TRENDING
The
MISSING ingredient
Chef Norman Van Aken is the father of New World cuisine , a fusion of Latin , Asian , African and other flavors ( he also popularized the use of the very term “ fusion ”). His Norman ’ s restaurant just celebrated its 15th anniversary at the Ritz-Carlton Orlando , Grande Lakes . HOTELS : What do you wish young chefs understood ? NVA : How to read . H : What do you mean ? NVA : They don ’ t read . They barely read . They watch things . They don ’ t read . And I know that it ’ s very tempting just to watch it on the tube or on the internet … Even at Norman ’ s , when I had a room where I had hundreds of my cookbooks , I said , ‘ You can come in before work and you can study and read the books . You can ’ t have any food and stuff to mess up the pages . But you can read .’ Rarely did anybody ever take the opportunity up , and it just blew my mind because I never went to school for cooking . My school was books and reading and real life . So , my first impulse is to say , read — and don ’ t smoke . H : What makes reading a different learning experience ? NVA : I think it ’ s about not the constant interruption that comes across through the electronic methodology , which is that you could be reading about something , whether it ’ s making a sauce or the historical aspects of a dish — and then your email comes in . Then somebody texts you .
And then there are secondary things , like talk to other people . Go to a market that you don ’ t have very much knowledge about . Go to a market where there ’ s Asian workers that are working with Asian products , and even if it ’ s pointing and pantomime , try to learn what this is and that is and take that into the kitchen and see what it means to work with rau ram , a Vietnamese herb , and see what it tastes like .
All that . Be curious .
Boutique
GASTRONOMIQUE
Move over , fashion houses : A French F & B icon has gotten into the hotel business . The hospitality arm of food purveyor Fauchon just opened its first , 54-room Fauchon L ’ Hôtel and aims to develop 20 more in the next 10 years , says President and CEO Jacques- Olivier Chauvin . The cost of its in-room , all-you-can-eat , custom-designed Bar Gourmet ( see photo ), is baked into the daily rate — expected to top € 550 ( US $ 630 ) — and a management plan requires owners to work with third-party companies following very specific standards .
“ Hospitality has been Fauchon ’ s very reason for being from the very beginning because we ’ ve always had a coffee shop and a restaurant , and we ’ ve always done cuisine ,” Chauvin says . “ Even though we have not had rooms , that ’ s the only component that we have actually added . But we ’ ve always welcomed guests for what we do till now . So it ’ s quite natural to expand this way .” The 54-room flagship following four key guidelines : Gourmet ( bien sur ), location ( urban ), attention ( bespoke ) and “ Mesdames ,” offering amenities in tune with women including sophisticated lighting , upscale hairdryers and properly sized bathrobes . Chauvin says the company is in discussions for locations in Doha , Kyoto , Budapest and possibly the U . S .
Fauchon ’ s Bar Gourmet
16 hotelsmag . com December 2018