La Caravelle

Nation's Restaurant News, May 24, 1999 by Bret Thorn

We work for La Caravelle. We don't work for Andre or Rita Jammet," says Andre Jammet, owner of this Midtown Manhattan institution.

A caravelle is a ship with three sails, like the ones Christopher

Columbus used when he was searching for the Spice Islands and ended up in the Caribbean instead. It's an image Rita Jammet likes for the restaurant her husband took over some 15 years ago -- an image of the search for new possibilities.

Perhaps this is unusual for a restaurant with a reputation for being traditional and above all, French. But that's not how the Jammets see La Caravelle anyway.

While the restaurant has always used French cuisine as its point of origin, "we are a living institution that blends everything that New York is today," says Andre Jammet.

That's why one of La Caravelle's "classic" dishes is roasted crispy duck -- French enough -- with quite un-French cranberries and wild rice.

"It seems to work very well," Rita Jammet says, "because the cranberries counter the duck. They're sour and tart, but still a little sweet. And it kind of acknowledges the fact that this is happening in America, because in Europe you don't have cranberries. But the way the duck is cooked is very traditional French. We've been very careful not to alter that."

"I tried to take it off the menu, hut I couldn't," recalls Tadashi Ono, who was executive chef at La Caravelle in the early L990s. "There were too many requests for it."

Ono was one of a series of chefs, from Roger Fessaguet to La Caravelle's current chef, Cyril Renaud, who adjusted the direction of La Caravelle without steering it off course.

For decades now it has been a quiet, stable piece of the New York dining establishment, but in its early days it was a dramatic smash hit. The restaurant was opened in September 1960 by restaurateurs Robert Meyzen and Fred Decre with chef Fessaguet, who had all spent years working across the street at Le Pavilion, a French restaurant opened during World War II. They commissioned French artist Jean Pages, a student of Raoul Duffy, to paint bright murals of Paris park and street scenes.

"Pages also at some point was the creative and artistic director for Vogue magazine," Rita Jammet notes. "You can tell that some of his people in the murals have a little bit of a fashionable look to them."

La Caravelle was virtually an instant success, in no small part because of the patronage of Joseph Kennedy. whose son became president less than a year later.

"At first La Caravelle was not a very upscale restaurant," recalls Rita Jammet, "but when you have Kennedys and Vanderbilts and Picasso coming to your place, it kind of puts you at a different level of expectation."

Fessaguet retired as chef in the 1970s, but in 1980 he bought Decre's interest in the restaurant, and in 1984 Andre Jammet bought out Meyzen. The restaurant wasn't only changing in terms of ownership. Fessaguet's successor as chef, Andre Moisan, retired, and Jammet brought in Michael Romano.

"Michael had the very, very difficult task of bringing the restaurant to the 20th century," Rita Jammet recalls. "Everything used to be served in the dining room - the menu was like an encyclopedia. It was a huge list of items, like menus from Escoffier's time."

Now the menu is fairly small: about a dozen each of appetizers, entrees and desserts. "We like to change it often," Rita Jammet says. "It's much better, I think."

The Jammets bought out Fessaguet in 1988. Rita joined her husband as a partner in the restaurant and decided La Caravelle was showing signs of age.

"There was a recession going on," she says. "We had a change of chefs. It was a little destabilizing, but we luckily found another balance again by deciding to update the restaurant and rejuvenate it while keeping its traditional cachet, its classic image."

The restaurant was recarpeted and the red velvet on the banquettes was replaced with a light salmon color. "It's a very flattering color to the complexion," Rita Jammet points out, "and it just happened to be the background of the murals."

Meanwhile, back in the kitchen, David Ruggerio, who had succeeded Michael Romano not long before, in turn left shortly after Rita Jammet came on the scene.

The Jammets "were looking to spend a lot of money to bring in a big- name chef," recalls Ono, who had been Ruggerio's saucier and who had left with him several months before. "But I said to them, 'Why don't you try me?'"

The Jammets gave him a try, and Ono was soon putting his own imprint on the menu. He added shiso to pasta and used it to make ravioli with scallops and ginger. "It was a big seller, actually. I had it on the menu for five years," he says. He also made a vinaigrette of yuzu over fluke sashimi, and introduced a green tea souffle.

After five years at La Caravelle, Ono moved on, and Eric Maillard replaced him for a year, leaving Ono's menu essentially intact. Then in August 1996 Cyril Renaud took over. Renaud is a protege of David Bouley.

"Cyril changed everything," says Ono, "which is good. A chef should have an idea of what he should serve. And he's a French guy, so it's not so natural for him to have an influence from Asia."