Alice Waters Venture - Merged topics

[chefzadi]

So then my next question is, why would a Parisian or any other Frenchperson be interested in French food, expensive French food prepared by an American Chef?

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But why wouldn't they, if the food was truly good? I think, or hope anyway, that if the food is good, people would come no matter what nationality the chef is. And I can think a few French restaurants in Paris, which get excellent reviews, whose Chef's are not French and no one seems to mind-- Le Timbre where the chef is English, La Cave Gourmand (American)--I'm sure there are others.

Edited for typo.

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No it shouldn't matter. And in a sense it doesn't matter. But we are not talking about just any non-French chef. We are talking about a particular celebrity one named Alice Waters. Also the non-French chefs you mentioned, most likely did not walk into their current positions without some considerable work on the line in France.

[chefzadi]

I think it is interesting to think about how an Alice Waters restaurant would do in France.  I've loved the food at Chez Panisse almost since it opened, and I still try to get there once a year- usually to the Cafe. I have always thought that the food there is influenced at least as much by Italy as France, but I do not really think of it as a French or Italian restaurant.  The essence of the restaurant is taking the best produce that can be found and preparing it very simply.  (There is also a component of sustainable farming that comes into play in the concept as well.)  Indeed, some of the food isn't so much cooked as just served.  That concept was quite revolutionary for an American when Chez Panisse first started more than 30 years ago.  In those days, farmers markets even in California were few and far between.  Now they are everywhere. 

I am not sure that Chez Panisse would have become what it is in many locations in the US.  The San Francisco Bay Area has the right combination of sophisticated food-lovers and activism that makes Chez Panisse such a success.  I have recommended it to people who simply don't get what it's about, and I think there are a significant number of people like that.  As an extreme example, at the cafe, one of the desserts usually consists of fruit and only fruit.  By this I mean, you may get a peach with an apricot or two, and a knife to cut them with.  That's it.  The fruit will be about as good as it gets, but for some people, it isn't going to work.  The other desserts are more conventional of course.

I have found that the restaurants in Paris that I enjoy most are based on seasonal market produce much like at Chez Panisse.  (Obviously, this is not a new concept in France or Italy, as was discussed at length on the Fernand Point thread, but there does seem to be a new or renewed emphasis on it, at least from what I can see.)  A meal at Chez Panisse is not so different from one I had at Le Troquet last summer for instance.

Alice Waters tells a story in the introduction of her excellent vegetable cookbook about a meal for a charitable event in New York City not long after the restaurant began gaining a national reputation where she was invited to do one course.  She says she flew back for the event with boxes and boxes of absolutely fresh, organic, hand-picked, seasonal greens, from which she made a salad.  One of the famous chefs looking at her contribution to the meal remarked, "That's not cooking, that's shopping!"  I have had the same type of simple salads in France and Italy, but never a peach and two apricots with a knife to cut them. 

I am inclined to believe that many Parisians would enjoy Chez Panisse food if they gave it a chance.  Whether they would is another question.  I don't know the answer, but I have my doubts.

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I'll add to your observations about the context of Chez Panisse and Alice Waters. The fresh fruit to me is a "message" as part of her "mission" to educate, enlighten and further the "eating fresh and seasonally" mantra. Likewise in the now abandoned Louvre restaurant there was a mission to send out a message about Food, the seasons and art. Chez Panisse occupies a specific place. She introduced this concept to an America that was for the most part unaware of it.

When I attended culinary school in Paris part of the curriculum included lectures and demos on food as art. We even went on a field trip to Monet's house in Giverny. The French chef is well aware of the relationship of food to art. Alot of France's greatest chefs come from the Burgundy and The Rhone where the terroir is quite fertile and the idea of eating seasonally has never quite gone away. Yes, the farmer's market in the Beaujolais (where the Rhone and the Burgundy meet) is still damn good, the cheeses are still made by little farmers, the milk is still raw... Even though it's a small village, there are enough citizens that make it worthwhile for the farmer's to still come. Of course this is particular slice of changing France.

So if you judge the food on just it's merits alone as some have suggested. What would the French think about the food itself? Well it's already there in France isn't it? So if you add the Chef back to the food, outside of the Louvre what would her message and mission be in France?

By the way the French are already used to eating fruit for dessert. Namely watermelon after Couscous.

[Carlsbad]

I think her mission would be the same as it is at Chez Panisse: serve the best, freshest, sustainably grown food, simply prepared, with influences from Italy and France, and filtered through Northern California. I think it is very good food that tastes clearly of the ingredients, and most people who like good food would appreciate it. I question whether the French would think an American woman celebrity chef with little formal training could be worth the fuss, and I wonder whether the public and critics might be unduly harsh. I see little upside and a great deal more downside for Alice Waters such a venture, and I would have been very surprised if it had happened.

[John Whiting]

I come late to this thread. The reason that the Louvre restaurant project was dropped, as I understand it, was that there was no space to provide a work area that Alice considered large enough to service the dining area.

Anyone who's not quite certain just what Chez Panisse was and is about can take a look at my brief history (read and approved by Alice), first written about four years ago and in the process of being updated. It's just gone up on my website but is not yet indexed.

[LindaK]

Lots of different ideas circulating here...

Portions of this thread bring to mind some of the early debates in the foodie world when world-class chefs began opening branch restaurants in Las Vegas. I can’t say I’m familiar with that entire history but remember being slightly shocked when Jean-Louis Palladin opened Napa there many years ago. If I’m not mistaken, today chefs such as Thomas Keller, Nobu Matsuhisa, Bradley Ogden, Jean-Georges Vongerichten, et al. have restaurants there, and rumor is that Daniel Boulud and Alain Ducasse will open restaurants there in the near future. Is it about money? vision? both?

In case the comparison shocks anyone, I’m not trying to equate the Louvre or Paris with Las Vegas (where I’ve never been). And as to whether the French would frequent her restaurant in Paris…I don’t know, but my guess is that the French were not the target market, any more than locals were for the Las Vegas branches of the afore-mentioned culinary icons. Otherwise, why at the Louvre?

[Jonathan Day]

I'm not sure why the Louvre has been equated to a tourist joint. Over the years I've seen plenty of French customers dining at Cafe Marly, the outdoor restaurant overlooking the Louvre. Tourists do flock to the Louvre, but there is no shortage of French visitors there.

I'm also guessing that Alice Waters wouldn't have thought of a venture like this in terms of "target market", "customer segmentation", "return on investment" or any of the other businesslike terms that apply to many restaurant developments. There's nothing wrong with these things, but as John Whiting's history suggests, these aren't the directions in which her mind seems to turn.

[chefzadi]

I'm not sure why the Louvre has been equated to a tourist joint.  Over the years I've seen plenty of French customers dining at Cafe Marly, the outdoor restaurant overlooking the Louvre.  Tourists do flock to the Louvre, but there is no shortage of French visitors there. 

I'm also guessing that Alice Waters wouldn't have thought of a venture like this in terms of "target market", "customer segmentation", "return on investment" or any of the other businesslike terms that apply to many restaurant developments.  There's nothing wrong with these things, but as John Whiting's history suggests, these aren't the directions in which her mind seems to turn.

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If she or any other chef (French or not) were considering opening a restaurant outside of the Louvre (with it's guaranteed customer flow) financed with the Chef's hard earned pennies all of those terms such as "target market", "customer segmentation", and "return on investment" would be glaringly relevant and deeply considered. Given that tourists do flock to the Louvre the non shortage of French is hardly an issue.

If she really believes that her message and mission are relevant to the French, I say more power to her.

[John Whiting]

I'm also guessing that Alice Waters wouldn't have thought of a venture like this in terms of "target market", "customer segmentation", "return on investment" or any of the other businesslike terms that apply to many restaurant developments.  There's nothing wrong with these things, but as John Whiting's history suggests, these aren't the directions in which her mind seems to turn.

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Here's a passage on the subject that was part of my history, but which I edited out as no longer relevant. The info largely comes from the Gopnik New Yorker article already cited. (I could place it temporarily on mywebsite in its entirety, with a private URL here, but I doubt if that would meet uGullet's stringent copyright rules.)

ALTHOUGH Alice Waters has resisted the temptation to set up a chain of Chez Panisse clones, an invitation from Paris has touched her missionary rather than her entrepreneurial impulses. She was aware that the closure of the great wholesale food market at Les Halles and its removal to Rungis, an inaccessible site to the south of Paris, had destroyed a unique infrastructure which had kept Parisians in intimate contact with the growers, sellers and processors of their finest foods, both raw and cooked. During a visit to the new location she was impressed with the quality of the produce but saddened by its lack of variety; there was no place for the small-scale organic growers who were keeping alive the shrinking repertoire of traditional species.

And so, when she received an invitation from Mme. Helene David-Weill, the director of the Musee des Arts Decoratifs (part of the Louvre complex) to open an educational and inspirational restaurant behind the museum overlooking the Tuileries gardens, she saw it as “a way of repaying [a] debt to France, to help recall the French to their own best traditions. . .

“I don't really want it to be an extension of Chez Panisse in Paris,” she insists. Instead, she has drawn up a statement of intent which could stand for years to come as a model of culinary vision and delight:

A platform, an exhibit, a classroom, a conservatory, a laboratory, and a garden. It must be, in a phrase, an art installation in the form of a restaurant, expressing the sensuousness of food and putting people in touch with the pleasures of eating and with the connection between those pleasures and sustainable agriculture.... All the elements of the collaboration, from the menu to the decor, will clearly demonstrate where the food comes from and how it was grown. The emphasis is going to be on the food, the kind that makes eating a soul-nourishing experience. Amidst the grandeur of the Louvre, the restaurant must feel human, reflecting the spirit of the farm, the terroir, and the market, and it must express the humanity of the artisans, cooks, and servers who work there.

[Let those who will be responsible for the culinary banalities of London's Millennium Dome read this and slink away in disgrace.]

But there are problems to be solved before Alice's vision can become a reality. The space allotted, though affording a pleasant view, has limited capabilities. “Where do the employees wash their hands?” Alice wonders. “Where are the umbrellas for the rainy days? It's only ninety covers, which is even fewer than Chez Panisse. It's really more of a tearoom size than anything else. I worry that the space is too small to express what we'd like to express.”

[Bux]

Lots of different ideas circulating here...

Portions of this thread bring to mind some of the early debates in the foodie world when world-class chefs began opening branch restaurants in Las Vegas. I can’t say I’m familiar with that entire history but remember being slightly shocked when Jean-Louis Palladin opened Napa there many years ago.  If I’m not mistaken, today chefs such as Thomas Keller, Nobu Matsuhisa, Bradley Ogden, Jean-Georges Vongerichten, et al. have restaurants there, and rumor is that Daniel Boulud and Alain Ducasse will open restaurants there in the near future.  Is it about money? vision? both?

This might be more fun than discussing the issues germane to the topic at hand. It's certainly about both, although I suspect there's more than a bit of self deception and denial involved. Closer to the mission of this forum, if no this discussion, I'll only note that Guy Savoy is slated to open a restaurant in Las Vegas. I have heard rumors that Daniel Boulud has rejected some offers to open a restaurant in Las Vegas, but I've also heard that it's always been a possibility for the future. Smart money will probably not bet against either Boulud or Ducasse opening in L.V.

In case the comparison shocks anyone, I’m not trying to equate the Louvre or Paris with Las Vegas (where I’ve never been). And as to whether the French would frequent her restaurant in Paris…I don’t know, but my guess is that the French were not the target market, any more than locals were for the Las Vegas branches of the afore-mentioned culinary icons. Otherwise, why at the Louvre?

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John Whiting's post concurs with my memory that it was proposed to be more than just a restaurant at the Louvre by a progressive director. It was intended as a cultural project as much as a place to eat.

[bilrus]

Smart money will probably not bet against either Boulud or Ducasse opening in L.V.

Ducasse's Mix has already opened a branch at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas in the last month or two.

[docsconz]

Alice Waters is not just any American Chef/Restauranteur and is certainly well known and respected at least in parts of Europe. While France is not Italy, Alice is cetainly well known and respected there. She has been a major cog in the Slow Food Movement there as well as in the U.S.

[Laidback]

Steve Wynn's new hotel in Las Vegas(under construction) supposedly will have a restaurant by Daniel Boulud. With the kind of international super wealthy clientele these top hotels cater to, few chefs can resist the lucre being offered. I love it.

[chefzadi]

My posts on this thread were more in response to some of the questions asked. I neglected to mention that after reading and learning more about what Alice Waters has accomplished as an advocate I respect her immensly. She is also a very savvy business woman. By self-sustaining she understands that it does not only apply to the earth and fruits she bears for us, she also understands that these small farmers need a market. And she has certainly been a pivotal force in this. Given my cultural context I do not have a deeply personal response, not in the immediate way that some have expressed here to her. Same thing with Julia Childs while we're at it. Alice Waters has certainly has done all of us in America, including industry professionals a great service.

As for the project at the Louvre, it is a Utopian one for a chef/artist. Even without Alice Waters support I hope that the Louvre will carry on such a brilliant and worthwhile "art" project.

So if Ludja had asked, "What would the French public think of the Alice Waters restaurant if it were at the Louvre?"

My answer is they would enjoy it immensly as well all that the art project has to offer.

EDIT: I still have to say that The Louvre stands alone. It was here and will be here long after most of us, celebrity chefs included, are gone and forgotten. Really can anyone argue that any number of respected chefs could not successfully actualize such a project at The Louvre with all the resources provides?

Edited February 15, 2005 by chefzadi (log)

[John Whiting]

Really can anyone argue that any number of respected chefs could not successfully actualize such a project at The Louvre with all the resources provides? 

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Indeed, there are a number of French chefs who could carry out such a project, and as a living rather than a dead museum. But how many besides Alice would have even considered trying to do it with miniscule workspace, only ninety covers and no roof?!

[chefzadi]

Lots of different ideas circulating here...

Portions of this thread bring to mind some of the early debates in the foodie world when world-class chefs began opening branch restaurants in Las Vegas. I can’t say I’m familiar with that entire history but remember being slightly shocked when Jean-Louis Palladin opened Napa there many years ago.  If I’m not mistaken, today chefs such as Thomas Keller, Nobu Matsuhisa, Bradley Ogden, Jean-Georges Vongerichten, et al. have restaurants there, and rumor is that Daniel Boulud and Alain Ducasse will open restaurants there in the near future.  Is it about money? vision? both?

In case the comparison shocks anyone, I’m not trying to equate the Louvre or Paris with Las Vegas (where I’ve never been). And as to whether the French would frequent her restaurant in Paris…I don’t know, but my guess is that the French were not the target market, any more than locals were for the Las Vegas branches of the afore-mentioned culinary icons. Otherwise, why at the Louvre?

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I'm not shocked by the comparison. I understand your points.

By the time "celebrity" chefs are in the position of opening a restaurant in Las Vegas, they are most likely part of a financial group, whether it's investors who want a return or a professional restaurant group (pump up the buzz and pack in the customers). The chef is the frontman at this point.

One of THE most talented chefs I worked under when I was a young cook was a madman, a sterotypical ranting artist. This Chef was GOOD, he was strong, he would have no trouble holding his own with the greats of French cuisine. But he had no patience for diplomacy or financial politics. If the press came to him today (he must be in his 70's or 80's by now) he would spit in their faces.

I suppose that most of these celebrity chef restaurants in Vegas raise the bar of what is considered good good in Vegas. (remember those .99 cent all you can eat buffets that cluttered the strip, they are still there I'm sure). But now there is some decent food, good food that's reaching a broader customer base. Better food available to more people, well overall that's a good thing.

I have mixed feeling about some of this. I still think it's ridiculous to advertise "Why go to the real Paris, when you can have Paris in Vegas without having to deal with a foreign culture?" I still have some problems with a Bouchon being outside of Lyon. Just call it a bistro like they do in the rest of France. But that's just me. A Bouchon is in my heart. It reminds me of the soil I was born on and the where it all began for me. It reminds me of terroir and all the fickle poetry that it entails. It reminds me that we cannot control the seasons and the gifts of the earth. It reminds me of the joy of a great crop, celebrations all around. It reminds me that something can only happen in a special place and time. It is antithetical to what Vegas is all about.

[LindaK]

I'm not sure why the Louvre has been equated to a tourist joint.  Over the years I've seen plenty of French customers dining at Cafe Marly, the outdoor restaurant overlooking the Louvre.  Tourists do flock to the Louvre, but there is no shortage of French visitors there. 

this is what I meant by not equating the Louvre with Las Vegas. Of course the Louvre is a cultural treasure, not just a stop on the tourist bus circuit. If my post read otherwise, mea culpa.

and I want to be sure that I don't imply that the project was envisioned solely for the revenue. What I know of Alice Waters comes mostly from mainstream and foodie media but whether it be her culinary vision, championing of local farmers, or getting urban school kids to experience gardening, etc. she's a hero in my book. But as someone else noted, she's a savvy businesswomen as well as an idealist.

"Why go to the real Paris, when you can have Paris in Vegas without having to deal with a foreign culture?...It reminds me of the soil I was born on and the where it all began for me. It reminds me of terroir and all the fickle poetry that it entails. It reminds me that we cannot control the seasons and the gifts of the earth. It reminds me of the joy of a great crop, celebrations all around. It reminds me that something can only happen in a special place and time." 

chefzadi says it more eloquently but this my question. whether it be Las Vegas (where I've never been) or Epcot Center (where I have) and their replicas of Europe, I at least wonder about how well something travels from the terroir that launched it, whether that be in the U.S. or Europe.

I raised this in the first place only because the comparison jumped out at me and it seemed compelling in a cross-cultural context. The next logical question for those of you who know (I don't) is whether other U.S. chefs have opened restaurants in France--or elsewhere in Europe--and whether they've succeeded.

[chefzadi]

Linda-

I don't know of any American chefs who have opened a restaurant in France. This is different from an American chef working in a restaurant in France (not too many of these either, I think Felice mentioned one). France is a Socialist country, America is a Capitalist one. Backlash and accpeptance issues aside, it just wouldn't make any financial sense for an American chef to open a restaurant in France.

[John Talbott]

  The next logical question for those of you who know (I don't) is whether other U.S. chefs have opened restaurants in France--or elsewhere in Europe--and whether they've succeeded.

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Yes, no.

That is, yes, there have been, I'm thinking of Bob Waggoner in Auxerre who ran a spectacular place for a while in the early 1990's but suddenly decamped for the US, becoming quite successful in Charleston. Chris White at Le Timbre is Brit and seems quite successful, does that count? And how about that Aussie restaurant/bar Wooloomoodoo on the bd Henri IV near the Bastille? But I'm scratching for examples; you're correct, if you look at the brain drain, it's in the other direction.

[LindaK]

....if you look at the brain drain, it's in the other direction.

I'm not surprised, but couldn't help wondering. Now I wonder if Water's project and Louvre location wasn't a savvy way to get around that "glass ceiling."

[MaxH]

But I would be hard pressed to say that the general French public or the French press would be open to learning about (to quote Chef Waters) " the relationship of food to agriculture, and food to art and culture" from an American, an American celebrity chef nonetheless.

I understood (from California) what chefadzi was getting at. There is some sensitivity, and some history, after all. The late Julia Child resenting French uninterest in being instructed on how to do their own country's traditional cooking (by a foreigner who began learning about it only when she was nearly 40) and her subsequent comment in the Washington Post that "French women don't know a damn thing about French cooking."

(I should mention that I know Chez Panisse and have eaten there occasionally since it opened, and have good regard for it. I too expereinced referring people to it who didn't "get" what the restaurant was about. That problem is not unique to Panisse, either.)

The Las Vegas parallel sounded like a different, or reverse, analogy. (Unless there is an ancient tradition of Las Vegas cooking I don't know about, that inspired the out-of-town chefs, who then came back to Vegas to show their own ideas. )

[chefzadi]

The glass ceiling is more of a financial ceiling. France isn't the land of economic opportunities that America is. If you take Chef Keller for instance, who is basically a French Chef, I don't think that he would have any trouble gaining respect over there from other chefs, the press and the public. But he would have to pour his heart and soul

allover again over there like he did with The French Laundry and with Per Se. After all that I don't think there would be much accpetance for more casual places (that are the real money making ventures for chefs who have name) such as Bouchon or Bouchon bakery in France.

I don't really understand why Julia Childs would get ruffled over the French not wanting to learn French cooking from her. That's sort of like me getting upset that Americans wanted to learn French cooking from another American, rather than from a French person.

Edited February 21, 2005 by chefzadi (log)

[John Talbott]

Not that it seems likely ever to happen, but throughout the past decade there have been reports that Alice Waters might open a restaurant in Paris, for example, in 1998:

Alice Waters, whose restaurant in Berkeley, Calif., Chez Panisse, has become a shrine to American cooking, is to meet in California tomorrow with Helene David-Weill, the chairwoman and chief executive of the Museum of Decorative Arts of the Louvre, to discuss plans for the museum's new 330-seat restaurant. The building in which the museum is housed is being restored, and the restaurant is scheduled to open at the end of the year 2000.  The restaurant will look out on the Tuileries Gardens.

Steven A. Shaw aka "Fat Guy"

Executive Director, eGullet Society for Culinary Arts & Letters

sshaw@eGullet.org

Hummm. Seems I saw something in Le Figaro a while back but the Alzheimer's has grabbed it away. What do/does our version of the Baker Street irregulars have to respond to Fat Guy's intelligence?

[BradenP]

I have not read anything on Alice herself opening a place, but I did read that a sous chef of hers lives here 6 months out of the year and runs an underground restaurant in an apartment that used to be occupied by David Sedaris. No idea where in Paris the apartment is, but I hear they serve serve big pots of communal food at a reasonable price of 35€ a person.

[cigalechanta]

I remeber reading about that and it fell through when Alice had disagreements.

[Poppy Quince]

I have not read anything on Alice herself opening a place, but I did read that a sous chef of hers lives here 6 months out of the year and runs an underground restaurant in an apartment that used to be occupied by David Sedaris. No idea where in Paris the apartment is, but I hear they serve serve big pots of communal food at a reasonable price of 35€ a person.

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The chef is named David Panis. Here's the website: http://monsite.wanadoo.fr/chienlunatique/

Apparently he's cooking at Chez Panisse for the summer.