Category Archives: Thomas Keller/French Laundry/Et Al

A Salute to Cheese

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Indulge in cheese at Slow Food NationSurround yourself with cheese, cheese, and more cheese at Slow Food Nation’s Cheese Pavilion of Taste, Aug. 30-31, in San Francisco.

Cheese lovers will be beside themselves when 54 producers from around the country show off everything from raw-milk cheese to artisan yogurt. Some cheeses are made on such a small scale that they’re not normally easily found in stores, either.

It’s just one of 15 taste pavilions that will be set up at the 50,000-square-foot pier at Fort Mason. Each will focus on a particular ingredient or food. Attendees can sample and learn more by viewing demonstrations and talking to producers. Bread will be baked in wood-burning and tandoori ovens in the Bread Pavilion, and ice cream will be hand-cranked at the Ice Cream Pavilion.

Read more about the cheese pavilion in my posting on the Slow Food Nation blog.

The Green Kitchen, part of the Taste Pavilions, has a stellar line-up of chefs from around the country who will demonstrate how basic tools and simple ingredients combine to make culinary delights.

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New Thomas Keller and Hiro Sone Books

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Thomas Keller's new book due to be released this fall

Molecular gastronomy fans will be glad to know that Thomas Keller’s long-awaited new cookbook on sous vide cooking will be published by Artisan in November. It will feature an introduction by San Francisco author and noted food scientist, Harold McGee.

“Under Pressure,” though geared for the professional cook, no doubt will provide a fascinating look at this technique that’s now widely used by top restaurants around the world. In sous vide, food is vaccum-sealed in a bag, then cooked in water at a precise temperature below simmering to seal in flavors and juices.

Thomas KellerAlthough Keller of French Laundry fame had hoped to market a vaccum-seal system for the home, he now says that’s unlikely because the device would be too large and cumbersome for most home kitchens. Instead, he may market an immersion circulation system that would allow for more precise sous vide cooking at home.

Fellow chef Hiro Sone, of Terra in St. Helena and Ame in San Francisco, also is hard at work on a new cookbook with his wife and trained pastry chef, Lissa Doumani. His last book, “Terra: Cooking from the Heart Of Napa Valley,” was published seven years ago. Read more

The 100th Anniversary of Umami

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Chef Kunio Tokuoka of Kyoto Kitcho in Japan serves a candle-lit, show-stopping appetizer featuring umami-rich ingredients such as kombu simmered beef, spiny lobster with bonito, and savory egg yolk custard with somked chicken mousse/Parmigiano-Reggiano

You know sweet, sour, salty and bitter. But do you know umami?

You do if you’ve enjoyed tomatoes, Parmesan cheese, anchovies, mushrooms, cured ham, aged beef, and miso soup.

Those are just some of the ingredients or dishes that are high in umami, otherwise known as the “fifth flavor.” Often described as tasting “savory”  or “delicious,” umami was discovered 100 years ago by Japanese scientist Dr. Kikunae Ikeda who studied the taste of kombu dashi (kelp soup stock).

Last week, chefs and scientists gathered in San Francisco for a one-day seminar on umami, followed by a four-course lunch spotlighting that savory flavor. The event was organized by the non-profit Umami Information Center (which is funded by various food companies) to mark the centennial anniversary of umami’s discovery.

Hiro Sone's umami-rich ginger-poached shrimp and watermelon salad with lemongrass vinaigrette made with a touch of Asian fish sauce

Glutamate (glutamic acid), the most common amino acid we consume, is what produces umami. Although we tend to blanch when we hear the words “monosodium glutamate” (glutamate with salt), glutamate is a naturally occurring substance in many foods. “Chinese Restaurant Syndrome” (a supposed reaction to eating too much MSG-laced food) has been largely debunked, says Gary Beauchamp, director of the Monell Chemical Senses Center.

“The idea that glutamate could be poison is ludicrous,” he says. Indeed, human milk is much higher in glutamate than cow’s milk.

What glutamate does is make many things taste so much better by adding more complexity and mouth fullness.

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Thomas Keller To Open Restaurant In Los Angeles

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Southern California, which no doubt has been starved for a stellar Thomas Keller restaurant, will finally get one in late 2009 when a new Beverly Hills outpost of Bouchon will open.

The French bistro will be on North Canon Drive in the Beverly Hills Gardens building. It will be adjacent to the Montage Hotel, which will open later this year.

“This project is a homecoming of sorts for me as I worked for many years in the Los Angeles area,” said Keller in a statement, referring to his time overseeing Checkers restaurant before he was fired for insubordination. But that wasn’t such a bad thing, as not long after that in 1992, Keller ended up buying the French Laundry in Yountville; and the rest, of course, is four-star culinary history.

World-class restaurant designer Adam D. Tihany, who created the look for Bouchon in Yountville, as well as Per Se and Bouchon Bakery in New York, will once again turn his magic on creating this Keller restaurant that will seat 225. The two-story structure will house the restaurant on the second floor and a Bouchon Bakery on the first level.

Rory Herrmann will be the chef de cuisine. He is the former private dining kitchen chef at Per Se.

Bouchon Beverly Hills will join the Bouchon family, which also includes a Bouchon Bistro and a Bouchon Bakery in Las Vegas.

Not to be left out, Laura Cunningham, Keller’s former long-time girlfriend who ran the front-of-the-house operations at French Laundry and turned service into a true art there, will be opening up a restaurant of her own in Yountville.

Cunningham, who has been a restaurant and hotel consultant all over the world since leaving the Thomas Keller Restaurant Group about two years ago, will take over the former Pere Jeanty restaurant site on Washington Street. She plans to rename the restaurant, Vita, which means “life” in Italian. It also was the first name of Cunningham’s late grandmother. The restaurant will be contemporary Italian with an emphasis on her family’s Sicilian and southern Italian heritage.

The concept, image and design will be overseen by Cunningham. The daily operations of the 120-seat restaurant will be managed by Culinary Director Jeffrey Cerciello of Bouchon and Ad Hoc restaurants, along with the team from the Thomas Keller Restaurant Group.

Savoring the Fifth Taste

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You know sweet, salty, bitter, and sour. But do you know umami, the fifth taste?

Attend the “Umami Symposium: New Frontiers of Taste,” 11:30 a.m. July 21 at the Hyatt Regency in San Francisco, and you’ll know it even better. The event, hosted by the Umami Information Center, commemorates the 100th anniversary of the discovery of umami in Tokyo, Japan.

Umami is the savory flavor we can’t get enough of in so many foods. Think Parmesan cheese, mushrooms, cured ham, soy sauce, chicken soup, meat, and fish.

The event leads off with a panel discussion featuring smell and taste scientists; food writer and food scientist Harold McGee; Kunio Tokuoka, executive chef of Kyoto Kitcho in Japan; and Master of Wine Tim Hanni. Following that, a multi-course lunch will be served, with each dish demonstrating the irresistible nature of umami. Tokuoka will prepare the dishes, along with chefs Hiro Sone of Ame in San Francisco and Terra in St. Helena; and Thomas Keller of the French Laundry in Yountville.

Tickets are $100. But hurry — registration ends July 7.

If you miss that event, you can still enjoy a feast of umami at Ame, which will be offering a special tasting menu focusing on the fifth flavor,  July 14 to Aug. 3. The five-course dinner is $85, plus an additional $65 for wine pairings. Dishes include broiled sake-marinated black cod in shiso broth, grilled Berkshire pork on Carolina gold rice with tomato “risotto,” and caramel ice cream with shoyu powder.

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