Basic HTML Version
DISPATCHES
||
GLOBETROTTING
24
JUNE 2012
•
HEMISPHERESMAGAZINE.COM
NEW YORK CITY
ONLINE COURSES
David Bouley’s chef ’s table brings
Skype to the dining room
Eight dinner guests assembled around
a huge petrified-wood table turn their
a ention to a 65-inch TV. The boyish face
of Rodolphe LeMeunier,
un affineur de
fromage
, or expert cheese ager, appears
onscreen. “’Ere we are!” he announces.
LeMeunier, who is in Tours, France,
smiles at the camera, walks to a shelf
stackedwith rounds of cheese, picks
one and takes a deep sniff. “This one is
fantastique
. It’s very fruity. Very good.”
This isn’t a private screening of
“No Reservations”—it’s Chef’s Pass, a
21st-century chef’s table as envisioned
by New York culinary star David Bouley.
Where other top toques extract extraor-
dinary sums just to let guests sit
near
the kitchen, Bouley ups the ante. For
$550 a head, Chef’s Pass offers 10 courses
(with wine) in a private dining room at
Bouley Restaurant and unrestricted
access to its namesake. But for hard-core
foodies, the real prize is what Bouley
calls “rare interactive dialogues” with
the world’s finest food artisans via
Skype—for an additional $2,000.
With close-cropped white hair, bright
eyes and a wry smile, Bouley personally
prepares the dishes, including sea urchin
bound in
dashi
terrine and velvety tuna
withwildmushrooms and truffles.
In between courses, he expounds on
subjects as varied as John Rockefeller’s
art collection, Lou Reed’s
dessert habits
and the health properties of
kuzuko
, a
tasteless Japanese starch that sells for
$40 a pound.
At midnight, five hours a er the meal
began, several guests cry uncle, begging
Bouley to skip to dessert. He obliges,
but before they do eventually file out,
he ladles on a final indulgence: a tour
of the expanded kitchen. LeMeunier,
meanwhile, is off the hook—it’s 6 a.m.
where he is. “I’mhaving a glass of wine
and going back to bed,” he says, before
signing off.
—JANE BLACK
month and will appear in the title
role of Puccini’s
Tosca
in Vienna
this month.
Sometimes, however, all Radva-
novsky wants is some peace and
quiet. “Anytime I feel crazed while
I’m here, I go to the Palais-Royal
or Jardin du Luxembourg and just
stand in the middle of it and not
hear any noise. It’s brilliant,” she
says, before going on to make a
list of her favorite spots in Paris.
It includes Versailles, the Hôtel
de Ville and, last on the list of 17,
“opera houses!”—adorned with an
exclamation point as if to prove it’s
not merely an afterthought. (No. 1
is a bakery on the Left Bank whose
name she can’t recall.)
Yet her affection for the City of
Light is not unqualified. “You’re
walking down the sidewalk, and
there’s a group of three people
walking toward you. God forbid
they move, right?” she says. “I
have body-checked so many
people in Paris. If they’re not going
to move, I’m not going to move
either. But then you have this
beautiful architecture, so I forgive
them.”
—LIZ GARRIGAN
PARIS
SPREAD THIN
IN NEWZEALAND, A BELOVED FOODSTUFF IS IN SHORT SUPPLY
CHRISTCHURCH, NEW ZEALAND
•
After an
earthquake shut down New Zealand’s
only Marmite factory last year, a new
termwas coined: “Marmageddon.” Pierre
van Heerden, general manager of Sani-
tarium, the company that churns out 240
tons of the yeast-extract product annu-
ally, has recommended that consumers
conserve what they have by putting
it on warm toast, because “it spreads
easier and goes a li le bit further.” Even
PrimeMinister JohnKeyhasweighed in,
admi ing he has no problem switching
to Vegemite, the Australian-produced
rival product. No telling yet what effect
that will have on Key’s standing with
voters, who re-elected him in a historic
landslide last year.
—SAMPOLCER
HIGH PRAISE
A SUPERSTAR SOPRANO GIVES THE CITY OF LIGHT A STANDING OVATION
“Oh, you’ve
got
to check out that hair behind you,” says Sondra Radva-
novsky, over sea bass at L’Avenue. The ’do is indeed a marvel, but it’s not
the only dramatic coiffure in this tony lunch spot, attractive both for its
proximity to the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées—where Radvanovsky is
performing Verdi tonight—and for stylish patrons capable of providing
an impromptu lunchtime fashion show.
Radvanovsky certainly gets plenty of opportunity to scope out
the locals in fashionable cities. The 43-year-old star of New York’s
Metropolitan Opera performed in
Cyrano de Bergerac
inMadrid last