competition for carnal gluttony to Union and Negri's. When they're full (which is every weekend), they effectively double the population of Occidental. And come holidays like Mother's Day, the wait for a table at the Union Hotel and Negri's can be imposing. Some show up for lunch, only to wind up being seated for dinner.

The menus have grown over the years; there are now many options should you want to go à la carte. But for those of us who prefer what's referred to as "The Original Family Style Menu," the meals are carved in stone – or perhaps pasta. At both the Union Hotel (where there are, by the way, no hotel rooms) and Negri's, the meals start with baskets of bread and butter, and steaming tureens of minestrone, followed in short order by mixed salad, an antipasto of meat and cheese with lots of pepperoncini and olives, plus homemade ravioli and zucchini fritters. At this point, you have a choice, which at the Union Hotel is either chicken or steak. At Negri's, there are more options – chicken, beef and seafood. But the drill is the same – more appetizers than you can possibly consume, followed by a main course you can't possibly finish.

And at the end, when the time comes for dessert, what's called for are the apple fritters, which some argue are better at the Union and others swear by at Negri's. The point is moot, for by this time, only the rare few have tastebuds that are still sentient and functional. Most have entered a vague, dim, calorically-induced haze. And all are grateful that the center of town is, in essence, a large parking lot surrounded by restaurants. Though the drive out of the woods can be a long one – do remember to bring a designated driver...or two.

The Union Hotel, 3703 Main St., Occidental, 707-874-3444
Negri's, 3700 Bohemian Hwy., Occidental, 707-823-5301.

– Merrill Shindler

Shindler's Dish: Sir Taste-a-Lot

BuzzEditor — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 19:06:00 GMT

According to this newswire item, during a recent visit to France, President Obama's meal was tested by a food-taster. It may seem like a story out of The Onion, but it's actually from AFP, a French news agency that dates back to 1835 and isn't known for pranks.

The Secret Service will neither confirm or deny the existence of a food-taster position, so it's hard to know much about the ins and outs of such a job. But we can at least draw some inferences from descriptions of royal food-tasters of the past. According to a whimsical website dedicated to "The Worst Jobs in History," an advertisement for the position might read like this:

"Do you have a taste for rich food and enjoy playing culinary roulette? In these troubled times, a position has arisen in the royal house to be her majesty's official food taster. You never know when some wretched rascal is going to have a pop at the queen and slip something nasty into a dainty dish, so your job is to taste everything before it crosses the royal lips.

"A sip of soup here, a smidgen of pie there, there's no end to the delights that await your taste buds. Of course, you won't actually get to eat any complete dishes, and there's always the chance that you'll crash to the floor clutching you throat as, with your last gasps, you slip off this mortal coil. But the money is fantastic and better than that – you'll be protecting the queen!"

And it's still better than the position known as "Ye Royal Whipping Boy." As Whipping Boy, it was your job to be punished in the place of the Prince. The good news is that you lived; the bad news is that you were never able to sit comfortably. All things considered, given my choice between being spanked and being dead...well, spanking is something you can develop a taste for. Which is more than I can say for being dead.

– Merrill Shindler

Shindler's Dish: A Rao's-ing Tale

BuzzEditor — Thu, 28 May 2009 19:22:00 GMT

Rao's Las Vegas

Photo: courtesy of the restaurant

For those of us who grew up in New York, Rao’s was the Holy Grail of Italian cuisine. Unlike the Holy Grail, we knew where to find it – at the corner of 114th and Pleasant Avenue in East Harlem. But like the Cup of Christ, we could never actually grasp it. It didn't matter who you were – you couldn't get in. To this day, its 10 tables are booked every night by regulars, who get the table for the evening. You can call, you can beg, you can plead. But you can't get in.

For more than a century, the descendants of founder Charles Rao have resisted the urge to replicate. Then, in 2006, they announced they were opening an outpost in Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, a move that sent shock waves throughout the restaurant industry. And the Rao's buzz shows no signs of cooling: recently it was announced that its signature wines would be sold at select Whole Foods. So why did Rao's open a branch after more than 100 years of solitude? And are there any other plans to expand the brand? Sitting at a table on the front patio of the Vegas branch, co-owner Frank Pellegrino Jr. explained:

Merrill Shindler: So... why expand? And why here?

Frank Pellegrino Jr.: It was never a priority to open another branch. But Caesars impressed us with their foresight, their understanding and their level of communication. It was a perfect fit. There isn't another hotel in Las Vegas where we would have done this. This is the only place.

MS: What were the non-negotiables?

FP: If it wasn't Rao's, the real Rao's, it wasn't going to happen. It had to be every bit of Rao's. There was never any doubt that we wanted to re-create the restaurant, booth by booth, picture by picture, dish by dish. When we agreed on that, we felt ready to move forward.

MS: Is it true you hired Engstrom Design to actually survey the original restaurant?

FP: They measured every inch of Rao's in East Harlem. They got to understand the nuances of the restaurant. Every detail was paid attention to, nothing was left out. When I look at the photos people have taken in Rao's Las Vegas, I would swear they were taken in New York. It's not as if we were trying to build the Sistine Chapel. But there are complexities that most people wouldn't notice. We would – we did this for ourselves. You can't just build it. Everyone involved with this project is in love with Rao's, the passion, the heart, the soul. It's not about money. It's about what Rao's means to the people who go to Rao's. This is a restaurant like none other. We don't want people to just leave full. We want people to leave fulfilled.

MS: There must be some differences. I mean, the Las Vegas Rao's is inside a casino. And where New York seats 40 people, Las Vegas seats 200 – with a bar where you can eat as well.

FP: Because of Clark County codes, the rooms are a little bit wider. [The original] Rao's is 113 years old, so it doesn’t meet a lot of today's regulations. But the variance is small. Most people wouldn't notice. It’s the same exact ceiling we have at Rao's. Even the paint is the same, the same textures and color scheme as in New York. The colors are old colors. We wanted the place to feel as if it had been here – maybe not 113 years, maybe 100 years.

MS: That is so not Las Vegas. I mean, this is the very epicenter of the Shock of the New.

FP: Everybody took their cues from 114th and Pleasant. There was nothing that couldn't be replicated. The people at Thor Construction, who do the building for Caesars, really understood. The folks who did the mill work, they relished this project. It's a throwback to the old days, not what people do anymore. They'd tell us that this was how their fathers and grandfathers did it. There was a pride in what they did that was beautiful. Craftsmen never have a chance to do work like this anymore.

MS: Replicating the room is one thing. But what about the food? I mean, you're a continent away from your suppliers.

FP: Usually when you do things in mass, the quality changes. Chef Carla keeps the integrity, so everything tastes as if it were made in a small kitchen by someone's grandmother. And it should – we're using all the original recipes. This is the same menu, there's nothing that didn't travel. We overnight whatever we need. If there are any tomatoes left in the San Marzano region, we get them.

MS: You've now been in Las Vegas for two and a half years. Anything you want to change?

FP: After two and a half years, it feels like home. Honestly, we wouldn't want to change a thing. We have everything we want, everything in the kitchen, everything that reflects Rao's in New York.

MS: Do people's appetites differ between East and West?

FP: It's remarkable, but people in New York and Las Vegas order the same food. The same meatballs, penne alla vodka, veal chops with hot and sweet cherry peppers, steak pizzaiola, veal parmesan. Really, the restaurants mirror one another.

MS: And how's the outdoor bocce court doing?

FP: We all play bocce here. We just opened a Bocce Bar next to the bocce court. And we've hired Bocce Bellas who come out in bikinis and teach people how to play bocce.

MS: Bikinis? You don't do that on 114th Street.

FP: It's Las Vegas, so the teachers are in bikinis. You can have a cocktail at the bocce court, and the Bocce Bellas referee the games. So, yes, that's different.

MS: How has the recession affected you?

FP: We've built solid relationships with a lot of people, a lot of regular customers. The recession has touched us, but only slightly. We're going very strong. We've streamlined things, so we're doing very well. It hasn't impacted us that much. At least, not yet. If it ever will.

MS: For those who can't get to Rao's, you also have a line of products. Any plans for Rao's Frozen Italian Dinners?

FP: We have pasta sauces, pasta, olive oil, vinegar, peppers. We just introduced three domestic wines. Frozen – you never know, we've looked into it.

MS: And is this the beginning of a chain? Maybe another branch in a century or so?

FP: We're very comfortable with where we are right now. We want to enjoy this experience. We don't rush anything. It's been 113 years, we're in no hurry. We've dreamed of a pizzeria – who hasn't. We served pizza when we did lunch the first year we opened. But right now we have to deal with a new generation of Rao's regulars. We've had a lot of people who haven't been able to get in. But it's easier. Here, you have to wait a few weeks; back East, you have to wait a lifetime.

– Merrill Shindler

Josie Le Balch: Born With a Spoon in Her Mouth

BuzzEditor — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 15:50:00 GMT

Josie Le Balch

Photo: courtesy of Josie Restaurant

Chef Josie Le Balch grew up in a restaurant kitchen. Her father was chef Gregoire Le Balch, owner of the fabled Chef Gregoire Restaurant in the San Fernando Valley, and creator of one of the first French cooking schools in Los Angeles. While other kids were eating In-N-Out Burgers, Josie was considering the virtues of bouillabaisse and cassoulet, and her salad days were spent stirring the stock pot. It's an experience reflected in her own kitchen, at her own self-named restaurant on a busy crosstown street in Santa Monica.

Merrill Shindler: What was it like growing up in a restaurant family?

Josie Le Balch: It was the family business – I was always there, my whole family was always there. My father cooked at home as well, he was always home on Sunday nights, when we'd have big wonderful family meals. Dad loved to cook on a hibachi at home, a tiny grill you couldn't fit anything on. But he said those were the best meals he'd ever cooked. It was an early lesson that, though high-tech equipment is nice, it's the skill of the chef that matters. No matter how expensive the cooktop, if the chef doesn't have what it takes, it won't make a difference.

MS: I assume everyone wanted to have dinner at your house.

JLB: Actually, none of my friends wanted to eat at my house. My father grew everything in the backyard. He was always picking dandelions from the yard for our salad. I remember sitting in the front yard with my two girlfriends, and my dad was pruning the roses. And he began to nibble on the rose petals. My friends were so grossed out. It's funny – my dad was such a great chef, but my friends were scared of what he'd cooked for them.

MS: What was your first real job in your father's restaurant?

JLB: I was 14. Our dishwasher didn't show up. So I began my life in restaurants washing pots and pans. I did that for months. Then, the sauté chef didn't show. So I went from dishwasher to sauté chef just like that. It wasn't that big a jump – there were only three people in the kitchen.

MS: So you became a cook just by being available?

JLB: I learned by doing. My dad had a cooking school at the restaurant on the days it was closed for meals. It was the best way for me to spend time with him – at the family business. I adored my father. But like most chefs, he was never home. So if he couldn't be home with me, I was determined to be at the restaurant with him. If I wanted to hang out with my dad, I had to do it while working at the restaurant. My favorite days at school were Monday and Tuesday mornings, when he taught classes in French cooking and techniques. I remember a woman said to me, "You have no idea how lucky you are – people are paying to spend a couple of hours with your dad, and you can do it every day." That turned a light on for me; it was a revelation. At that moment, I realized I wanted to do what he did. I was there all the time.

MS: Some kids learn how to kick a soccer ball from their dad – you learned how to keep a sauce from curdling.

JLB: I learned all my technique from my dad. My father was very regimented – he had his book of recipes, he was French, everything had to be done in a certain way, sauces had to be ready.

MS: But that's not how you cook today. You're one of the icons of Californian–New American cooking.

JLB: After years with my father, I got the chance to apprentice with Wolfgang Puck at the original Ma Maison. And it turned my world upside down. Wolf would look in the fridge to figure out what he was going to make that day. He didn't really know until he opened the walk-in door, and saw what was there. This was in a major restaurant, one of the most famous restaurants in America. It was completely the other side of the restaurant world for me. And it freed me so much. We looked to see what was available, and then started to create.

MS: Is your father in the kitchen with you when you cook today?

JLB: I learned haute cuisine from my dad. And I also learned how to work in the haute cuisine kitchen, the classic kitchen configuration. I'm very glad I had that background – not many do. My dad had a very small kitchen. Basically, it was a line and refrigeration – very simple, very basic and very effective. I like a design where I can see what everyone is doing in front of me. I can stay on the line, and I can jump in anywhere. I still cook my father's recipe for black peppercorn sauce in the Le Cordon Bleu skillet he used at Chef Gregoire. It's my Proustian cookie. I taste that sauce, and I'm a little girl again.

– Merrill Shindler