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09/25/2002 - A Sign of Respect: By Invitation Only
Wednesday, July 31, 2002
Andre Rochat joins elite list of chefs asked to prepare meals at New York's James Beard House
By HEIDI KNAPP RINELLA
REVIEW-JOURNAL
NEW YORK
Except for the knots of pedestrians popping up like urban prairie dogs from the 14th Street subway station and the occasional ambulance screaming into St. Vincent's Manhattan hospital, the leafy stretch of West 12th Street between Sixth and Seventh avenues is relatively quiet for quaint and quirky Greenwich Village.
Unless you're paying attention, it's easy to walk by the row house at 167 W. 12th St. It doesn't have a Las Vegas-style neon sign -- no sign at all, in fact, except for a spare brass plaque.
But this is a house that gets plenty of attention in the foodie world. It's the former home of James Beard, the caterer, cooking-show host, cooking-school instructor, restaurant owner and well-known author who died in 1985. After Beard died, such friends as Julia Child and Peter Kump spearheaded an effort to preserve the house as a place to bring together gastronomes as it did when Beard was alive.
Today it's the home of The James Beard Foundation and draws the country's most respected chefs, who interrupt the routines at their own restaurants to cook there. During some parts of the year, there's a different chef cooking at the house nearly every evening.
Last week, the Monday-night featured chef was Andre Rochat, one of a growing group who've built their reputations in Las Vegas -- home-grown celebrity chefs, as it were.
The French-born Rochat started at the Sands in 1970 -- ancient history by Las Vegas standards -- staying there until he opened his Savoy Bakery on Maryland Parkway in 1973. He returned to the Sands in 1977, but by 1980 he'd opened Andre's French Restaurant on Sixth Street downtown. It was followed by Andre's at the Monte Carlo and, last year, Alizé on the top floor of the Palms.
And now, Rochat had been invited to cook at the Beard House. The invitation came about because of a foundation member's dinner at Rochat's downtown restaurant.
"She said, `Gee, how come you've never been to the James Beard House?' " he said. "I said, `Well, I've never been invited.' "
And so he was. He arranged for the visit to be during July, when his downtown restaurant is closed for vacation.
It was a daunting proposition. Chefs are required to bring (and pay for) their own food and wines. And because of the relatively small size of the Beard kitchen -- it was a home, after all -- most of the prep work has to be done in advance.
Rochat and his crew set to work at Alizé the Wednesday before the dinner. He said eight employees, including himself, put in an estimated 24 to 36 man-hours to prep the food for the Beard House dinner.
As Rochat stuffed lobster sausage in a subterranean kitchen at the Palms, he mused about how, as a child, he'd stood on a stool to perform much the same task for his butcher father in France. Nearby, pastry chef Chris Herrin placed cognac-marinated cherries into chocolate cups. Alizé executive chef Michael Demers was upstairs in the restaurant's main kitchen, making sure things were running smoothly at Alizé while browning veal cheeks in preparation for braising them for the Beard House dinner.
After everything was prepared, it would have to be stored -- some refrigerated, some frozen, some vacuum-packed -- and then put into eight large insulated boxes for transport to New York. Florian Wehrli, chef de cuisine at Andre's downtown, had gone ahead to find and purchase fresh produce. The remaining party of four would each take two insulated boxes as checked baggage, with personal effects as carry-ons. In addition to Herrin, chef garde manger Guadalupe Ponce and assistant to pastry chef Emily Merritt would make the trip.
Rochat had gone to the airport Tuesday night to talk to an airline supervisor to ensure all would go smoothly.
Friday night, they packed up the boxes and went to the airport for their red-eye flight to New York.
"The flight was canceled," Rochat said. "We had to unpack everything" and put it back in the freezer.
Good heavens. What did they do?
"We went to bed," the unflappable Rochat said.
Except for Wehrli, who had an early morning call.
"I'm the one who came to pick them up at the airport and they weren't there," said Wehrli, who'd missed a message.
"It didn't really set us back, because we had everything organized," Rochat said.
Conscious of the possibility of airline snags, he'd built extra time into the schedule.
It also helped that Wehrli had cooked at the Beard House four times previously, when he lived and worked in New York.
"It's always nice to know how the kitchen is set," Wehrli said.
There were a few other small snags. Herrin felt that the yellow-tomato sorbet wouldn't stand up to the heat, so he decided to melt it down and refreeze it in New York.
By late Monday afternoon, the crew members were bustling about the little kitchen on the bottom floor of the Beard House.
"We're ready," Rochat said.
Guests began to arrive just before 7 p.m. In a rear reception room and on the back terrace, they sipped Rochat's private-label champagne and merlot and nibbled on foie gras terrine with fig compote and country wheat bread, Belgian endive with bay scallops, Sonoma rabbit medallion with whole-grain mustard sauce, and puff pastry with salmon, cheese or anchovies.
Then it was upstairs for the main event, with tables spread about the main floor of the historic house. Chilled gazpacho with yellow tomato sorbet. Lobster sausage with spicy crawfish sauce, leek fondue and puff-pastry crescent. Braised Provimi veal cheeks with morel gnocchi and fennel ragout. A salad of phyllo-wrapped baked Anjou pear with Roquefort, baby oak leaf lettuce, walnuts and a pumpkin-seed vinaigrette. A dessert of a frosted candied lemon filled with raspberry and mint soup, with a pistachio tuile on the side. And Herrin's sweets as a final note.
Guests -- who paid $85 if they were foundation members or $110 if they weren't -- had high praise for Rochat's wines, but especially for his food.
Sylvia Weissman of New Jersey said she'd been in Las Vegas in June for the national meeting of the Chaine des Rotisseurs food and wine society and had veal cheeks at a well-known, high-profile French restaurant.
"I wish I'd known about Andre's before my trip," Weissman said.
Andrea Zurlo of New York was a little luckier.
"We ate (at Andre's downtown) the first night we arrived in Las Vegas," she said. "That's why we chose to come to this tonight."
Al Neuman, a New Yorker who'd also eaten at Andre's, said that was why he came, as well.
"Wonderful," he said. "What a joy."
"It was," said Arlyn Blake, who's with the Beard House publications office, "one of the most special nights."
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