Christian Delouvrier: Serving cuisine of the earth at Lespinasse

Nation's Restaurant News, May 8, 2000 by Bret Thorn

In this age of celebrity chefs, when leaders in the field are lending their names to multiple branches, performing on TV, marketing their own brands of spices and posing naked behind blenders, Christian Delouvrier is cooking, all day, at one restaurant.

That restaurant is New York's esteemed Lespinasse, whose kitchen Delouvrier took over in late 1998 following the departure of chef Gray Kunz.

Unlike most French chefs, Delouvrier, who hails from the region of Gascony, did not start out as an apprentice, but signed up at the Hotel School of Toulouse while working at local restaurants. After years of work and travel, first to Paris and then overseas, Delouvrier arrived in the United States in 197] and started working his way up the restaurant ranks. In 1981 he worked with his mentor, Alain Senderens, to open Maurice in New York City's Hotel Parker Meridien, which was credited for raising hotel restaurants to a new level. In 1991 he opened Les celebrites at the Essex House/Hotel Nikko, for which he traveled to East Asia and added some nuances to his own cuisine, which he has dubbed cuisine de terroir, or cuisine of the earth. He left Les Celebrites to take the helm at Lespinasse and has since received four stars from The New York Times.

Title: executive Chef, Lespinasse, New York

Birth date: June 25,1945

Hometown: Boulogne-sur-Gesse, Gascony, France

Education: certificate of professional aptitude, Hotel School of Toulouse, 1962

Career highlights: working as executive chef at Lespinasse, receiving four stars from The New York Times.

You call your cuisine cuisine de terroir. What is that?

I use recipes or the philosophy of the provinces of France, in particular the province where I come from [Gascony}. It is not classical. It is really from the countryside and what the people like to eat. I took that and I changed it a little bit. I tried to make it a little more sophisticated.

How does that differ from the haute cuisine that was codified by Escoffier?

It comes from the roots; it comes from the country, what they like to eat on the farm. I just made it a little more noble. The baby pig, for example, is a very peasant dish. We confit it, we put it with a salad of herbs and it looks great. So that's what we're trying to do [ldots] use the roots of French cuisine.

At your former restaurant, Les Celebrites, you were credited with utilizing your experience in the Far East. How was the food there different from regular French food?

I got involved very much with tuna and using different tartares of fish. I did a little mixing of olive oil with soy. Sometimes I added a little bit of sake -- very, very, very subtle.

There are a lot of chefs now who have become big celebrities. You have more of a reputation of just being a working chef at one restaurant. Do you have any thoughts of expanding beyond that?

No, not right now. I'm very happy where I am. If I do expand, I will probably do it a few years from now, as a consultant. If I affiliate my name with a restaurant, I can't be away from there for a few hours every day. If I'm the chef at Lespinasse, I'm there all day.

What got you interested in cooking in the first place?

My mother and my grandmothers [did]. I think it's in the genes.

Were they also professional cooks?

No. Well one of my grandmothers was kind of a self-taught cook. She worked in my grandfather's cafe; for lunch they used to have a menu. So if you want, she was a little bit professional.

I guess that is the sort of cuisine de terroir you're talking about.

That's right.

How has cuisine in the United States changed since you arrived here?

Oh, it's changed in just 10 years. Big time. Now New York is as good as Paris when it comes to restaurants. The products are very, very good. You can find almost everything you need. I think this country has really changed a lot with products, with the way we work, with the quality of the cooks, and also with the knowledge of the guests. They know what they're eating; it's not a joke.

What do you think has inspired this change in the way Americans eat?

What changed first of all was Americans going to Europe, going to good restaurants and learning what's available there. And then French chefs came here and started to work with young Americans going to schools like the CIA.

It's supposed to be very difficult to find good workers in America.

But less and less, because you have some fine schools here. It's difficult, but it's not that difficult.

How do you manage to keep the people you hire?

You have to teach them something. They have to learn from you, and if you accomplish that, then you have them for a couple of years. If they don't think that they're learning enough then they're going to go someplace else.

What do you do to maintain relationships with suppliers?

We communicate often. I tell them what I like, what I don't like. I use different items from different purveyors. I'm trying to be creative, and to be very scrupulous with what I'm buying, and that makes a big difference. That's what it's all about, to try always to find a better product. And you push your [suppliers] to do it. If there are different items that you would like to get, and you communicate that to the purveyor, he's going to feel motivated to get them. It's going to be something new for him, so he's going to work on it. If you don't do that, you don't get what you really should get.