Jean-Georges Vongerichten: all 'Thai-ed' up, groundbreaking chef makes next move into the world of Chinese cuisine

Nation's Restaurant News, Jan 27, 2003 by Amanda Mosle Friedman

Associates of Jean-Georges Vongerichten -- be it his partner Phil Suarez, cuisine and design director Daniel Del Vecchio or American protege in Paris, Eric Johnson -- all describe him as unbelievably energetic.

His operations manager, Lois Freedman, who has been with him since the early days at Lafayette in New York, says categorically: "JeanGeorges should go down in history. Not a lot of people realize it, but he reinvented the way people eat today."

Vongerichten spearheads a multinational empire of 12 restaurants plus three more on the way, with 2,600 employees. In addition, he is the author of several books. And in the quintessential way of the exceptionally gifted, he makes it seem simple. When asked, he says his culinary philosophy can be explained "in two sentences. Keep it simple and keep it sexy. After two or three bites, if it's not exciting, it's over."

World-renowned for his "groundbreaking" cuisine, he has created intense flavors, light textures and low-cholesterol dishes that are strikingly contemporary and have set new standards. Through use of his own vegetable juices, oils and vinaigrettes, in addition to spices and condiments like ginger, he has cut away rich stocks, glazes, butter and cream.

Simple, sexy and with the times his food may be, but each of Vongerichten's restaurants is different, His flagship restaurant is hautecuisine French, but then he has French bistro style, French-Thai fusion, French-New American "with a local twist" in the Bahamas, a steakhouse in Las Vegas, and his Paris restaurant, while French in foundation, plays up an Asian twist with "New York energy." Early 2003 will see the opening of a high-end Chinese restaurant in downtown Manhattan, and he is currently in the hiring stages for what will most likely be a very high-end French restaurant with "local accents" in Shanghai, China.

"All my restaurants have to have an identity to start," he explains. "I don't open a restaurant just to open one. As a kid, I wanted to be either an architect or a chef. Now I'm both!"

Developing dishes often happens just by chance in the kitchen. "Last year I tasted a caper and a raisin, and there was an explosion in my mouth. Now we have a caper-raisin sauce." And each time it's a thrill for the star chef. "Only weeks ago I came up with something new -- and you can't believe it when it happens. Thirty years, and it happens every day! Twenty years ago it was 20-percent successful. Now it is 80-percent successful."

Perhaps it is Vongerichten's constant reinventions that keep him so excited and infused with energy. To him, a restaurant is a world unto itself: Each one encompasses its own culture, with different architects, designers, music and staff attire. "The food is probably half of it," he says. "When I create a new restaurant, that is my craving for the year. Right now everything I do is Chinese. I live, eat, drink, breath and dream Chinese. It's easier to open a new restaurant than to change the menu because you lose half your customers when you change the menu.

The road to the New York-based Jean-Georges Enterprises began when Vongerichten was growing up in the French Alsatian town of Illkirsch-Graffenstaden. His father and grandfather were coal-handlers and they had 40 people for lunch every day.

"It was like a minirestaurant at home," he recalls. "I'd wake up, and there would be all these smells, and it really started there." For his 16th birthday his parents took him to a nearby Michelin three-star restaurant, Auberge de L'Ill in Illhaeusern. Shortly thereafter he entered an apprenticeship there. He then went to work under French chef Paul Bocuse in Lyon. The turning point, however, came when the young Vongerichten went to work with Louis Outhier at l'Oasis in La Napoule, France. Outhier taught him about market freshness and cooking a la minute, but more important, it was he who opened Vongerichten's eyes to the world. "I owe him my life," he says.

In 1980 Outhier made 23-year-old Vongerichten chef of his Bangkok, Thailand restaurant. He went from being line chef to chef overnight. The experience was pivotal. "When I arrived in Bangkok," recalls Vongerichten, "it was the first time I had managed a kitchen. There was only body language, and I had never done this. Outhier was there for two weeks, and then he left and I had to do it on my own. I had no idea how to do anything. All I had was my palate -- everything else was weak. It was the toughest six months of my life. Some days I came home crying. The Thai people really helped me -- they were a great support. I think Thailand was the best place to learn. I'd freak out, and they'd be smiling -- because they didn't understand me. But then I'd 'breathe.' I learned to be Zen. It's a very spiritual place." He went on, after two intense years, to open restaurants for Outhier in Singapore, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Geneva, Lisbon, London, Boston and New York, where he earned his first four stars at Lafayette in 1986.

The leap to branch out on his own happened in New York when Phil Suarez went for dinner at Lafayette with his partners from the restaurant Brandy Wine. Suarez says his partners liked Vongerichten "so much they asked him to be their consultant -- I don't even think they needed a consultant," but he agreed and it became an Alsatian steakhouse.