France Magazine #104 - Winter 2012-13

the best of culture, tr avel & art de vivre

$5.95 U.S. / $6.95 Canada / francemagazine.org

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The Tastings Issue

A Delicious Celebration of Food & Wine!

25 The Tastings Issue

Winter 2012-13

A Delicious Celebration of Food & Wine!

26 Bacchus Brotherhoods

The ultimate clubs for Burgundy, Bordeaux and Champagne lovers

BY JANE ANSON & KAREN TAYLOR

38 Food Fraternities

Not-so-secret societies for top chefs and devoted foodies

BY AMY SERAFIN & ROLAND FLAMINI

44 Frédéric Rouzaud

The CEO of Champagne Louis Roederer shares his views on art, wine and philanthropy

BY ELIZABETH THRUSH

50 Trending Now

Reports from the front lines of Paris’s culinary scene

BY TINA ISAAC, HEATHER STIMMLER-HALL & JULIA SAMMUT

56 Kitchen Cool

The latest accessories for the well-appointed kitchen

BY MELISSA OMERBERG

departments 5 The f: section Culture, books, travel, food & wine edited by Melissa Omerberg

18 Art

A Second Renaissance

by Sara Romano

58 Calendrier French Cultural Events in North America

by Tracy Kendrick

64 Temps Modernes

Reality Check

by Michel Faure

RICHARD HAUGHTON

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A zucchini flower becomes an exuberant sunburst in the hands of Le Cinq chef Eric Briffard; here it is combined with steamed cod flavored with apricots and burrata.

Story page 53.

I had fully intended to devote these lines to this issue’s special food and wine section, but then Edward Hopper sent me down a rabbit hole. It all began when one of the founders of this magazine attended the opening of the Hopper show at the Grand Palais last October and snapped a photo of one of the works on display: a cover illustration for the April 1920 issue of an American magazine called La France. When she emailed it to us the next day, we were dumbfounded. Neither she nor I nor anyone else who has worked on France Magazine all these years had any idea that another publication so similar to ours had preceded us.

Hopper reputedly hated the commercial illustration work that he was obliged to do before his fine-arts career took off, but given his fondness for France, we’d like to think that he somewhat enjoyed this assignment. In any case, we are grateful to him for taking it. His cover launched an Internet quest that soon turned up scanned images of the entire issue as well as others in the series (the originals are in the University of Michigan Library). Bit by bit, we learned that the magazine débuted in the fall of 1917, the year the U.S. entered World War I. Initially called New France, the name was changed to Victory after the Armistice, then became La France in October 1919.

Edward Hopper’s •illustration for the April 1920

Looking through these old issues was, as one of our staffers remarked, like finding an ancestor you had no idea cover of La France, now existed—and discovering that not only do you look just on view in a retrospective like her, you also have her same personality. The tables at Paris’s Grand Palais, prompted France Magazine of contents eerily mirror our own, with stories on, yes, to research its “family tree.” the best of culture, travel and art de vivre and essays on contemporary French society (Michel Faure, anyone?).

“La France will always be a magazine to be read and enjoyed rather than studied,” wrote the editor of the October 1919 issue. “It will reflect the views and genius of the best minds on both sides of the ocean; its illustrations will be the most interesting we can obtain. La France will inform as well as entertain; it will enlighten as well as give enjoyment.” I can’t count the number of times that I have penned similar mission statements.

Reading La France’s articles was absolutely fascinating, and I highly recommend them to anyone interested in gleaning some unexpected insights into French-American relations (http://bit.ly/XJvtqP). World War I of course casts a long shadow over many of its pages, allowing today’s readers to experience the devastation of that conflict with a rare immediacy and to witness the hopes and aspirations of war-torn France. That humor and fashion also find their place here attests to the resiliency of the times.

On more of a shop-talk level, it was amusing to see that, like us, our “ancestor” had to contend with qualifying for second-class postage and selling subscriptions (“Six issues for $1!”). But the ultimate Alice-in-Wonderland moment was discovering that Michelin, our oldest sponsor, was also a loyal advertiser in La France. In one full-page ad, an ageless Bibendum touts the company’s latest technological advance: circular inner tubes.

Bonne lecture et bonne année!

KAREN TAYLOR

Editor

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France magazine Editor KAREN TAYLOR

Senior Editor/Web Editor MELISSA OMERBERG

Copy Editor LISA OLSON

Proofreader DEBORAH PARKER

Art Direction TODD ALBERTSON DESIGN

Production Manager Associate Art Director/Webmaster PATRICK NAZER

Social Media and Marketing Associate BENJAMIN SIGMAN

Contributors is a wine and travel writer based in Bordeaux; she is also the author of Bordeaux Legends: The 1855 FirstGrowth Wines (La Martinière, 2012) • MICHEL FAURE, now retired from L’Express, is pursuing a variety of journalistic ventures • ROLAND FLAMINI, a former TIME Magazine correspondent, now writes a foreign policy column for the Washington-based CQ Weekly and is a frequent contributor to France Magazine • DOROTHY J. GAITER is a New York-based writer and the co-author of four books • TINA ISAAC, the Paris correspondent for Travel + Leisure and Flare magazines, also contributes to a number of other international print and online publications • JULIA SAMMUT is a food writer and partner in TravelFood, which offers custom culinary tours • AMY SERAFIN, formerly editor of WHERE Paris, is a Paris-based freelance journalist who has contributed to The New York Times, National Public Radio, Departures and other media • HEATHER STIMMLER-HALL is an author and a hotel and travel writer for Fodor’s, Hotelier International and easyJet inflight • ELIZABETH THRUSH is a freelance writer with a focus on culture and wine.

JANE ANSON

www.francemagazine.org

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France magazine

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The Royal Monceau’s La Cuisine Restaurant, offering a fun and fresh take on palace dining. Story page 53; photo by J. Zarins/Le Royal Monceau - Raffles Paris.

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The sumptuous “L’Apothéose d’Hercule” (1731-36) by François Lemoyne is a highlight of “Versailles et l’Antique,” showcasing works at the Château inspired by Greek and Roman mythology.

Edited by MELISSA OMERBERG

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Culture

Paris & the provinces “L’Empereur moghol Muhammad • Shah voyageant sur un éléphant” (c. 1750) is one of the masterpieces on view in “Les Mille et une nuits” at the Institut du Monde Arabe.

PARIS

Van Cleef & Arpels The Musée des Arts Décoratifs explores the history of Van Cleef & Arpels through more than 400 pieces of jewelry. Presented chronologically, the show highlights the stunning designs, technical ingenuity and extraordinary gemstones that have made this Place Vendôme establishment a French cultural treasure and one of world’s most exclusive joailliers.

The exhibition design is a jewel in its own right. (See article, FM Fall 2012). Through Feb. 10; lesartsdecoratifs.fr.

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Art in Wartime The Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris presents nearly 400 works by more than 100 artists in L’Art en guerre - France 1938-1947 De Picasso à Dubuffet. Beginning with the 1938 International Surrealist Exhibition, this important exhibit goes on to explore the ways in which French, European and American artists living in France adapted their themes, materials and processes to the period before and after the outbreak of WWII and the Nazi occupation. The show wraps up with a look at artists’ postwar responses to the physical and emotional tolls of the wartime experience.

Through Feb. 17; mam.paris.fr.

100 Photographic Masterpieces comprises 100 stunning works from the collection of the Bibliothèque nationale de France. Not a history of photography per se, the show seeks to define what constitutes a masterpiece in such a wide-ranging, diverse medium. Every photographic genre is represented—portraits, landscapes, nudes, photojournalism, advertising, scientific photos—with works by both the world’s most celebrated photographers and anonymous talents. Through Feb. 17; bnf.fr.

La Photographie en cent chefs-d’œuvre

Michael Werner Collection La Collection Michael Werner

at the Musée

© PA S C A L FA L I G O T 2 0 0 9

EXHIBITS

d’Art moderne de la Ville de Paris brings together some 900 works amassed by the German art dealer during the past half-century.

The exhibit showcases the affinities between apparently diverse artists, making for unusual and fascinating groupings of paintings, sculptures and drawings. Otto Dix, André Dérain, Francis Picabia, Joseph Beuys, Per Kirkeby and Sigmar Polke are just a few of the nearly 40 names featured in the show. Through March 3; mam.paris.fr.

were clearly influenced by Hiroshige.

Visitors to the Pinacothèque de Paris will have a chance to draw these connections for themselves by combining a trip to that exhibit with the show Hiroshige, L’Art du

featuring woodblock prints illustrating travels between the cities of Edo and Kyoto.

Through March 17; pinacotheque.com. voyage,

© P H O T O R M N / R E N É - G A B R I E L O J É D A ; © T H E M E T R O P O L I TA N M U S E U M O F A R T / A R T R E S O U R C E , N Y

Rodin, Flesh and Marble Marble is considered the sculptural material that most closely resembles human flesh.

While modern critics tend to focus on Rodin’s bronzes, his contemporaries viewed him as a “dominator of stone” whose marble sculptures “gave life and form to the modern soul.” Rodin, la chair, le marbre at the Musée Rodin revisits the importance of marble in the master’s œuvre through 60 sculptures and a dozen terracotta and plaster models. Through March 3; musee-rodin.fr.

Games People Play Associated with such universal themes as power, love and destiny, games of chance and strategy gained popularity thousands of years ago and were a veritable fixture of daily life during the Middle Ages. The Musée de Cluny’s Art du jeu, jeu dans l’Art: de Babylone à l’occident médiéval explores every aspect of ancient game-playing and its portrayal in works of art. Among the 250 items included in the exhibit are divinatory tools such as dice, knucklebones and tarot cards; boards and pieces from games such as backgammon and chess; and archeological objects and illuminated manuscripts depicting people engaged in play. Through March 4; musee-moyenage.fr.

Van Gogh and Hiroshige Comprising some 40 works, Van Gogh, Rêves

demon s t r a t e s t h e importance of Japonism to the Dutch a r tist.

Indeed, most of the landscapes he painted after 1887 du Japon

Eugène Delacroix’s “Corbeille de fleurs” exemplifies a lesser-known •aspect of the artist’s work that is explored in “Des Fleurs en hiver.”

Star Wars Right now, in a museum not so far away … a whole galaxy of Star Wars toys is on view. Les Jouets Star Wars at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs features action figures, dolls, costumes, masks, spaceships, stuffed animals, video games and more. All come from a single collection amassed by a fan of SF paraphernalia.

Through March 17; lesartsdecoratifs.

Winter Blooms In response to the Industrial Revolution and the rise of the railroads, many 19th-century artists succumbed to nostalgia for the natural world. No less a painter than Delacroix—the creator of “Liberty Leading the People”— opted to present five floral works at the 1849 Salon, in the wake of another revolution.

The Musée Delacroix’s Eugène Delacroix – Des fleurs en hiver brings together the artist’s most important f loral paintings (oils and watercolors) for the first time ever. Works by two contemporary artists, Jean-Michel Othoniel and sculptor Johan Creten, round out the show.

Through March 18; louvre.fr.

Hello Dalí Known for his grandiose personality (“At the age of six I

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The ancient Egyptian game “Dogs and Jackals” (1810-1700 B.C.) is featured in the Musée de Cluny’s “Art du jeu.”

wanted to be a cook. At seven I wanted to be Napoleon. And my ambition has been growing steadily ever since.”), Salvador Dalí came to believe that he embodied the Surrealist movement. Certainly his melting watches, eggs, ants and lobster telephone left an indelible mark on art history. The Centre Pompidou pays tribute to the flamboyant Spaniard with a major retrospective featuring some 150 canvases as well as a selection of films and sound recordings.

Through March 25; centrepompidou.fr.

Beyond Street Art The Musée de la Poste’s Au-delà du Street Art explores the many facets of this urban movement. The show focuses on 11 international artists—among them Banksy, Shepard Fairey and Vhils—who work in a variety of styles and media, from charcoal and spray paint to stencils and stickers; six of them, including Miss.Tic and Ludo, created a special installation for the show. Through March 30; laposte.fr/adressemusee.

French Touch The movement known as “French Touch”— a style of electronic dance music embodied by such groups as Air, Daft Punk and Cassius— experienced its heyday in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Their sounds inspired many graphic artists, who worked with the musicians to create album covers, flyers, fanzines and videos. French Touch: Graphisme, Vidéo, Electro at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs explores this extraordinarily close collaboration. Through April 17; lesartsdecoratifs.

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Culture working in diverse media (fine arts, photography and video, music and dance, poetry)—to take part in a collaborative exercise inspired by the game. The resulting creations are on display in Cadavre Exquis, suites méditer-

Through April 13; museegranetaixenprovence.fr. ranéennes.

LYON

18th-century Lyon Lyon experienced an economic boom during the 18th century with the development of the faience, weapons and silk industries.

This prosperity, along with an openness to Enlightenment ideas, gave rise to important art collections, rich libraries, sumptuous interiors and a specifically Lyonnais lifestyle.

The Musées Gadagne’s Lyon au 18e siècle: Un siècle surprenant! explores the city’s urban, political, financial and cultural development; the exhibit will be accompanied by concerts, lectures, plays and dance performances.

Through May 5; mairie-lyon.

CALAIS

at Calais’s Cité internationale de la denSalvador Dalí’s last painting, “The Swallow’s Tail” (1983), reflects the •artist’s telle et de la mode is interest in mathematical theory; it is part of a major retrospective not a display of your at the Centre Pompidou. grandmother’s lace.

A Thousand and One Nights The gallery gave carte blanche to stuThe Institut du Monde Arabe pays tribute to dents and graduates of Brussels’s Acadéthe alluring storyteller Scheherazade in Les mie des Beaux-Arts to create cutting-edge Mille et une nuits. Featuring some 300 works, works of lace using non-traditional matethe exhibit traces her immortal tale from its rials and freely interpreting the fabric’s Indo-Persian origins to its enshrinement as a characteristic patterns of looped thread classic of world literature often reinterpreted and open holes. No doilies or tablecloths in theater, dance, fashion, music, film and art. to be seen. Through June 2; cite-dentelle.fr.

Along the way, it examines the many images of the Orient—both true and false—to which the LENS work gave rise. Through April 28; imarabe.org. Welcoming the Renaissance Renaissance, the inaugural exhibit at the newly opened Louvre-Lens, showcases 15thAIX-EN-PROVENCE Exquisite Corpses and 16th-century European art with a particuInvented by the Surrealists, Exquisite Corpse lar focus on Mannerism. This broad survey, is a game in which players write or draw on a which takes the latest art historical scholarship sheet of paper, fold it to conceal their work, into account, features a wide range of works on then pass it on to the next person. The Musée loan from the Louvre in Paris, from paintings Granet invited 15 artists—all hailing from and drawings to sculptures, objects and antiqcountries around the Mediterranean basin and uities. Through March 11; louvrelens.fr.

Histoire de fils

art and remembrance Thousands of foreigners and Jewish refugees were detained at the CAMP DES MILLES near Aix-en-Provence between 1939 and 1942, pending the deportation of many of them to Germany; unusually, a large number were well-known artists—most notably Max Ernst—as well as scientists and intellectuals. Camp inmates had a certain amount of artistic freedom and, along with a theater, they created a number of murals and mosaics at this former tile factory. The almost forgotten building opened this fall as a museum that traces the history of the site, offers educational programming and preserves the inmates’ art. campdesmilles.org

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REIMS

Art of Champagne The spotlight’s on bubbly at the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Reims, where Les Arts de l’effervescence – Champagne! explores the representation of the region’s signature beverage in the arts. The show includes some 400 works—paintings, drawings, engravings, posters, sculptures, decorative objects— spanning some 300 years, with particular emphasis on the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Through May 26; ville-reims.fr.

SÈVRES

Ettore Sottsass A co-founder of the 1980s Memphis movement, Italian designer Ettore Sottsass collaborated with the Sèvres Manufactory and Marseille’s CIRVA (Centre international de recherche sur le verre et les arts plastiques) to create a series of objects in porcelain and glass. Sèvres – Cité de la céramique presents a retrospective of his work in Un Architecte dans l’atelier – Ettore Sottsass, featuring vases, goblets and objets in a variety of bright colors and mind-boggling forms. Feb. 20 through July 20; sevresciteceramique.fr.

© S A LVA D O R D A L Í , F U N D A C I Ó G A L A - S A LVA D O R D A L Í / A D A G P, F I G U E R E S , PA R I S , 2 0 12 ; A R TA I S S T U D I O

Lace Makers

VERSAILLES

Antiquity and Versailles Louis XIV and his successors amassed a vast collection of art and objects inspired by the aesthetics and mythology of ancient Greece and Rome. The Sun King in particular sought out the most exquisite ancient pieces or had them copied by the most highly skilled contemporary artists. Versailles et l’Antique at the Château de Versailles (once known as “ la nouvelle Rome” ) brings together more than 200 of these works—sculptures, paintings, drawings, etchings, tapestries, furnishings and other articles—for the first time since the French Revolution. Through March 17; chateauversailles.fr.

FESTIVALS Nouveau Festival The Centre Pompidou’s multidisciplinary Nouveau Festival features more than 100 events, including art installations, theater and dance performances, films, speakers and children’s programming. Among the highlights Guy de Cointet’s play Tell Me, Guillaume Désanges and Frédéric Cherbœuf ’s Marcel Duchamp, and Fanny de Chaillé and Nadia Lauro’s Bunraku-inf luenced Je suis un metteur en scène japonais. Feb. 20 through March 11; centrepompidou.fr.

challenging design Every two years, design mavens flock to Saint-Etienne, about 40 miles southwest of Lyon.

The big draw? The city’s BIENNALE INTERNATIONALE DESIGN. Established in 1998 by the Ecole Régionale des Beaux-Arts de Saint-Etienne (since renamed the Ecole Supérieure d’Art et Design), this event is unlike any other. Neither a trade show nor a museum exhibition, it is rather a sort of public forum for thinking about design: where it is headed, how it can be democratized and how it can be used to meet a variety of contemporary challenges.

The theme of this year’s Biennale, “Empathy, or the Experience of the Other,” will be explored through lectures, colloquia, workshops and a dozen intriguingly titled exhibits.

Among them are “Tomorrow is today #4,” on anticipating the future; “‘Traits d’Union,’ objects of empathy,” on the emotional connections users develop with objects; “Do androids dream of electric pigs?,” on the place of animals in industry; and “It’s not my style,” examining the complex relationship between women and contemporary French design.

Since 2009, the two-and-a-half-week-long event has been held at the Cité du design, a stunning architectural complex that’s a destination in its own right. Occupying the site of a former arms factory, the Cité comprises several refurbished buildings dating back to 1864 as well as a pair of striking modern structures: the long, rectangular La Platine, whose sleek glass skin is composed of transparent and opaque triangular panels, and a 90-foot-high illuminated observation tower. Local and regional institutions such as the Museum of Modern Art, the Mining Museum and the Museum of Art and Industry will also host events related to the Biennale. It’s an excellent opportunity to discover the only town in France belonging to UNESCO’s Creative Cities Network. March 14 through 31; biennale-design.com.

European Capital of Culture Marseille-Provence 2013 kicks off in January when the seaside metropolis and surrounding area assume the mantle of European Culture Capital. The year will offer a packed program of art exhibits, concerts, theater and dance performances, films, literary events, museum openings, festivals and more. mp2013.fr

©2009 ARCHITIZER LLC

REOPENING Musée Zadkine The Musée Zadkine, in Paris’s 6th arrondissement, has just reopened its doors after a year of renovations. Located in the former home and studio of the Vitebsk-born sculptor Ossip Zadkine, the museum—which boasts a lovely garden—features some 300 sculptures as well as drawings, gouaches, photographs and tapestries. It also hosts three to four contemporary art exhibits a year along with readings, performances, concerts and other cultural events. zadkine.paris.fr

The Cité du •design combines 19th-century buildings with the ultra-modern glass-sheathed La Platine.

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Livres PLATO’S REPUBLIC A Dialogue in 16 Chapters

by Alain Badiou, translated by Susan Spitzer

A professor emeritus at Paris’s Ecole Normale Supérieure and self-described “Platonist,” Badiou has undertaken what he dubs a “hyper” translation of Plato’s famous work. While remaining true to the spirit of the philosopher’s text, Badiou employs modern colloquialisms, occasionally eliminates entire passages and introduces such jolting anachronisms as references to AIDS, iPods and Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution. The result is a highly entertaining intellectual exercise. Columbia University Press, $35.

ANNETTE MESSAGER

by Catherine Grenier

Described by The New York Times as a “bold messenger for feminist art,” Annette Messager is celebrated for complex, site-specific installations that explore women’s roles in society. Working in a variety of media—painting, photography, video, textiles—she creates highly diverse and compelling pieces. This comprehensive, beautifully designed monograph includes images of the artist’s most recent work, offering insights into her ongoing stylistic and thematic development. Flammarion, $65.

MONSIEUR PROUST’S LIBRARY

by Anka Muhlstein

After Balzac’s Omelette, Muhlstein takes on another titan of French literature. This engaging little volume looks at the writers and literary works that influenced Marcel Proust, a passionate reader whose characters often appear book-in-hand. A helpful introduction to A la recherche du temps perdu, this new work reveals the ways in which Proust’s favorite writers—Saint-Simon, Racine, Mme de Sévigné, Balzac, Baudelaire, Dostoyevsky—inform his magnum opus. Other Press, $19.95.

JOSEPH CORNELL’S MANUAL OF MARVELS edited by Dickran Tashjian and Analisa Leppanen-Guerra While browsing the bookstalls of Lower Manhattan in the 1930s, Joseph Cornell came across a volume of the Journal d’Agriculture Pratique—a French farmer’s almanac. Over time, he reworked the book, cutting out shapes and inserting collages, photomontages and drawings. A 60-page facsimile of this whimsical work has now been reproduced for the first time; it comes in a specially designed cigar box that includes a DVD of the full manual, along with a volume of illustrated essays. Thames & Hudson, $80.

NINETEENTH-CENTURY EUROPEAN PAINTING From Barbizon to Belle Epoque

by William Rau

Nineteenth-century art witnessed a profusion of styles and subjects as many painters distanced themselves from the Academy and began experimenting with new techniques and approaches. Featuring lavish illustrations and informative, accessible texts, this stunning tome offers a comprehensive survey of the century’s diverse movements—Romanticism, Orientalism, Realism, Impressionism, postImpressionism—as well as biographies of key artists. Antique Collectors Club, $250.

PARIS IN THE 1920s With Kiki de Montparnasse

by Xavier Girard

A cabaret singer, actress, artist’s model and painter, Alice Prin—better known as Kiki de Montparnasse—was a muse to numerous artists, including Calder, Foujita and particularly Man Ray, who made hundreds of portraits of her. This 1920s “It” girl serves as a guiding thread among the various personalities and events covered in this lavishly illustrated volume, which examines the cultural and political ferment on Paris’s bohemian Left Bank in the years following WWI. Assouline, $195.

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Bon Voyage

Notes for the savvy traveler UNWINDING IN STYLE

Paris’s legendary Meurice hotel has just reopened its Spa Valmont. Bathed

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The cozy, cosseted bar at the Auberge du Jeu de Paume’s Jardin d’Hiver restaurant.

Inset: An architectural detail of the exterior.

in natural light, the 3,660-square-foot facility is equipped with three luxurious treatment suites, a state-of-the-art

ROOM SERVICE

• Just outside the gates of Paume has 92 rooms and

the Château de Chantilly, the four-star Auberge du Jeu de suites decorated with toile de Jouy fabrics and Louis XV-style furniture. Amenities include a Moorish-inspired spa, conference facilities, a bistro and bar, and a gourmet restaurant that showcases the talents of Ritz alumnus Arnaud Faye.

From E550 with free Wi-Fi; aubergedujeudepaumechantilly.fr.

• Steps from Paris’s Canal St-Martin, Le Robinet d’Or occupies a 1930s faucet factory (hence its name). Its industrial-chic décor—concrete, zinc, unpolished wood flooring— references that history, yet the overall effect is one of surprising warmth. Rooms feature Liberty prints and charming secondhand furniture; a restaurant serves up French bistro fare and organic wines. From E122 with free Wi-Fi; lerobinetdor.com.

• Housed in Nantes’s erstwhile Palais de Justice—a grand neoclassical structure dating back to 1851—the city’s new Radisson Blu Hotel features 142 sleekly contemporary rooms and suites, a bar and restaurant (L’Assise, in a majestic former courtroom), a banquet hall, a spa and a fitness center. The four-star establishment plans to host art exhibits and other cultural events. From E132 with free Wi-Fi; radissonblu.com/hotel-nantes.

fitness room, a nail bar, a sauna and two hammams adorned with Bisazza tiles.

The spa is celebrating the occasion with an exclusive limitededition facial treatment, “Bulle Emotionnelle.”

GUIDES & APPS

• Michelin Restaurants is a new iPhone and Android app that lets users search for restaurants in France by name, location and price; read and write reviews; and make reservations at certain establishments. Free, in French only.

• The Food Lover’s Guide to the World with introductions by James Oseland and Mark Bittman. This beautifully photographed celebration of global cuisine profiles the culinary traditions of various countries including France, offering restaurant recommendations, a rundown of the best markets, authentic recipes and tips on cultural etiquette. Lonely Planet, $39.99.

• The Roman Provence Guide by Edwin Mullins. Provence boasts more Roman-era architecture than anywhere else in the world; this new guide to the area’s Roman heritage provides a hefty dose of ancient history along with maps, photographs, and a list of museums and visitor centers. Interlink Books, $20.

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©CHRISTOPHE BIELSA ; ©GUILL AUME-DE-L AUBIER

lemeurice.com

Bon Voyage

Notes for the savvy traveler takes hikers • Backroads through Gordes, one of Provence’s picturesque hilltop villages.

SEEING IT ALL

(g )

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Crafting jewelry at Cécile & Jeanne.

The Great Wine Capitals Global Network recently announced the winners of its 2013 Best of Wine Tourism awards. At the international level, the Maison des Vins de Cadillac took home the prize in the “Art and Culture” category.

At the regional level, 17 Bordeaux châteaux were honored, with six—among them Château Faugères (above)—snagging the organization’s coveted gold medal in categories such as “Accommodations,”

GOOD DEALS

famous winter sales kick off on January 9 in most parts of the country and continue for five weeks, ending on February 12.

Check out the Paris tourism office’s Web site for special discounts at hotels, restaurants and cultural sites in the French capital. parisinfo.com • The SNCF is ushering in no-frills TGV service on domestic routes in 2013, with tickets—available online only—costing less than E25. Passengers can bring on one piece of luggage for free (with a fee for additional bags) on the budget trains, which offer only second-class service, have no dining cars and operate out of suburban stations rather than the city center. voyages-sncf.com 14

WINNING WINERIES

• France’s

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“Architecture and Landscapes” and “Innovative Wine Tourism Experiences.” For the full list, visit greatwinecapitals.com.

© W AY N E E P P E R S O N ; © D AV I D H E L M A N / S T U D I O D H ; O U T A N D A B O U T I N PA R I S

• Backroads has introduced two new six-day, five-night walking and biking tours in France for 2013. French & Italian Alps Walking & Hiking offers spectacular views of Mont Blanc; a trek through the rock spires, glaciers and saw-edged peaks of Chamonix; and a hike across an Alpine glacier. (July 7 through Sept.

8; from $4,298 per person double occupancy.) Provence Biking showcases quintessential Southern French landscapes, as guests pedal through villages in the Luberon mountains. (May 12 through Oct. 6; from $3,098 per person double occupancy.) Both tours include premiere lodgings and dining at Michelin-starred restaurants. Tel. 800/462-2848; backroads.com.

• Les visites particulières, a new tour company, offers six different art- and design-focused tours, some of which are accompanied by wine tastings, a gourmet lunch or luscious hot chocolate. Destinations include art galleries, foundations, museums, artists’ workshops and private art collections. lesvisitesparticulieres.com • Meeting the French has just added two new visits to its catalogue: one to the By Terry Make-up Studio, where guests learn helpful techniques and get professional advice in a fun and relaxed atmosphere; and one to the Cécile & Jeanne jewelry workshop, where they get a behind-the-scenes look at how the company’s jewelry is made. meetingthefrench.com

à la carte

French food & drink in America

mille feuilles

By DOROTHY J. GAITER

• Bouchon Bakery

by Thomas Keller and Sebastien Rouxel. This cookbook and memoir is a love letter both to Keller’s mother and to bread and pastries (Rouxel is executive pastry chef for Keller’s restaurant group). Keller writes fondly of Paris, where he tasted his first macaron as well as his first “real” croissant and mille-feuille. Famous for his three-star restaurants, The French Laundry and Per Se, he notes that he also runs five bakeries because bread and pastries appeal to a much wider audience. “They’re universal. That’s why I’m so excited to be sharing the craft in this book.”

Artisan, $50.

• Ladurée: Entertaining • Jacques Pépin New Recipes, Ideas & Complete Techniques by Inspiration by Vincent Jacques Pépin. Here the Lemains and Michel chef is doing what he Lerouet. The gift box does best: cooking and and gilded pages whisper teaching. This new tome timeless luxury. The updates and revises the authors, both chefs at chef’s 2001 bestseller, Maison Ladurée, offer which merged his recipes for simple to seminal 1976 and 1979 over-the-top breakfasts, books, La Technique brunches, picnics, and La Méthode; it also afternoon teas, suppers includes text from his and dinners. They two-volume classic, The also suggest amusingly Art of Cooking. Featuring ingenious decorating recipes that incorporate ideas: “To provide the more than 1,000 musical atmosphere for techniques—30 percent your picnic … let birds more than the original— take care of it.” Caged plus 2,250 step-by-step birds will do, or CDs photographs, this latest of singing birds or work offers an intensive “chickens pecking the culinary education. lawn for a truly pastoral Black Dog & Leventhal touch, if the garden Publishers, $39.95. is fenced.” Hachette Livre, Editions du Chêne, $39.95.

“

• 101 Classic Cookbooks, edited by the Fales Library of New York University. This new compendium features the “greatest hits” from some of the past century’s most influential cookbooks. Julia Child’s contributions loom large, as does of course, French cooking.

The book notes that Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking is unquestionably the most important American cookbook of the 20th century. “Child gave the average cook an attitude toward food that shaped the way Americans ate for the rest of the century.” Notable recipes include Jacques Pépin’s Brioche and Elizabeth David’s Bouillabaisse.

Rizzoli, $50.

• A Table at Le Cirque Stories and Recipes from New York’s Most Legendary Restaurant

by Sirio Maccioni and Pamela Fiori. Is it French or is it Italian? In the hands of maestro Maccioni, this culinary temple has been a resounding success at being both while catering to the world’s rich, famous and powerful. This is the first cookbook from Le Cirque, which Maccioni opened in 1974 with an unerring eye for hiring talented chefs such as David Bouley. Included are the original recipes for Daniel Boulud’s Black Bass with Barolo Sauce, Alain Sailhac’s Fettuccine with White Truffles and Jacques Torres’s Bombolini.

Rizzoli, $39.95.

A PROPOS...

”

— Globetrotting wine consultant Michel Rolland at a September tasting of Campo Eliseo wines made in Toro, Spain, in partnership with his oenologist wife, Dany, and winemaker/consultant François Lurton.

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G L É N AT

What forges experience is working in many places, in very different conditions.

Dorothy Cann Hamilton

STAYING AHEAD OF THE CULINARY CURVE

When Dorothy Cann Hamilton founded the French Culinary Institute in Lower Manhattan in 1984, it was immediately championed by Julia Child. Bobby “Throwdown” Flay was in its first class; other famous chefs got their start there, too. Now known as the International Culinary Center, it has 22,000 alumni from 77 countries; campuses in New York, California and Italy; and a new program in Spain. In a sign of the times, the curriculum has

important trade schools in Europe, including the Ferrandi School of Culinary Arts, founded by the Paris Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

I asked my Dad, “Why can’t we have a school like this in New York?” I started corresponding with Ferrandi, and we eventually paid them $80,000 for the curriculum. Dad had worked with total immersion, so we put the curriculum

( ) Tête à tête with…

Why did the school become the International Culinary Center? In 2006, when we introduced Italian cooking, we realized that no one wanted to learn Italian cooking at a French institute.

The label “French cuisine” was too limiting; food had become global. But we still stand on the shoulders of French cooking, and French cuisine is our cornerstone program. France still leads in the international arena.

Yet you have programs in Italy and Spain but not in France. We’d love to have the opportunity to give our students basic training here, and then send them to France for a first-hand taste of the culture and to work in the restaurants so that they can truly “get” French cuisine. But we need the French government’s help in facilitating shortterm visas. France is very expensive, so we also need help with student housing and kitchen space.

expanded to cover not only cooking and baking but also wine, restaurant management and food journalism.

Hamilton took some time out from managing her growing empire—which includes books, a radio show, blogs and two student-run restaurants—to talk with us about her journey.

How did you become interested in French cuisine? After graduating from high school in Brooklyn, I attended the University of Newcastle upon Tyne in England. The two worst things about How has your student body changed Dorothy Cann Hamilton, in the kitchen with Lutèce’s André Soltner. that experience were the weather and over the years? Originally most the food. Fortunately, I made friends students came here with the idea of with two French girls, and because I couldn’t into a six-month immersion program. Now we becoming chefs. But the food scene has evolved afford to go home for holidays, I went to their also have a nine-month program, depending on tremendously since we opened—today there’s still homes in Dijon. A whole world opened up to me the student’s goal. fine dining but also casual eateries, farm-to-table, when I ate French food.

For the first five years, Ferrandi’s head chef food trucks, etc. And there are so many more personally hired our French-trained chefs, types of food-related jobs: chefs but also bloggers, Were you already considering a career in visited four times a year to check on quality journalists, food stylists, food photographers, food back then? No, not at all. After college, and sat in on final exams. Master Chef Jacques marketing, PR and more. Today, our students I joined the Peace Corps and went to ThaiPépin, now our dean of special programs, was have a much wider variety of goals in mind. land. When I came home in 1974, we were here one week a month. We called him the in the midst of a recession, and I took the dictator of technique.

And how have you adapted your curriculum? only job I could find, working for my Dad. In the beginning, we focused on teaching During World War II, he had been a vocational And you’ve had several other big French French culinary techniques, the fundamentals education teacher for the Navy. People had to names involved in your institution, such as you need to know with any cuisine: how to be trained very quickly, and he offered classes André Soltner, who founded the legendary sauté and braise and blanch. Today, chefs on heating and air-conditioning systems on restaurant Lutèce. We’re fortunate that need more than just culinary and kitchen destroyers. After the war, air conditioning was important people in French culinary arts management skills. So we are teaching a burgeoning field, and returning GIs could embraced the school from the start. Chef students about wine, culinary technology, the get training using the GI Bill. So Dad started Soltner is dean of classic studies, our core relationship between chef and farmer, and his Apex Technical School. program. Jacques Torres, former executive so much more, all of which give them an pastry chef of Le Cirque, is our dean of pastry enormous competitive edge. And although So that’s where you picked up your training arts. Alain Sailhac, who earned four stars at two there are always new trends cropping up in background. But how did you make the leap fabled restaurants, Le Cygne and Le Cirque, is the culinary world, our goal is to always teach to food? My expertise led to invitations to visit executive vice president and dean emeritus. authenticity—no matter what the cuisine. f

C O U R T E S Y O F T H E I N T E R N AT I O N A L C U L I N A R Y C E N T E R

•

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• Each year,

“Monumenta” brings a leading artist to Paris’s Grand Palais.

Anish Kapoor was featured in 2011, with his enormous, sitespecific sculpture “Leviathan.”

• Django and Duke Ellington share the stage at New York’s Aquarium during their 1946 tour.

Art

A Second Renaissance

W

after decades of efforts by museums, galleries and artists, france is once again staking its claim on the contemporary art scene

by SARA ROMANO

© DIDIER PLOW Y/ CN A P; HEIDI DIA Z

“We in the United States are grateful for this loan from the leading artistic power in the world, France.” With those lofty words, President John F. Kennedy welcomed Leonardo da Vinci’s “Mona Lisa” to Washington, DC, in January 1962. The Louvre had parted momentarily with its most coveted masterpiece, and President Kennedy saw no better way of thanking France than to designate it as the mecca of culture.

His message was not just a case of presidential hyperbole. For the preceding century and a half, France had been the world’s undisputed art hub, a one-stop shop where the planet’s finest artists, dealers and collectors could be found. Paris had served as the breeding ground for some of art’s most revolutionary movements—Impressionism, Fauvism, Cubism, Surrealism—and hosted virtually every modern-art master in the book: Picasso, Cézanne, Matisse, Chagall, Léger, Miró, Brancusi, Giacometti. It also dominated the market. Until the early 1950s, the Paris-based Drouot auction house generated sales equal to those of Sotheby’s and Christie’s combined.

By the time President Kennedy gave his “Mona Lisa” speech, however, Paris’s star was on the wane, and New York was becoming the go-to place for fresh new art. A generation of Abstract Expressionists led by Jackson Pollock and Robert Rauschenberg (winner of the 1964 Venice Biennale) were drawing collectors to the Big Apple. By the time Andy Warhol and his fellow Pop Artists emerged, the world’s artistic epicenter had unquestionably shifted across the Atlantic.

As the years went by, London, too, overtook Paris. Artists such as David Hockney and the controversial duo Gilbert & George burst onto the scene in the 1970s. The 1990s brought a wave of brash young talents led by Damien Hirst, whose international notoriety would eventually reach levels no French artist could match.

Now the City of Light is clawing back some of that lost ground, and October 2012 may well be remembered as a milestone in its cultural comeback. First, there was the Foire Internationale d’Art Contemporain (FIAC), now one of Europe’s three largest modern and contemporary art fairs. Held from October 18 to 21 beneath the majestic dome of Paris’s Grand Palais, FIAC’s 38th edition drew galleries from 25 countries and a total of 70,644 visitors—up 3.7 percent from 2011.

About a third of the 182 galleries were French.

Surveyed after the fair, Paris-based exhibitor Chantal Crousel pronounced FIAC 2012 the best edition ever. The Brussels-based Vedovi gallery reported the sale of an Alexander Calder work for more than €2.5 million.

Hauser & Wirth (based in Zurich, London and New York) said it found buyers for items

• The Château de Versailles has been hosting

contemporary artists since 2008. “The Large Carriage” was among Xavier Veilhan’s works on view in 2009.

priced at nearly $2 million, and New York’s Paula Cooper Gallery reported multiple transactions in the $300,000 to $600,000 range.

That same week, Larry Gagosian, the world’s number-one dealer, inaugurated his second Paris gallery: a nearly 18,000-squarefoot 1950s hangar located on the grounds of Le Bourget airport and converted into an art space by architect Jean Nouvel. Simultaneously, dealer Thaddaeus Ropac also opened a second Paris gallery—roughly three times bigger than Gagosian’s—in a century-old ironware factory in Pantin, east of Paris.

Meanwhile, Paris-based dealer Emmanuel Perrotin announced that he would be adding a Manhattan outpost in 2013.

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• One of Europe’s largest modern and contemporary art fairs, FIAC draws international crowds to the Grand Palais each fall. Left: More than 180 galleries

For Jennifer Flay, FIAC’s New Zealandborn director, these are all signs of a turning point—the natural reward for years of hard work by France’s artists, dealers, curators and collectors. “Thanks to the efforts of a whole generation of people—who have been working for 30 years to achieve the acceptance that one can be French, be proud of one’s national origins and at the same time be international— France can once again be a player,” she

scene, as did its commissions of gigantic art works for its factory-sized lobby.

In 2007, the Grand Palais started a similar series of annual commissions known as “Monumenta,” with artists given carte blanche to fill the venue’s massive nave. To date, participants have included Anselm Kiefer, Richard Serra, Christian Boltanski, Anish Kapoor and Daniel Buren. The show has been a huge success; Buren’s exhibition

Last year, Belgian artist Wim Delvoye—best known for tattooing live pigs—scattered a few of his sculptures among the Louvre’s collections. explains. “Paris has all the features, everything it takes to be a cultural capital, and it is legitimately considered, once again, a player.”

This revival is no accident; during the past decade, France’s state-run cultural institutions have worked hard to narrow the gap with New York and London. The British probably egged them on—everyone saw how the opening of the Tate Modern (a former power station) in 2000 galvanized the art 20

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drew 259,041 visitors in the short time it was open (May 9 to June 21, 2012), nearly matching the record set by Kapoor, who pulled in 277,680 visitors the year before.

Meanwhile, Paris museums have put on sprawling shows of American and British art-market bestsellers such as Jean-Michel Basquiat and Andy Warhol. Even the venerable Louvre has opened its doors to living artists. Last year, the museum invited Belgium’s Wim Delvoye—best known for tattooing

live pigs—to scatter a few of his sculptures among its collections. Delvoye also put up a towering steel projectile titled “Suppo” (short for suppositoire) in the Tuileries gardens. And he was not the first contemporary talent to show his works in these hallowed halls; Jan Fabre, François Morellet and Anselm Kiefer have also taken star turns here.

The Château de Versailles, another sacred repository of France’s past glories, made its leap into the 21st century in September 2008, when it invited Jeff Koons to display his gigantic inflatable-toy sculptures inside its royal salons. Xavier Veilhan, Takashi Murakami, Bernar Venet and Joana Vasconcelos followed in what has turned into a popular annual rendezvous.

In the greatest overture of all to contemporary art, the government last year inaugurated the renovated Palais de Tokyo, a 236,000-square-foot museum dedicated exclusively to living artists. Built in 1937 as the Palais des Musées d’Art Moderne, the imposing edifice housed France’s priceless collections of Légers and Brancusis before they were transferred to the Centre Pompidou in 1977. Several other incarnations followed before it reopened in 2002 as a contemporary-art center.

Initially occupying only one floor, it has been expanded to three, becoming the largest art center in Europe. Architects Anne Lacaton and Jean-Philippe Vassal gave the

©MARC DOMAGE

participated in 2012. Right: Jaume Plensa’s “Irma’s White Head, 2008,” at the Place Vendôme, was among FIAC’s satellite exhibitions.

• Dedicated exclusively to living artists, the Palais de Tokyo exhibits works by big names as well as up-and-coming talents. Left to right: Works by Alain

©AURÉLIEN MOLE ; ©ANDRÉ MORIN ; ©DIDIER PLOW Y

Séchas, Fabrice Hyber and Bernard Aubertin.

vast, long-abandoned spaces a deliberately raw and unfinished look—peeling columns, visible wiring, metal beams, exposed brick.

The interior of the elegant riverside palace now has the appearance of a derelict industrial warehouse—definitely more New York edge than Paris chic.

Artists exhibited at the “new” Palais de Tokyo—roughly half are French and half international—have included well-known names such as Fabrice Hyber and Ryan Gander (British), as well as many up-andcoming talents. “Most of the artists we show sell for average prices,” says the new director, Jean de Loisy, a curator and critic who was head of exhibitions at the Carré d’Art in Nîmes in the 1990s. Also exceptional for a French state-owned museum: The Palais de Tokyo generates half of its revenues. “And we’re not in the hands of trustees, so we’re very independent of collectors and of the market.” The artists on display, he says, are thus less beholden to buyers and operate in a healthier creative environment.

For Loisy, this center is of crucial importance. “There are great institutions such as the Pompidou that play an important role in terms of knowledge and preserving national treasures, but as institutions, they cannot be a place of real freedom,” he says. “We’re living through a global crisis, societies need to be reorganized, and artists have a special political role to play.

So there is a vital need for spaces such as ours.”

The director points out that France is now home to a very interesting pool of artists, French and foreign, adding that he has observed a renewed appetite for Gallic output among international dealers and collectors.

“For the first time in decades, there are five generations of French artists with international careers,” he says. “Before, only Daniel Buren had one.”

All of this coincides with the general public’s increasing interest in contemporary art (a U.S. museum official went so far as to call it “the new black”). Since its latest facelift, the Palais de Tokyo has seen visitor numbers shoot up and has begun reaching out to audiences abroad as well. In late 2012, the museum sent 40 works by French artists to Los Angeles for “Lost (in LA),” an event inspired by the popular TV show and organized in partnership with the France Los Angeles eXchange (FLAX) and the LA Department of Cultural Affairs. On view through January 2013, the iconoclastic exhibit seeks to evoke historic relations between French and Californian artists and contribute to LA’s own rebirth as an artistic capital.

Naturally, France’s galleries are benefiting from this growing momentum.

According to a March 2012 report published by the Ministry of Culture, their turnover more than doubled between 1999 and 2010, from €220 million to €561.9 million, even

though their number remained unchanged.

For Marian Goodman—ranked fifth on Forbes Magazine’s list of America’s most powerful art dealers—Paris has long been a must. She opened her first space in the French capital in 1995 and moved to her current quarters in the Marais in 1999. Goodman represents big-name French contemporary artists such as Christian Boltanski, Annette Messager and Pierre Huyghe.

Other foreign galleries with a strong Paris base are also expanding in the hopes of increasing their appeal to wealthy collectors—chief among them Bernard Arnault, France’s richest man, and his fellow billionaire François Pinault. Gagosian, whose first Paris venue opened off the Avenue des Champs-Elysées in 2010, will use its much bigger space steps away from Le Bourget airport’s private-jet landing strips to show outsized works—if not to hook buyers as they step off their aircraft. (According to the gallery, some 30,000 planes land at Le Bourget every year, and 90 percent of the passengers are on business.)

In an October interview with the French weekly Paris Match, Gagosian played down the private-jet angle, saying that he had been seeking a large space in or around Paris for two years, and the Le Bourget warehouse just happened to come up. “I also wanted to show my serious commitment to Paris.”

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• Two major figures on the Paris gallery scene recently opened massive new spaces: Larry Gagosian in Le Bourget (left) and Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac in Pantin (right).

Jean Nouvel put up four freestanding white walls in the main hall, creating a central enclosure where mega-installations can be shown. He surrounded it with smaller display rooms and added a mezzanine floor beneath the high vaulted ceiling. “Paris evokes a historic nostalgia. It was the world capital of art for decades,” said Nouvel at the inauguration. “It’s up to us, in our strategy for le grand Paris, to bring out those features that will draw great artists back to Paris. The fact that

to reach out to visiting foreigners who are fascinated by the city,” says Thierry Ehrmann, Artprice founder and a sculptor in his own right.

“They’re basking in the glow of Paris, taking advantage of the undisputed fact that France is the world’s number-one cultural destination. Larry Gagosian knows full well that Le Bourget is an international hot spot where 80 percent of the people who land are foreigners.”

Meanwhile, French dealers are branching out abroad to appeal to a stable of super-rich

Gagosian will use its much bigger space at Le Bourget to show

outsized works—if not to hook buyers as they step off their private jets.

Larry Gagosian has come here is a clear sign.

Thanks to him, we will attract artists who wouldn’t otherwise come.”

Coincidentally, Gagosian and Ropac picked the same artist for their inaugural shows: Anselm Kiefer. The 67-year-old German painter is number 12 on Artprice’s worldwide ranking of top-selling artists and reportedly generated €10.96 million at auction in 2011-12.

“International galleries are coming to Paris 22

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global buyers. In New York alone, there are at least a dozen French dealerships, including Galerie Mourlot, G&O Art, Sous les Etoiles and Monkdogz Urban Art Gallery. The dean of the group, Yvon Lambert, had a New York space until 2011, when he went into semiretirement and decided to cut back on travel.

Emmanuel Perrotin says his new space in New York will take up three floors of the former Bank of New York building on the Upper East Side—a prestigious complement to his

galleries in Paris and Hong Kong. “I’ve always dreamed of expanding to New York,” he says.

“Our gallery has often worked with artists early on in their careers. We’re very committed to that mission, and we’d like that collaboration to extend to New York, where there are major museum directors and curators. Opening a gallery in New York also allows us to get the attention of important American collectors and to reach new audiences.”

In an interesting twist, even some of France’s collectors are mobilizing to promote contemporary art. Jacques Deret, former president of Sara Lee C&T France, and his wife, Evelyne, recently set up an organization called Art Collector (artcollector.fr). Their objective was to put on annual shows featuring pieces lent by galleries and, for context, works belonging to private collectors such as themselves. For now, they are focusing on French artists, whom they feel deserve a boost. According to Artprice’s 2012 report, France’s 10 bestselling artists together generated €3.1 million—less than the U.S.’s 10thbestselling artist, Paul McCarthy, who alone sold €3.2 million.

Deret hopes that his initiative will help tilt that balance and that French galleries abroad will also serve as launch pads for talents back home. “It’s wonderful that all the big French galleries are expanding internationally. I just hope they don’t forget to take some great French artists along in their luggage.”

© C H A R L E S D U P R AT / C O U R T E S Y G A G O S I A N G A L L E R Y; © C H A R L E S D U P R AT / C O U R T E S Y G A L E R I E T H A D D A E U S R O PA C , PA R I S / S A L Z B U R G

Coincidentally, both mounted inaugural shows featuring Anselm Kiefer.

SPONSORING FOUNDATIONS

France Magazine and the French-American Cultural Foundation are honored to receive the support of these distinguished foundations.

For more than 35 years, the Florence Gould Foundation has been actively involved in a variety of projects that further Mrs. Gould’s desire to promote FrenchAmerican amity.

Recent efforts include a grant to World Monuments Fund for the planning and documentation of the cloister restoration at the Church of St Trophime in Arles; a grant to The Frick Collection in New York for “Renoir, Impressionism, and Full-Length Painting”; funding for several American Postdoctoral Fellows to study and work at Paris’s Institut Pasteur;

The Annenberg Foundation is a longtime supporter of L’Académie Américaine de Danse de Paris, which trains students from around the world.

and a partnership with the French Heritage Society to aid in repairing the Monumental Staircase of Auch, in Gascony.

On a smaller scale, a gift was made to Boston’s Franklin Park Zoo for the acquisition of two Baudets de Poitou, an endangered variety of French donkey. At last report, Samuel and Balthazar had completely settled in and were enjoying their new surroundings as they help educate the public about rare breeds of farm animals.

The Annenberg Foundation is a family foundation that supports nonprofit organizations in the United States and globally. Its mission is to advance the public well-being through improved communication; as the principle means of achieving this goal, it encourages the development of more effective ways to share ideas and knowledge. Since 1989, it has generously funded programs in education and youth development; arts, culture and humanities; civic and community life; health and human services; animal services and the environment.

The Foundation contributes to numerous programs that foster cultural exchange between the U.S. and France through its Paris-based initiative GRoW Annenberg.

GRoW supports innovative projects in the arts, education and humanitarian efforts.

Samuel and Balthazar, two rare Baudet de Poitou donkeys donated to Boston’s Franklin Park Zoo by The Florence Gould Foundation.

The Foundation’s French grantees include the Institut Curie, which has created a research lab to further the understanding of the origin of neuroblastoma, one of the most common forms of childhood cancer. It is also supporting the development of educational tools at the Louvre and the operations of L’Académie Américaine de Danse de Paris, which offers American-style dance instruction to students from around the world. In the humanitarian sector, GRoW funds a wide range of programs by CARE France and Médecins du Monde, which work to improve the health and well-being of individuals worldwide. The Foundation continues to be a vital presence abroad and remains among the most generous American contributors to France. annenbergfoundation.org

TH E

Tastings I S SU E

E

A DELICIOUS CELEBRATION OF FOOD & WINE!

E

The Moveable Feast that is France seems to be moving very fast these days—even the old is new with venerable wine brotherhoods reinventing themselves and ancient spices taking star turns in contemporary cuisine.

The following pages offer a few intriguing snapshots of the myriad traditions and trends that are shaping France’s wonderfully diverse culinary landscape.

Contents

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BACCHUS BROTHERHOODS The ultimate clubs for Burgundy, Bordeaux and Champagne lovers

38

FOOD F RAT ER N I T I ES Not-so-secret societies for top chefs and devoted foodies

44

F R É D É R IC RO UZ AU D The owner and CEO of Champagne Louis Roederer shares his views on art, wine and philanthropy.

50

TR E N D IN G N OW Reports from the front lines of Paris’s culinary scene

56

KITC H EN CO O L The latest accessories for the well-appointed kitchen

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25

E Bacchus Bro THE TA ST I N G S ISSUE

This past June, heads of Commanderie chapters around the world gathered at the 18th-century Château Lagrange for the gala dinner wrapping up their Convention Mondiale, held every four years.

26

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therhoods

THE ULTIMATE CLUBS FOR BURGUNDY, BORDEAUX AND CHAMPAGNE LOVERS

Wine Advocates

The Commanderie de Bordeaux b y J ANE ANS O N

T

he casual visitor is rarely aware

of them, but France is home to more than 1,500 food and beverage confréries, the colorful trade brotherhoods whose history dates back to the Middle Ages. Although royal guilds were abolished during the French Revolution, many were revived in the 20th century as informal marketing and promotional bodies. Today there are associations for producers of everything from cheese and cassoulet to garlic, snails, pâté, artichokes, sardines, truffles…. And of course, this being France, wine.

Bordeaux alone has 15 wine confréries, each composed of châteaux from different areas within the region. In 1952, Henri Martin, a legendary figure in the local wine industry and president of the Bordeaux Wine Bureau, had the idea of gathering them together under a new entity called

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E THE TA ST I N G S ISSUE

Bacchus Brotherhoods

Commanderie members may attend many of the glittering events on the Bordeaux social calendar.

Here, GCVB president Emmanuel Cruse (center) escorts film stars Sophie Marceau and Christophe Lambert during the Bontemps’s Fête de la Fleur.

the Grand Conseil du Vin de Bordeaux (GCVB), a nonprofit organization devoted to promoting the region’s wine around the world.

Today, the GCVB oversees not only Bordeaux’s wine brotherhoods but also an international network of 85 Commanderie de Bordeaux clubs; the first was founded THE BORDEAUX CONFRÉRIES All 15 Bordeaux confréries are part of the Grand Conseil du Vin de Bordeaux (GCVB), which also oversees the 85 Commanderie de Bordeaux chapters.

Emmanuel Cruse is the current president of the GCVB; he also serves as the Grand Maître of the Commanderie de Bordeaux worldwide. grandconseilvinsbordeaux.com

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in New York in 1957 to revive the slumping market for Bordeaux. These “chapters” operate independently, although members pay nominal fees to the umbrella organization. In return, winemakers belonging to the Bordeaux confréries frequently visit chapters and host wine tastings, and the GCVB supports the Commanderie’s various

• Jurade de Saint-Emilion • Commanderie du Bontemps de Médoc, des Graves, de Sauternes et de Barsac • Commanderie du Bontemps de Sainte-Croix-du-Mont • Les Compagnons du Bordeaux • Les Hospitaliers de Pomerol • Les Gentilshommes du Duché de Fronsac • Les Compagnons du Loupiac • Les Baillis de Lalande de Pomerol • Connétablie de Guyenne en

educational activities and promotional events. Learning about this vast winemaking region—which includes 10,000 producers and 38 appellations—is a hobby that can last a lifetime, and frequently does.

Angus Smith, Grand Maître of the Commanderie’s 31 U.S. chapters, grew up in the north of England before leaving for a career in finance that took him around the world and eventually to Philadelphia, Premières Côtes de Bordeaux where he now lives. “My background et Cadillac led to my first Commanderie office, • Connétablie de Guyenne which was treasurer. Most members Blaye-Côtes de Bordeaux • Connétablie de Guyenne are professionals from various fields, des Côtes de Bourg and they join simply to share good • Connétablie de Guyenne Bordeaux with friends who have de l’Entre-Deux-Mers similar interests. The Commanderie • Connétablie de Guyenne des Graves de Vayres is primarily educational but it’s also • Ordre des Chevaliers des great fun. For me it was simple—my Vins de Castillon father always loved wine, and Bor• Ordre des Vignerons des deaux was the gold standard for him, Bordeaux-Bordeaux Supérieur

“This organization offers a great opportunity to get closer to Bordeaux wines and to get a behind-the-scenes understanding of the region.”

Students from business schools in Europe, the United States, Hong Kong, China and Singapore compete each year in the Left Bank Cup; the 2012 finals were held in the mythic cellars of Château Lafite Rothschild.

as it is now for me. This organization offers a great opportunity to get closer to the wines and to get a behind-the-scenes understanding of the region.”

Perhaps the biggest perk: Members are on the invite list for some of the leading social events of the Bordeaux winemaking calendar.

In January 2011, Smith was one of nine national Grands Maîtres invited to participate in the Fête de Saint-Vincent. Hosted by the region’s largest confrérie, the Commanderie du Bontemps de Médoc, des Graves, de Sauternes et]]] de Barsac (Bontemps for short), the festival celebrates the patron saint of winegrowers. Smith and his fellow Grands Maîtres joined the Commandeurs du Bontemps, attired in full ceremonial regalia, and marched, accompanied by drums and trumpets, to the ornate Saint-André Cathedral in the heart of Bordeaux. After mass and an induction ceremony, some 800 people gathered for a festive lunch (“complete with a fine oompah band,” remembers Smith) at a renovated wine warehouse along the Garonne River.

W

orldwide, there are now

3,500 Commanderie members in 29 countries. To

join, one must be nominated by a current member and vetted by the chapter. And although initiation fees are not high, membership involves expenses that can add up, such as buying into the wine cellar and attending the tasting dinners, which members are

expected to support. A recent dinner at Restaurant Daniel in New York featuring a vertical of Château Branaire-Ducru, for example, cost $500 a head, although participants had the rare treat of tasting bottles dating back to 1928.

While it can be argued that such events in fact offer good value, they are simply out of reach for most young people. “And clubs like ours need young blood to survive,” says Smith. Accordingly, efforts are being made to make membership more accessible. “Château Margaux, for example, has offered to provide wine for dinners if more than half the attendees are under 40. And people in that age group can make much smaller contributions to the club wine cellar. New York and Atlanta have been particularly successful in attracting younger members.”

Educational opportunities are another way for the Commanderie to connect with younger generations of wine lovers. For the past 12 years, the U.S. chapters have offered three annual scholarships, partnering with the Masters of Wine, Cornell University and the Culinary Institute of America. These institutions select the winners of the awards, and the Commanderie, with the GCVB, sets up a series of visits with Bordeaux châteaux and wine brokers, and organizes housing on various estates.

The Commanderie also supports the Bontemps’s Left Bank Cup, a competition held since 1992 to promote wines from the Médoc, Graves and Sauternes regions (all

are on the Left Bank of the Garonne River).

Originally a wine-tasting competition for students enrolled in business schools in France, it was broadened in 1994 to include Oxford and Cambridge universities, then again in 2011 to business schools throughout Europe, the United States, Hong Kong, China and Singapore.

Local chapters play an active role in helping the university tasting clubs prepare for the competitions. Nicole Pereira, part of the winning team from Harvard in 2011, fondly remembers the generosity of the Boston chapter, which helped hone her palate during training sessions. Eight teams are selected to compete in the finals, which are held in the candle-lit cellars of Château Lafite Rothschild. Contestants are tested on their knowledge of the history of Bordeaux and their skills in blind tastings, then the winning team is announced, dinner is served, and the nerve-wracking tension gives way to toasts and celebration.

During the 2012 event, Baron Eric de Rothschild, owner of Lafite Rothschild, spoke briefly (before launching into song and opening the dancing among the fine oak barrels): “I can think of no better way to get young people excited about wine. I want the students to realize that wine doesn’t have to be taken too seriously, and that it should be fun. They arrive at Lafite a little nervous and intimidated by the surroundings. They go home with a great understanding of how f wine can bring people together.”

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A New Sparkle

The Ordre des Coteaux de Champagne

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by KA REN TA YL O R

During a Chapitre at the Pierre Hotel last October, Didier Dupond, President of Salon-Delamotte, is surrounded by a Who’s Who of New York’s top sommeliers and wine experts, many of them newly minted Chevaliers.

STANDING:

Hristo Zisovski, Justin Lorenz, Raj Vaidya, Jean-Baptiste Cristini, Michael Nelson, Shannon Coursey, Michael Martin.

SEATED:

Kristie Petrullo, Didier Dupond, Daniel Johnnes, Bernie Sun, Christopher Desor.

t’s 10 A.M. on a Saturday, and Pierre Cheval is chatting with a

visitor in the reception room at Champagne Gatinois, which has been in his family for 12 generations. He is in the midst of discussing his 2007-09 stint as Commandeur of the Ordre des Coteaux de Champagne, a wine fraternity whose origins date back to the 17th century, when he suddenly looks at his watch.“C’est l’heure du Champagne!” he beams, and runs off to fetch a bottle of his Brut Tradition.

As he pours, he explains that the wine’s power and finesse are emblematic of Champagnes from Aÿ, where his family has owned vineyards since 1696. “It’s 90 percent pinot noir,” he notes, “which provides strength and body. But 100 percent would be too Jansenistic. So we add 10 percent chardonnay for freshness.”

Reflexively, he studies its pale amber color, then swirls, sniffs, tastes and nods approvingly.

“We own seven hectares of grand cru vineyards that produce all the grapes used in our wines,” he says proudly. “Champagne is an amazing business. You can be involved in everything from planting and growing to vinification, blending, marketing, tasting and sharing the final product. Then there’s the financial aspect. You borrow money for a crop, make a wine from expensive grapes, then put it in the cellar and forget about it for years, paying interest on that loan all along. Almost no other businesses do that—it’s the opposite of today’s ‘just in time’ practices.”

Noting that he exports 70 percent of his production, he is pleased to have contributed to the Ordre des Coteaux’s international expansion during his tenure. “Once, we had a very important induction dinner in Germany,” he says. “After we arrived in Dresden, director

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Monique McColl discovered that the airline had lost the bags with our ceremonial robes and other items. But she was determined that the show would go on. So she looked around, requisitioned some hotel curtains and had them made into capes resembling the ones we typically wear for these affairs.

She even managed to locate a sword. Oddly enough, when we made former German president Walter Scheel a knight of our order that evening, no one asked why we were

T

using a samurai katana!” Chuckling at the memory, he recalls another occasion when the entire room burst into laughter as the tip of his ceremonial weapon approached the Dolly Partonesque bosom of a new inductee.

Cheval’s charming ability to balance a lighthearted joie de vivre with serious business seems to be a trait common to winemakers here. Perhaps it is the natural consequence of the centuries of hard work

needed to turn disadvantages into assets—it is a marvelous tribute to human ingenuity that the world’s most festive and elegant wine is the product of a capricious northern climate, poor soil and an annoying spontaneous second fermentation in the spring.

The Ordre des Coteaux de Champagne reflects this heritage, alternating solemnity, ritual and rigor with humor and pleasure— an appealing combination that is winning over wine pros around the world.

he original Ordre des Coteaux

de Champagne was a wine academy founded by a group of hedonistic young aristocrats who frequented the court of Louis XIV. The coteaux in question were the hillsides in Aÿ, Avenay and Hautvillers, where the best Champagne grapes were grown. The order did not survive the French Revolution but was revived in 1956 when several Champagne makers decided to launch a wine fraternity. Unlike other such groups, this one was conceived to be inclusive, its mission being to promote all of the region’s wines. Several large houses— Taittinger, Laurent-Perrier, Mumm—were among the founding members.

As today, the nascent OCC’s leading activity was hosting induction dinners, or Chapitres, several times a year, the most impressive being the “Chapitre de la Fleur de Vigne.” That lavish celebration of the flowering of the vines is still held every June in the majestic Palais du Tau, the former Bishop’s Residence adjacent to the Reims Cathedral.

For decades, the OCC remained a rather staid group.

The board, or Conseil Chapitral, tended to be composed of retirees, and inductees, most of them French or European, were typically individuals who simply enjoyed food and wine.

“That began to change about 15 years ago,” explains Michel Drappier, the current Commandeur. “There was a general consensus that it would be more effective to have a Council composed of working professionals and to induct people who were involved in the Champagne business worldwide.”

Drappier’s appointment was in keeping with this evolution, but even he was surprised at his election. “I’m not a VIP, I don’t travel in high-society circles, and I’m the youngest person to ever occupy this position,” he says. And unlike his predecessors, he’s not based in the storied Champagne cities of Reims or Epernay but in Urville, a tiny village two hours to the south in the Côte des Bars (visitors are often surprised to discover that Champagne is a sort of

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“archipelago,” with islands of vineyards scattered over a vast area).

All of which, in fact, makes him the perfect new face of the OCC: young, dynamic, international (he is fluent in several languages) and emblematic of the growing diversity within the Champagne industry.

While most of the world is familiar with the famous Champagne houses that produce two-thirds of the region’s wines, fewer people are aware that 15,000 growers supply 90 percent of the grapes used by those houses.

Or that an increasing number of them are also making Champagne under their own labels or within cooperatives. Now, the OCC is reaching out to them as well.

Drappier, for example, is a family business founded in 1808 that originally grew grapes for sale to the large brands, then began making its own wines in the 1950s. It now buys grapes from other growers as well and is considered one of the finest boutique Champagne producers. Unlike the large houses, whose legendary blending expertise allows them to reproduce a distinctive taste year after year, Drappier is all about expressing the local terroir and, when possible, the unique characteristics of a particular vintage. “We make the best wine we can in the style that we prefer, using sustainable agriculture and adding a minimum of sulphites and sugar,” says Michel Drappier. “We are delighted to have found clients around the world who appreciate our work and share our taste.”

While deeply honored to be Commandeur, Drappier acknowledges that it isn’t easy for smaller producers to assume OCC responsibilities in addition to running a business—this past year, he presided over 14 Chapitres, 11 of them abroad. At harvest time, dark circles under his eyes attested to the difficulty of overseeing winemaking between jaunts to Tokyo, Hong Kong, Montreal, São Paulo…. “But meeting people around the world who care about Champagne is such a wonderful experience, it makes it all worthwhile,” he says brightly.

“There is so much sincerity. Yes, we dress up like Christmas trees and have our rituals, but we don’t take ourselves too seriously, and people respond well to that.” Today, he

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“Yes, we dress up like Christmas trees and have our rituals, but we don’t take ourselves too seriously, and people respond well to that.” says, the OCC counts about 3,000 members worldwide. “We are a small order, but membership is of very high quality.”

Since becoming Commandeur, he has also realized that there are many ways that the OCC could play a bigger role—through a more ambitious Web site, venturing into social media, additional activities and so on. For the time being, however, director Monique McColl has her hands full with administrative tasks and organizing the various Chapitres around the world. “She is wonderful and very devoted, but she is a staff of one. Perhaps that will change at some point,” he says.

A

merican members saw

their ranks swell considerably this past October, when 51 new Chevaliers were inducted to the order, expanding their total to 200. The U.S. Chapitre (there is typically one every two years or so) took place at New York’s Pierre Hotel, a nod to the dinner held there a decade before, when Champagne houses rallied to lend their support to the victims of September 11. This time, participants included Billecart-Salmon, Bollinger, Delamotte, Deutz, Drappier, Gosset, LouisRoederer and Paul Goerg. Each donated

Champagne, and most hosted guests and sponsored inductees.

As always, the evening followed a strict protocol, with an induction ceremony followed by a reception, then dinner. The pomp and circumstance was largely relegated to the first part of the evening, when a trumpet blast announced the arrival of members of the Council. Dressed in capes worn over white tuxedo jackets and sporting large medals on red or yellow ribbons, they filed into the room, taking their places at a long table in the front. Leading the procession was Michel Drappier, carrying the ceremonial pomponne, a sort of stylized take on antique Champagne glasses that were cone-shaped and had no foot. (The pomponne recently replaced the sword, which the Council deemed a bit warlike and, probably more to the point, difficult to get through airline security.)

One by one, the new inductees were called to the front of the room, and their professional accomplishments were read aloud.

Pledges were sworn, medals were bestowed and Champagne was sipped—but only by the Council, which seemed to enjoy teasing the crowd by occasionally remarking how very thirsty all this induction business was making them. It was amusing yet also subtly conveyed the idea that “cela se mérite”—that

The Council of the Ordre des Coteaux de Champagne presides over an induction ceremony at the majestic Palais du Tau, the former Bishop’s Residence next to the Reims Cathedral. LEFT: The famous coteaux, or hillside vineyards, of Hautvilliers, where Dom Pérignon carried out his research on Champagne.

RANKS AND SYMBOLS There are three ranks in the OCC: Chevalier, Officier and Chambellan. There is only one living American Chambellan, wine collector Tom Black of Nashville, Tennessee.

The colors of the medals vary according to rank but the insignia is the same on all: a stylized pomponne with three dots on either side symbolizing the three original coteaux and, some say, the three grapes used in making Champagne: chardonnay, pinot noir and pinot meunier.

new members earn their place in this order through their efforts to learn about and promote Champagne. Bubble Lounge founder Emmanuelle Chiche, who was promoted to Dame Officier that evening, summed it up when she said, “This honor is the icing on all our work.”

Solemnity soon gave way to celebration as everyone gathered for a Champagne reception, toasting one another before sitting down to dinner. With each course, extraordinary cuvées in magnums or larger formats were ceremoniously presented by a small

army of white-gloved waiters. At one table, Jean-Pierre Cointreau, owner of Gosset, the oldest wine house in Champagne, chatted with new inductees—sommeliers, importers, a chef and a journalist (full disclosure: that was me). Freshly minted Chevalier Phil Pratt, the wine director at New York’s 21 Club, surveyed the gilded ballroom and remarked that this was probably the worst evening of the year to dine out in New York City. “All the best soms are here!”

Indeed. At a nearby table, Didier Dupond, President of Salon-Delamotte, posed

for a photo with his protégés, some of the brightest stars on the restaurant scene: Daniel Johnnes, wine buyer for Daniel Boulud’s restaurants; Raj Vaidya, head sommelier at Restaurant Daniel; Kristie Petrullo, wine director for Jean-Georges; Justin Lorenz, wine director at Aureole…. “This is not the same kind of crowd you would have seen 15 years ago,” said a delighted Dupond.

“These are young professionals who are very interested in Champagne, who have a lot of fun with us and who are extremely honored to be part of the order.”

Dupond and his fellow winemakers seemed to be enjoying themselves every bit as much as their guests. “These dinners give us a chance to forget that we are competitors,” he said. “They are wonderful opportunities to celebrate together, to enjoy one another f and to simply represent Champagne.”

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ABOVE: A wine glass engraved with the Confrérie’s emblem; the silver tastevin that members wear around their neck. LEFT: Burgundy’s Château du Clos de Vougeot is the spiritual home of the Chevaliers du Tastevin, who frequently stage elaborate induction ceremonies here.

Burgundy’s Best

I

The Confrérie des Chevaliers du Tastevin

by J A N E A N S O N

“

hadn’t heard of the Confrérie du Tastevin

before applying for my scholarship, but the chance to make wine in Burgundy was incredible. Now here I am, and I can’t thank them enough.

Plus, I’ve discovered they throw great parties!” Adrienne Ballou, a twentysomething grad student from California’s UC Davis Department of Viticulture & Enology, is living proof that France’s wine brotherhoods— many with origins dating back centuries and more commonly associated with weird drinking rituals and men in oversized robes—can

still appeal to today’s young wine lovers.

Funded by U.S. members through their Confrérie des Chevaliers du Tastevin Foundation, the decade-old partnership between UC Davis and the University of Dijon offers winemaking internships for two students, allowing them to study production in Burgundy for three to four months. Among the châteaux that have hosted students are Domaine Dujac, Louis Jadot and Domaine de la Romanée-Conti.

This year, Ballou is at Domaine Antonin Guyon and her fellow intern is at Domaine de la Pousse d’Or. After two months, both will begin work at an oenology laboratory in Beaune. The day I caught up with them, they were welcoming a large group of Confrères du Tastevin from the New York chapter, visiting to celebrate the end of the

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harvest and to attend a dinner at the famous lovers worldwide. Their idea was to induct Clos du Vougeot. They were among 585 people with outstanding achievements in Burgundy lovers who had gathered to eat, their respective fields, from politicians and drink and make merry, with presiding of- film stars to Nobel Prize-winning scientists. ficers of the confrérie dressed in crimson and The inaugural dinner was held on Nogold robes symbolizing the red and white vember 16, 1934, conceived as part of a wines of Burgundy.

“Trois Glorieuses” weekend. The concept “These sorts of evenings typically involve caught on immediately and is still going a lot of singing, most notably strong today, taking place every ‘La Chanson du Bourguignon’ THE INDUCTION third weekend of November, and ‘Les Chevaliers de la Table CEREMONY from Saturday to Monday. On Ronde,’” said Arnaud Orsel of During this ritual, Saturday evening, the ConfréClos du Vougeot. “There are aspiring members rie des Chevaliers du Tastevin also initiations, poetry recit- don ornate robes holds a Chapitre (an induction als, speeches and jokes, and fashioned after those ceremony followed by a blackworn by doctors of of course toasts. This year we theology in 16thtie dinner) for members and have quite an international century France. They their guests; on Sunday aftergroup—50 guests are from the first swear on the noon, wines are auctioned at New York chapter, several oth- silver cup of Burgundy the Hospices de Beaune; and to have impeccable ers are from Toronto, Japan, wine-drinking manon Monday afternoon, there Mexico and Thailand.” is the Paulée de Meursault. ners and to serve the Clos du Vougeot is the so- great wines of France Originally a celebration for ciety’s headquarters as well as (in particular those winemakers and cellar workers, of Burgundy). Then its social epicenter. Each year they are knighted by this popular event now also inthis 12th-century estate set be- a tap on the shoulder cludes the awarding of a prize tween Vougeot and Chambolle- with a vine stock while for works of art or activities Musigny welcomes some 50,000 the presiding officer honoring Burgundy. says, “By Noah, father visitors and hosts countless re- of the vine; Bacchus, Today there are 12,000 ceptions and charity dinners as the god of wine; and members worldwide organized well as Tastevin events. The lat- Saint Vincent, patron into 75 chapters. In the U.S., ter invariably feature large plates saint of winemakers, where the first chapters opened we name you Chevagroaning with side-splitting lier du Tastevin.” The in New York (1939) and New quantities of Bœuf Bourgui- new Chevalier then Orleans (1940), there are now gnon, Bresse chickens and cream receives his tastevin 44 chapters and 2,400 memsauces that you can stand your (the flat-bottomed bers. “One of the key features silver tasting cup spoon in, washed down with traditionally used to of this confrérie is our charity the best local wines. Burgundy sample wine in celwork,” says Orsel. The pais known for its gastronomy lars) and a gold and trons of the 2012 Hospices de and hospitality, and you’re un- crimson ribbon. CheBeaune auction were Gérard valiers may eventually likely to leave a Tastevin evening be promoted to the Depardieu and Carla Bruni, doubting their motto: “jamais ranks of Commandeur, ensuring the celebrity magic en vain, toujours en vin” (never Officier-Commandeur that helps open wallets. The and Grand Officier. in vain, always in wine). society also supports important The Confrérie du Tastevin local initiatives such as the apdates back to 1934, when the world was plication for UNESCO World Heritage stastill reeling from the Depression. Wine tus for the Vignobles des côtes de Nuits et sales were plummeting, and a group of de Beaune. According to Pascal Durand of Burgundy growers led by Georges Faiveley the University of Dijon, a Tastevin member and Camille Rodier, who the year before who helps organize the partnership with UC had founded the tourist office, created the Davis, “obtaining UNESCO recognition group to promote regional bottlings to wine is essential if we are to continue achieving

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ABOVE: The 16th-century Château du Clos de Vougeot

now belongs to the Chevaliers du Tastevin and is the site of its most lavish festivities. INSETS, LEFT AND CENTER: Singing is a big part of Tastevin gatherings; a cork from wine made on nearby vineyards.

RIGHT: Tastevin member Pascal Durand; scholarship recipients Adrienne Ballou and Meredith Bell; and Andrew Waterhouse, President of the Confrérie des Chevaliers du Tastevin Foundation.

our original aim of attracting visitors to the Burgundy region.”

So you think you want to join? This is, despite all its welcoming aspects, a private club, and membership is limited. It helps to be male, although female members are

now trickling in, at least in the States. But either way, you have to be nominated and seconded by current members and are expected to know a lot about Burgundies, even before joining. Most of all, members try to suss out whether you share their

interests and would make a good dinner companion. You also have to be prepared to spend the money that it takes to enjoy these often highly priced wines—each chapter has a communal cellar boasting some serious bottles. You’ll be especially welcome if

your own cellar houses significant amounts of hard-to-find names from the best vintages.

And it won’t hurt to drop in a few choice quotes during the vetting process. A favorite, I’ve been told, is: “The shortest way to f Paradise is the stairway to the cellar.”

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ities

NOT-SO-SECRET SOCIETIES FOR TOP CHEFS AND DEVOTED FOODIES

Cooking with the Masters The Maîtres Cuisiniers de France

P

by AMY SERA FIN

resident Reagan’s favorite food may have been jellybeans, but he

brought immeasurable pride to a group of French chefs when his advisory committee called their association, the Maîtres Cuisiniers de France, the “Banner with the Most Stars in the World.” More than two decades later, the group still trumpets the phrase in their marketing materials. With or without the presidential imprimatur, they consider themselves to be the world’s most important international union of great French chefs.

Among the 350 active members are Michelin-starred cooks and Meilleurs Ouvriers de France, such heavy hitters as Paul Bocuse, Eric Frechon, Guy Martin, Jacques and Laurent Pourcel, Michel Roth and Georges Blanc. The North American branch, the only one outside France, includes Daniel Boulud, Michel Richard, Eric Ripert, Christian Delouvrier and Didier Elena. You will also find Master Chefs working in kitchens from Dubai to Casablanca, China and Vietnam. All have pledged to preserve and spread French culinary arts, encourage training and foster professional development.

Four French chefs created the association in 1951, naming it the Amicale des Maîtres The Maîtres Cuisiniers de France includes some of the world’s most celebrated chefs, shown here with Queux—queux from the Latin word coquus, their masterful creations. LEFT TO RIGHT: Michel cook. They drew up a charter with 12 decrees.

Richard, Michel Roth and Jean-Louis Gerin; Guy Martin, Georges Blanc and Daniel Boulud; Eric Ripert, The first one states: “The Master Chef of France must be aware that he belongs to a reChristian Têtedoie and Christian Delouvrier; Jean Joho, Jean-Michel Bergougnoux and Eric Frechon. nowned cultural tradition.” The ninth decree

is more unexpected: “The Master Chef of France must manage his guests as potential friends, whatever their position, standing or amount of their bill.”

Within a decade, the association had 115 members, and in 1967 changed its name to Maîtres Cuisiniers de France. Soon, companies such as Grand Marnier, Taittinger and Evian began lending their support, helping to subsidize trips and meetings. The association continued to develop, and in the ’80s installed a selection committee to review potential candidates. This was the period when Guy Martin, now chef-owner of the Michelin two-star Le Grand Véfour, was inducted. As he recalls, “I was a young chef, and I considered it an honor. The Maîtres Cuisiniers are guarantors of a certain tradition. Being selected confers a certain legitimacy.”

Indeed, a chef must be a virtuoso of classic French cooking techniques before becoming a Maître Cuisinier de France. He (or she, though the shes are admittedly rare) should be recognized as an outstanding talent. And must be French. Once a year, the selection committee studies the candidates’ dossiers and decides who will be accepted.

In 2012, 30 new recruits were inducted at the annual congress, a three-day event in Perpignan filled with meetings, eating, drinking and partying. The ceremony took place during a gala dinner; most members were in black tie, but the new inductees gathered

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Their newest goal: To teach inner-city youth from Camden and Philadelphia how to grow, harvest and prepare fresh produce.

Maîtres queues, the medieval term for head chefs (such as the one in this manuscript), inspired the organization’s original name, which was later changed to Maîtres Cuisiniers.

on the stage wore their chefs’ whites. One of them was Gérard Bertholon, corporate chef of Cuisine Solutions, based in Alexandria, Virginia. “You look out at the audience, at all of those chefs, many of them with two or three Michelin stars,” he recalls, “and you realize you’re part of a pretty impressive family.

It’s a big step to be recognized by people you admire and respect. They think you are worthy, they are admitting you to their ranks.

Journalists can write good things about you and that’s great, but this means more because it’s coming from other chefs.”

And yet when Guy Martin is asked why some of his better-known peers aren’t in the organization—say, for example, Alain Ducasse, Pierre Gagnaire or Alain Senderens— he muses that “if you don’t become a member when you’re young, you might never make the effort to join. Perhaps because you don’t understand the association very well, or because chefs are individualists, or because after age 60 you might ask, ‘Why would I enter now?’ It’s not a distinction you necessarily go after when you are already recognized.”

The implication is that the association could use some better PR and a higher profile, at least in France. At the same time, it’s not an easy thing to manage when the members

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of the executive committee also labor overtime as cooks, often in their own restaurants.

And, as Martin points out, “Chefs are lone wolves. You have to really work to bring them together.”

Since 2011, Lyon-based chef Christian Têtedoie has served as the association’s president. He has been working to update its image and increase visibility, with plans to redesign the annual guide and Web site, create more events and stir up the interest of French media. “It’s so important to continue attracting young chefs to this association,” he says. “We have everything to gain.”

One way they connect with younger chefs and encourage them to perfect their skills is through two annual awards: the “Meilleur Apprenti Cuisinier de France” (created at around the same time the organization was formed) and “Meilleur Apprenti Cuisinier d’Europe” (established in 1990). A jury of established chefs selects the best up-andcoming French talents following competitions during which each contestant has four hours to prepare three dishes.

The association also participates in various

galas and charity events. For the past five years, its adherents have collaborated with the French Red Cross, volunteering their talents at dinners that have raised some €650,000.

And yet, Têtedoie admits, the most enthusiastic members of the Maîtres Cuisiniers de France are definitely those in North America.

“I think being far away gives them a greater motivation to come together,” he says.

The U.S. delegation has 60 members in the U.S. and Canada, and celebrates its 50th birthday in 2014, when the annual congress will take place in Las Vegas rather than France.

Jean-Louis Dumonet, Executive Chef of The Union Club in New York City, has been head of the U.S. chapter since 2006 and a member for 19 years. “I don’t know if we make a difference, but we try,” he says. “I think it’s

the American mentality of entrepreneurship that pushes us,” adds Bertholon.

They are certainly busy. Last September the association took part in Le Taste of France, a high-profile two-day event in New York City showcasing French cuisine and lifestyle (and a fundraiser for Action Against Hunger). They prepared dishes from Breton crêpes to Provençal bouillabaisse, demonstrating the variety of regional French cuisines. As Bertholon recalls, one hour before the event began, the generator still hadn’t been fired up and there was no electricity.

“You had all these master chefs—and nobody was stressing out. They were finding solutions like heating water on gas burners.

They’re used to working under pressure.”

Fortunately, the power came back on in time. Among the 5,000 visitors was France’s Foreign Affairs Minister, Laurent Fabius, who happened to be in town on official business. Bertholon says the politician seemed surprised at the chefs’ efforts and pledged government support for the event in 2013.

In October, the chefs were cooking at New York’s Pierre hotel for the Marie Curie Charity Gala, doing their part to raise funds for a new experimental radiobiology center. In mid-November, they cooked at the sold-out Friends of IHES Charity Gala at the French consulate in New York, raising money to send American scientists to the Institut des Hautes Etudes Scientifiques research center. And last winter they collected $15,000 for Action Against Hunger by auctioning off a private dinner during the annual gala.

Soon they will be involved in an entirely new kind of venture: a farm in Moorestown, New Jersey. In partnership with a group called Shared Ground, their goal is to teach inner-city youth from nearby Camden and Philadelphia how to grow, harvest and prepare fresh produce. A 19th-century timberframe barn has been converted into a culinary center, complete with a commercial kitchen.

The Maîtres Cuisiniers will be in charge of the kitchen, teaching children of all ages how to make nutritious meals. Thanks to them, kids from some of America’s poorest areas will learn to cook from the proud flagf bearers of Carême and Escoffier.

Freemasons of Fine Dining The Confrérie de la Chaîne des Rôtisseurs

by ROL A ND FL A M I N I

O

The Chaîne des Rôtisseurs’ 2012 General Assembly included a lavish dinner at Hôtel Le Meurice prepared by Michelin three-star chef Yannick Alléno, himself a member of the confrérie.

ne evening this past November, 60 men and women gathered

in the Washington, DC, restaurant Rogue 24, a converted garage located in an obscure alley. The décor was minimalist, with exposed brick walls and long communal tables, but the food—ah, well, the food was another story. Working out of a kitchen located in the center of the dining room, chef R.J. Cooper and his team produced a stream of highquality, inventive courses in a style that a leading local food writer described as “Nouveau American.” Typical was the dish combining (to quote the menu) “swordfish, ink, sea bean, blood orange and olive.”

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Food Fraternities

One staff member surveyed the diners— many of whom wore distinctive colored ribbons festooned with gold chains and badges—and remarked that the evening would be a big challenge. “Tonight, we have a roomful of experts,” he said.

He wasn’t far wrong, either. The occasion was a night out for members of the Washington branch of the Confrérie de la Chaîne des Rôtisseurs, an international food and wine society dedicated to preserving the traditions of fine dining—traditions that have been traced back to the 13th-century Burgundian court. With professional chefs as well as other members of the hotel, food and wine businesses making up more than a third of the Chaîne’s membership, R.J. Cooper knew he was cooking for his peers.

It was less than a week before the U.S. presidential elections, and talk at the tables predictably centered on ... how well the red Burgundy (2006 Louis Jadot, Clos des Ursules) went with the swordfish, and how beautifully the Margaux (2000 Château d’Issan) paired with the heavenly chocolate dessert. At the close, the seven-course tasting meal got a round of applause and praise from Paul S. Haar, Bailli (head) of the Washington Bailliage (chapter).

And to think it was a roast leg of Normandy mutton that started it all.

Or rather, the man who roasted that leg of mutton. That was Jean Valby, a French journalist born in the Burgundy region but living in Paris in the immediate post-war

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Greystone’s historic Barrel Room in the Napa Valley provided an intimate backdrop for the Chaîne’s national wine society convention this past spring.

LEFT: The Chaîne des Rôtisseurs takes its name from the guild of goose roasters founded in 1248; pictured here, a culinary scene from the Bayeux Tapestry.

The society is dedicated to preserving a tradition of fine dining that dates back to the 13th-century Burgundian court. period, when food was scarce and strict rationing was still in force.

According to Chaîne history, Valby one day managed to get his hands on a leg of mutton, which he roasted on a skewer and invited two friends to share. One was Dr. Auguste Bécart, the other Maurice Edmond Sailland, the illustrious food writer who used the pseudonym Curnonsky. The

three men expressed their concern that food shortages—meat in particular—were causing an entire generation to grow up with very limited first-hand knowledge of the finer points of cooking and roasting, and even less appreciation of quality.

That evening, as Valby remembered it later, he and his friends decided “to create an association of people devoted to bringing

gastronomy back into everyday life.” They based the new group on the traditions and practices of the old royal guild of master goose roasters that flourished from 1248 to 1789, when the French Revolution dissolved all such organizations.

The resulting Confrérie de la Chaîne des Rôtisseurs débuted during Easter week 1950.

Valby was named president, and the first 120 members were inducted at Paris’s Hôtel Lutetia on January 25, 1951. They were presented with silk rubans—now color-coded to distinguish the various ranks—and gold chains with engraved medallions. Since then, the Chaîne has expanded to include more

than 80 national Bailliages, some in such far- declare that nouvelle cuisine “is not new cuiflung places as China, Saudi Arabia and sine, it’s disgusting cuisine.”)

Russia; total membership stands at 23,000.

Washington Bailli Paul Haar, who pracSome 6,000 of that number are in the tices law in both DC and France, mainUnited States, which has 130 chapters tains that regardless of this evolution, the (the first was founded in New Chaîne’s French influence is York in 1960). The organizaalive and well. “Our dinners tion boasts a thicket of ranks CHAîNE OUTREACH are all about fine food and and offices, each with a French In 2008, the Chaîne wine and creativity, about the title, and admission is by invi- founded the Association grounding in precise technical tation only. Members may at- Caritative de la Chaîne cooking, all of which are very tend any of hundreds of local, des Rôtisseurs (ACCR), French.” Equally important, a nonprofit with the regional, national and interna- mission of helping the he says, is the continued emtional events; there are also spe- needy around the world. phasis on good company and cial travel opportunities, such To date, many of their conversation, a Gallic tradition as cruises and tours organized efforts have focused that he calls the “spiritual” part on feeding the hungry; around Chaîne events abroad. of the dining experience. in addition, they have From the start, the Chaîne started culinary schools Every year, members have attracted a large number of in Portugal and South the opportunity to reconnect food and wine professionals. Africa to give the underwith the organization’s roots privileged a chance to Julia Child, California vintner acquire career skills. during the International GenRobert Mondavi and hotelier eral Assembly, which is always Each year, the Chaîne Barron Hilton were members, des Rôtisseurs also orheld in France. This past May, as was—surprisingly—Ronald ganizes competitions for some 500 members spent three young chefs and sommeReagan, inducted while gover- liers, with local chapters days in Paris, meeting, sightnor of California. Says Ariane coaching candidates seeing, going on excursions Daguin, owner of D’Artagnan, as they participate on and of course dining. “There the U.S.-based purveyor of regional and national is always a great ambiance at levels before going on fowl and game, “My Chaîne to the ultimate interthese events; friendship is a membership provides me the national competition. big part of our organization,” opportunity to learn what the In 2011, Reilly Meehan, says Secretary General Philippe discriminating consumer is a recent graduate of Desgeorges. “As our name inOregon Coast Culinary looking for in our products; Institute (OCCI), became dicates, we are all links in a it’s a window onto the world of the first American to win chain of fraternity that extends the title of “Best Young knowledgeable gourmets.” around the world.”

Valby clearly envisioned Chef in the World.” And Every evening was a in 2012, Christopher P. the Chaîne as a quintessen- Bates, 31, general manMichelin-star-studded affair, tially French society rooted in ager and executive chef with dinners prepared by Yanthe gastronomy of France, but at Hotel Fauchère in Mil- nick Alléno (a Chaîne member global reach and cultural diver- ford, Pennsylvania, won himself) at the Hôtel Meu“Best Young Sommelier sity has broadened its scope. in the World.” The U.S. rice, Eric Frechon at the Hôtel The Washington chapter, for Chaîne has also estabBristol and Guy Krenzer at example, has held Chinese lished a foundation that the Pré Catalan. Once again, dinners. And the Australian offers scholarships for the Chaîne had rallied around culinary and oenological Chaîne’s Web site proclaims students.

Antonin Carême’s famous decits dedication “to preserving laration, posted prominently and raising the standards of on its Web site: “When we no culinary arts not just in French cuisine but longer have good cooking in the world, we in all the great cuisines of the world.” (All will have no literature, nor high and sharp of which may not have sat well with Valby, intelligence, nor amicable gathering, nor f whose conservative leanings once led him to social harmony.”

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E Frédéric Rouz THE TA ST I N G S ISSUE

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zaud

THE OWNER AND CEO OF CHAMPAGNE LOUIS ROEDERER TALKS ABOUT HIS COMPANY’S NEW CULTURAL FOUNDATION, SHARING HIS THOUGHTS ON PHILANTHROPY, CONTEMPORARY ART AND CONTEMPORARY WINE.

BY ELIZABETH THRUSH

W

ith polished graciousness

Frédéric Rouzaud in Roederer’s cellars in Reims, surrounded by bottles of Cristal aging on the lees.

and a serenity that seems beyond his years, Frédéric Rouzaud is confidently steering Louis Roederer, one of a handful of family-owned estates in Champagne, through its third century. Doing so is visibly a pleasure, certainly a challenge and, acknowledges Rouzaud, a rare privilege—one that implies an obligation to give back. Earlier this year, he solidified his company’s commitment to philanthropy when he launched the Louis Roederer Foundation for Contemporary Art, which has pledged €3 million in donations during its first five years.

It was perhaps the most high-profile move yet by the 45-year-old CEO, who took the reins from his father in 2006, becoming the sixth generation to run the company.

Rouzaud claims that his only ambition is to leave the estate “a little more beautiful, more magical” than he found it. That’s a deceptively daunting task, given its illustrious past.

Founded the same year that the ink was drying on America’s Declaration of Independence,

Roederer was already exporting bubbly around the world by the mid-19th century, notably to the U.S. and Russia, where it became the favorite of Czar Alexander II. Cristal, perhaps the first prestige cuvée, was blended especially for the czar’s table and packaged in a clear crystal bottle—a fabulous marketing ploy that set it off from other, green-bottled Champagnes, all of which looked identical to guests when wrapped in the sommelier’s white linen napkin. Cristal’s flat bottom had the added advantage of reassuring the wary Russian leader that poison could not be hidden in the punt.

By 1872, the house was producing 2.5 million bottles—one tenth of total Champagne production.

Life was harder for Louis Roederer’s descendants, who had to cope with the Russian Revolution, the Depression and two World Wars. Frédéric’s father, Jean-Claude Rouzaud, took over in 1976, renewing the estate’s commitment to excellence. He vowed that two-thirds—more if possible—of its wine would come from grapes grown on its own vineyards (most large houses grow less than 10 percent of the grapes they use). Production would therefore be limited, given that land rarely goes on the market in Champagne, but the highest standards would prevail. It is a vision that Frédéric has embraced wholeheartedly.

It was also Rouzaud père who started the Roederer portfolio, launching Roederer Estates in California’s Anderson Valley in 1982, then purchasing estates in Champagne, Portugal, Bordeaux and Provence. Frédéric himself added the storied Château Pichon Longueville Comtesse de Lalande shortly after moving into the CEO slot.

Rouzaud now oversees properties with a combined turnover of €200 million, 60 percent of that amount derived from Champagne Roederer. When asked about his plans for the future, he is fond of citing The Leopard’s Prince of Salina: “Everything must change so that everything can stay the same.”

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Frédéric Rouzaud

&A

With Frédéric Rouzaud

You launched the Louis Roederer Foundation this past February. Please tell us briefly about your family’s history of support for the arts.

Our family has a long tradition of appreciating literature and culture in general. Louis Roederer, son of the company’s founder, amassed a remarkable collection of antique books, manuscripts, engravings and drawings, many dating from the 18th century. In fact, it was the second-largest collection in France after the one at the Château de Chantilly.

Unfortunately, much of it was sold after World War I and during the Depression—part of it ended up in the United States. My father too loved literature, and in the 1980s created an association to try and find the place where writer Antoine de St-Exupéry’s plane crashed in the Mediterranean. His objective wasn’t so much to actually find the plane but to rekindle interest in the writer and his books.

Other philanthropic projects followed, se- Of all the arts, why did photography hold lected on a case-by-case basis. Then one day, such a great appeal for you? we met some people from the Bibliothèque We wanted to do something in contemponationale de France, and they told us about rary art, and for me, photography seemed their collection of photographs, which is to be the most modern, the most accessible absolutely unique in the world. There were to the largest number of people. Some conmore than five million stashed away—they temporary art is very hard to grasp; photogsimply didn’t have the funds needed to raphy has an understandable message, it is exhibit them. Almost immediately, we de- reality, people, landscapes.... It is also visucided to help, and for the past decade have ally and aesthetically beautiful. sponsored an average of three traveling BnF photo exhibits a year, each with themes And why did you choose to support art and that they chose and that we wanted to sup- not medical research or some other area? port: well-known talents such as Doisneau, For us there was a natural connection with Atget, Cartier-Bresson and Capa but also contemporary art, it resonated with the work Sophie Calle, Bettina Rheims, Raymond we do. As winemakers, we don’t think of ourDepardon, Richard Prince…. This experi- selves as artists but we do think of ourselves ence crystalized for us the realization that as artisans, contemporary artisans. Every you can’t support everything, that it’s im- year, we endeavor to craft a new wine, one portant to choose a specific area. We chose that respects tradition but that is a wine of photography. tomorrow, that corresponds to the tastes of

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tomorrow. Artists inspire us in that work.

Of course they have much more freedom than we do—our work is very rigorous and methodical, even scientific, with analyses of sugar and acid levels and so on. You could perhaps say that the work of blending our wines has an artistic aspect, much like the work of noses at perfume houses, but I always tell our winemakers to be careful, not to lose sight of the fact that they are artisans, not artists. Yet we are deeply inspired by artists.

Does Roederer do anything differently now because of the influence and inspiration of the artists you have supported?

What I have noticed most is that our involvement with artists has infused the entire company with a new spirit; everyone seems to have been affected, whether they work in the vineyard or the vat room. Even something as simple as trimming the vines can be done sloppily or with precision—you can trim like a butcher … or like an artist. And the grapes will be different depending on how

Over the past two decades, Champagne Louis Roederer has sponsored dozens of cultural events and exhibits.

In 2012, it launched a foundation to centralize its philanthropic activities.

“Everything in our business can be done badly or done well. Our support of the arts sends a message that we appreciate beauty and the search for beauty.” that work is done, and thus the wine will be different too. Everything in our business can be done badly or done well. Our support of the arts sends a message that we appreciate beauty and the search for beauty, that we seek to surpass ourselves rather than simply repeat ourselves. And all of that filters down through our entire operation.

Philanthropy too can be done well or done badly. What for you are examples of exemplary philanthropy?

I would have to say Cartier and Hermès.

Of course, they have much greater means than we do—we are very small in

comparison—but what I like about their approach to philanthropy is that it is what I would call “neutral” with respect to their brand. After all, why do companies engage in cultural philanthropy? To be inspired by beauty, by culture but also to give back to society. At Roederer, we have received a magnificent heritage, we are very lucky to be in this business, to be winemakers, to work close to nature. So helping artists and supporting culture is our way of giving back to society. Some companies, like Cartier, do this very discreetly, others more visibly with the obvious objective of also promoting their brand.

The distinction between marketing and philanthropy can be rather vague....

Yes, and that’s precisely why we created our foundation, to make that distinction more clear. Basically, we had three objectives: First, to put the philanthropic activities that we’ve been engaged in these past years in a longterm context; second, to give these activities more structure. We now have a committee composed of designer Philippe Starck, writer Michèle Fitoussi and others from outside of our company; they help us come up with ideas for interesting projects to support. That ensures a greater neutrality than if the foundation were run only by people from Roederer. Third, we wanted to create an entity that is legally independent of the company, one that has its own identity and existence.

If along the way the foundation also contributes to the renown of our brand, that’s fine, but that is not a consideration when planning its activities. I don’t think that you should mix marketing and philanthropy; for me, they are very different activities.

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Of the dozens of projects that Roederer has supported, can you cite one that you found especially moving?

There have been many, but the “Controverses” exhibit at the BnF immediately comes to mind. It was a show of photographs from the ’60s and ’70s that incited controversy, because they were either surprising, troubling or provocative. It was incredible to see how even several decades later, they still had the same powerful impact. I spent a lot of time looking at those images; they were riveting.

I believe that it was largely your support for the BnF that led the Ministry of Culture to award Roederer the distinction of Grand Mécène de la Culture.

Yes, that was in 2010; it was presented to us by Frédéric Mitterrand, then-minister of culture. We are the only Champagne house to have ever received this honor, so we are very proud!

Can you tell us a little about Roederer's art collection?

Oh, it is still very small! But yes, over the years, we have met many artists in the course of sponsoring various exhibits at the BnF, and sometimes we have gone on to support other projects that they have been involved in. Among them are Sophie Calle, JeanMichel Alberola, JR, Bettina Rheims.... So we wanted to acquire one work from every exhibit in order to have a souvenir of sorts of these events. Within a year or two, we hope to have a renovated space in our building in Reims where we can host dinners, receptions and other events, and that will also serve as an exhibition space for these works.

Have shrinking government budgets meant more requests for sponsorship?

To tell you the truth, we have never had as many requests for support as we have since launching the foundation in early 2012. We have had to learn to say no. We’re a relatively small business, we don’t have the kind of budgets that LVMH has, so we have to remain selective in our choices of which activities to sponsor.

Our focus remains essentially photography

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“For me, a contemporary wine is one that is pure, natural and perfectly balanced, like a great painting.” and literature—our partnership with the BnF, commissioning and acquiring works by contemporary artists, sponsoring openings and literary awards and so on. We also support a number of festivals—the New Yorker Festival, the opera festival in Aix-enProvence, the Shakespeare & Co. festival in Paris…. What’s new is our partnership with Paris’s Palais de Tokyo, which reopened this past April and is entirely devoted to contemporary art.

Roederer Foundation supporting the events, we are systematically recognized in print for our donations. For journalists, there is no possibility of a conflict of interest if an event is sponsored by a foundation.

In the U.S., winemakers are extraordinarily generous, supporting many charities.

Let’s talk a little about the thriving wine business that makes your philanthropic efforts possible. Roederer now owns 10 estates in three countries. Are you planning further acquisitions?

Yes, but I think that corporate philanthropy is a bit easier in the U.S. In France, it is frequently viewed with suspicion. As we discussed earlier, where is the line between marketing and philanthropy? Some French journalists are purists when it comes to this question, and they don’t think that businesses should support culture. When a company does sponsor cultural activities, it is immediately suspected of engaging in marketing.

In the U.S., I think it is perceived as more of a win-win. Before we launched the foundation, Roederer was almost never mentioned in articles written about various events that we sponsored. But now that it is the

Even if the foundation is financed by a business?

Yes, I know it sounds odd, but it’s almost as if we had laundered the money. That’s just the way it is.

Our acquisitions have nearly all resulted from personal encounters, they really weren’t part of a business strategy per se, and that hasn't changed. To give you a little background, we still grow about two-thirds of the grapes that we use on land that we own, which is very rare here—most Champagne houses grow at most 10 percent and buy the rest. My father dreamed of growing all the grapes that we use, just like a Bordeaux château, but land in Champagne is rarely available for purchase, so that wasn’t possible. He

when making white wines as you do when making reds. But because we have implemented these procedures, we are now very advanced in terms of giving full expression to our Champenois terroir.

The Roederer Foundation focuses largely on photography. Sponsored events include JR’s outsized Paris exhibit, “Regards de Femmes” (2009), and (left) “Rose C’est Paris,” a Bettina Rheims and Serge Bramly show at the BnF (2010).

therefore looked around to see where else he could invest his profits, bought some land in California’s Anderson Valley and planted vineyards there—that was the beginning of Roederer Estates.

Next he bought Ramos Pinto, an estate in Portugal that has been making port since 1880. It is a magnificent place, classified by UNESCO. That purchase resulted from a chance meeting with the family that owned it. The same was true of Domaines Ott in Provence and Champagne Deutz; in all three cases, their family members still work on the estates, which is wonderful.

Isn’t that highly unusual?

Yes, but you have to understand, we were able to buy these properties only because the owners wanted to sell them to us, because they knew that we would honor their vision and values. Wine is something very carnal because it comes from the land. In France, land is very important, you don’t sell it lightly, and selling a vineyard is not like selling any other business. We knew that in all of these cases, the owners were heartsick at having to sell, but they took some comfort in the

What are the advantages and disadvantages of family ownership?

fact that we were the buyers.

By the way, one of our foundation’s projects is to invite artists to set up studios on our various properties. Many are extraordinarily beautiful places.

Is there a synergy between your estates?

Our head winemaker, Jean-Baptiste Lecaillon, says that our many vineyards make it possible for him to do five harvests a year and thus to learn five times as quickly. But the exchanges among our winemakers are valuable to all of them. We also work with Denis Dubourdieu, the great Bordeaux oenologist, and he brings us information from his experiences in vineyards around the world. When we all get together, it’s like a think tank of sorts, and our properties have all benefited.

For example, Jean-Baptiste initially worked at our properties in Bordeaux, then took over at Roederer. Since his arrival, there’s been a huge improvement in our Champagne because he introduced winegrowing techniques that were typical of the top Bordeaux estates but more rigorous than those usually practiced in Champagne. People have tended to think that you don’t have to be as precise

First and foremost, it allows you to have a long-term vision, one that guarantees a certain level of quality. In a family business, the owners are much more concerned about where the house will be in 20 years than they are about quarterly results.

For example, we have the freedom to decide how much Cristal we will make—or even not to make any at all in years when we don’t think the quality is high enough.

Family ownership also allows us to invest in organic winegrowing, even if it costs 20 percent more, because we know it will improve the quality and enhance the soul, the taste of our wines. We are one of the largest organic producers in Champagne—40 of our 240 hectares are organic. As for disadvantages, the only one I can see is that after several generations, ownership of the vineyard is divided among many family members, some of whom may eventually want to sell.

As someone who supports contemporary art, how do you define what it means to be a contemporary winemaker?

For me, it means calling into question everything that you do, never assuming that methods that are 20 years old or 100 years old are necessarily the best. It means always being on the cutting edge of the best winegrowing practices—most consumers have no idea how far winegrowing techniques have evolved, and that the sophistication of a grape’s flavor is the sum of so very many things.

Vinification should be as minimalist as possible; its purpose is solely to help the grapes express their flavor, their terroir, their energy.

So for me, a contemporary wine is one that is pure, natural; that means Champagnes with a minimum of added sugar, Bordeaux wines with a minimum of oak. Wines that have finesse and fruit, that are pure, natural and perfectly balanced, like a great painting. f

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E Trending Now THE TA ST I N G S ISSUE

CAFÉ SOCIETY The coffee craze has hit Paris. Hipsters who roast their own beans all seem to know one another and share the same philosophy: Coffee, like wine, is a living thing. They serve single-origin specialty brews, expertly blended espressos and artful cappuccinos adorned with leaves and hearts—all accompanied by yummy sweets or savory breakfast snacks.

Among our favorites: Télescope 5 rue Villedo, 1er / Ten Belles 10 rue de la Grange aux Belles, 10e / Café Lomi 3 ter rue Marcadet, 18e / Kooka Boora 62 rue des Martyrs, 9e / Coutume 7 rue de Babylone, 7e. –JS

Télescope, serving gourmet coffee in pretty glasses.

LE CHIC SANDWICH There’s a new kind of sandwich in town. Christened bistronomique, these creations boast the best ingredients, with top-quality bread and gourmet fillings. Abri’s young Japanese-born proprietors, who trained at Robuchon and L’Agapé Substance, reinterpret the traditional dish tonkatsu as a luxury club sandwich, combining pork cutlet, melted cheese, vegetable-stuffed omelet, stewed sweet and sour cabbage, and a secret sauce, served between slices of French toast. At L’Epicerie du Verre Volé, the butcher-paper-wrapped demi-baguette tradition is filled with tarama, radishes, Ligurian olives, piquillo peppers, sun-dried tomatoes, Basque chili pepper, grilled artichoke, red onion and fresh parsley. CheZ aline features a schnitzel sandwich garnished with mustard leaves and lemon. And L’Epicerie Breizh Café offers a Breton take on the sandwich bistronomique with its buckwheat galette packed with farm-fresh sausage. / CAFÉ-BISTROT ABRI 92 rue du Faubourg Poissonnière, 10e; Tel. 33/1-83-97-00-00. / L’EPICERIE DU VERRE VOLÉ 54 rue de la Folie-Méricourt, 11e; Tel. 33/1-48-05-36-55; leverrevole.fr. / CHEZ ALINE 85 rue de la Roquette, 11e; Tel. 33/1-43-7190-75. / L’EPICERIE BREIZH CAFÉ 111 rue Vieille du Temple, 3e; Tel. 33/1-42-72-13-77; breizhcafe.com. –JS

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Jambon beurre bistronomique at L’Epicerie du Verre Volé.

w

REPORTS FROM THE FRONT LINES OF THE PARIS CULINARY SCENE.

BY HEATHER STIMMLER-HALL, TINA ISAAC & JULIA SAMMUT

Top Chef contender Pierre-Sang Boyer.

TV TOQUES Boasting approximately 5 million viewers each, the French versions of reality TV competitions “Top Chef” and “MasterChef” offer six-figure prizes and enviable exposure even for competitors who don’t make it through the season. To date, show veterans have opened a dozen or so Paris restaurants; one standout is the popular Le Galopin, run by Top Chef-winner Romain Tischenko. Another is the polished but good-humored eponymous eatery launched by French-Korean chef Pierre-Sang Boyer, a Top Chef finalist. During the week, it turns out streamlined, often surprising prix-fixe menus for packed tables; on the weekend, there's a vide-bouteille brunch (so-named because it’s the ideal occasion to finish up all those bottles of wine opened during the week). Perhaps the savviest move comes from very central Alcazar, which struck gold this year by honing its identity as a Top Chef “clubhouse,” hiring contestants to take turns at the stove. / LE GALOPIN 34 rue Sainte-Marthe, 10e; Tel. 33/1-42-06-05-03; legalopin.com. / PIERRE-SANG BOYER 55 rue Oberkampf, 11e; pierresangboyer. com. / ALCAZAR 62 rue Mazarine, 6e; Tel. 33/1-53-10-19-99; alcazar.fr. –TI

CAPITAL BUZZ

“Miel de Paris” has been causing quite the buzz since the first jars produced from the Palais Garnier’s rooftop hives in 1982 began flying off the shelves of high-end food markets such as Fauchon. Beekeeping is nothing new in the French capital—the apiary in the Luxembourg Gardens dates back to 1856—but the practice has gained traction since scientists discovered that the honey is extremely pure, given that the bees feed on the city’s pesticidefree flowering trees and plants. Today there are more than 300 hives in Paris, some on the prestigious rooftops of the Grand Palais, Louis Vuitton and the Palais Bourbon. The historic Crédit Mutuel sells its “Miel de ma Tante” during the Journées du Patrimoine, and the chefs at the legendary Tour d’Argent use their honey in the restaurant’s signature desserts. For a great souvenir, pick up a jar at their boutique. – HSH

Amandine Chaignot, bringing a feminine touch to Le Raphael.

WOMEN IN WHITES In Paris, it’s looking like a woman’s place truly is in the kitchen—as the chef. This past year, a new generation of female culinary stars has made headlines, and headway, in one of France’s most traditionally male-dominated fields. With food that draws on feminine sensitivity and intuition, they’re showing they have what it takes to make it big on their own terms.

Most of the ink has gone to Anne-Sophie Pic, a self-taught chef who is the only woman in France to hold three Michelin stars. She opened her first Paris restaurant, La Dame de Pic, last fall, and although its perfume-inspired menu has both fans and detractors, it’s unquestionably a hit. Just around the corner is Yam’tcha, the pocket-sized restaurant where the much-admired one-star chef Adeline Grattard serves poetic, delicate Asian-inflected French fare in a minuscule kitchen; her husband, Chi Wan, acts as tea sommelier (they closed the restaurant for several months when their second child arrived, then opened again).

Mexican-born Béatriz Gonzales, a protégée of Alain Senderens, went off the beaten path to a street behind the Gare SaintLazare for her restaurant Néva; her limpid, cheerful and modern approach to French cuisine has quickly attracted a steady stream of epicureans and businesspeople.

Meanwhile, two young women have taken the helm at palacecaliber hotels: Amandine Chaignot, who until only recently was the

sous-chef for Christopher Hache at Le Crillon (her CV also includes stints with Eric Frechon, Yannick Alléno and Jean-François Piège), is working a quiet revolution at the discreetly elegant Le Raphael hotel. And Stéphanie Le Quellec, the barely 30-year-old winner of the 2011 edition of “Top Chef,” has left her post at the Four Seasons Resort Provence at Terre Blanche to take charge of the kitchens at the newly refurbished Prince de Galles hotel.

And you can expect more women in whites. The Ecole Ferrandi reports that during the past three years, the number of female students has increased dramatically: The current freshman class has 55 men—and 84 women. Just as intriguing: Many are professionals with advanced degrees looking to start a new career.

LA DAME DE PIC 20 rue du Louvre, 1er; Tel. 33/1-42-60-40-40; ladamedepic. fr. / YAM’TCHA 4 rue Sauval, 1er; Tel. 33/1-40-26-08-07; yamtcha.com. / NÉVA 2 rue de Berne, 8e; Tel. 33/1-4522-18-91. / LE RAPHAEL 17 av Kléber, 16e; Tel. 33/1-53-64-32-00; raphaelhotel.com. / PRINCE DE GALLES 33 av George V, 8e; Tel. 33/1-53-23-77-77; princedegallesparis.com. –TI

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Trending Now

GLUTEN-FREE GOURMANDISE With more and more food lovers suffering from gluten intolerance, Nadia Sammut (full disclosure: my sister) saw a niche for a new movement. She created With love-allergenfree (withlove-allergenfree.com) to promote the pleasures of eating and cooking for all, including those with food allergies.

The group advances its cause through events, tastings and specially labeled restaurants, all subject to rigorous controls. Already several Parisian tables d’hôtes are on board as well as one certified restaurant, Noglu (16 passage des Panoramas, 2e), whose unforgettable club sandwich is 100-percent gluten-free. Next on the menu: a food truck slated to crisscross France. –JS

FOREIGN ACCENTS In food as in fashion, the hottest news in Paris is the explosion of international talent. Frequently small and off the beaten track, these new ventures are catching major word of mouth, thanks to awards by young, edgy guides such as Le Fooding. Japanese chefs lead the way in terms of sheer numbers, among them the freshly anointed one-star chef Kei Kobayashi, a former Ducasse staffer whose quietly elegant Restaurant Kei (1st) underscores his exquisite approach to contemporary French cuisine. In a more relaxed but no less rigorous vein is Bocuse protégé Eiji Doihara, whose recent takeover of the neighborhood bistro Sot L’y Laisse (11th) has garnered glowing reviews. This season’s other darling, Robuchon/ Taillevent alum Katsuaki Okiyama (winner of the Fooding d’Amour 2013 prize), turns out incredibly delicate and flavorful dishes at unbelievably affordable prices in his tiny restaurant, Abri (10th).

Equally talented but perhaps more freewheeling is the Anglophone brigade. Taking a cue from the smiling service and winning ways of Daniel Rose’s fabulously successful Spring (1st), the BritishItalian duo Michael Greenwold and Simone Tondo have opened the charming, cottage-like Roseval (Le Fooding’s Meilleure Table 2013) in

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the 20th. The laid-back and popular Albion (9th), which charmed critics when it opened a year ago, is helmed by English chef Matt Ong and his bartender partner from New Zealand, Hayden Clout. And over near République, the beguiling, typically working-class-style French wine/tapas bar Au Passage owes its success to Australian chef James Henry, who will soon be opening another restaurant in the 11th. Called Bones, it will take the term “homemade” to new extremes: Henry plans not only

to bake his own bread but churn his own butter and make vinegar too. / RESTAURANT KEI, 5 rue Coq Héron, 1; Tel. 33/1-42-33-14-74 / SOT L’Y LAISSE 70 rue Alexandre Dumas, 11e; Tel. 33/1-40-09-79-20. / ABRI 92 rue du Faubourg Poissonnière, 10e; Tel. 33/1-83-97-00-00. / SPRING 6 rue Bailleul, 1er; Tel. 33/1-45-96-0572; springparis.fr. / ROSEVAL 1 rue d'Eupatoria, 20e; Tel. 33/9-53-5624-14; roseval.fr. / AU PASSAGE 1 bis passage de Saint-Sebastien, 11e; Tel. 33/1-43-55-07-52. / BONES 42 rue Godefroy Caviagnac, 11e. –TI

LEFT TO RIGHT, scenes from

Restaurant Kei: Chef Kei Kobayashi; an exquisitely arranged salad; the elegant dining room.

TRUCKIN’

The “mobile restaurant”—a concept that originated in (where else?) L.A.—is taking hold in Paris.

The first food truck to make a name for itself was Le Camion qui fume, run by super-chef Kristin Frederick. Originally in marketing, this American foodie who worked at Spago L.A. and Apicius Paris brought the concept to the French capital, where its fab burgers and prime locations guaranteed instant trendiness. The result: neverending lines; copycats turning out organic free-range burgers, empanadas and affordable gourmet specialties; and addicts who follow them compulsively. Today’s top trucks: LE CAMION QUI FUME, lecamionquifume.com / CANTINE CALIFORNIA, cantinecalifornia.com / CLASICO ARGENTINO, clasicoargentino.com / LE RÉFECTOIRE, lerefectoire.com / 2F1C (2FILLES1CAMION), facebook.com/deuxfillesuncamion. –JS

A stunning Iced Tomato Sundae with Whipped Celery Cream, confirming the George V’s reputation for extraordinary cuisine.

PALACE INTRIGUE

Paris’s palace hotels are known for their deeply chic tours through traditional French gastronomy, and none more so than the George V, whose Le Cinq has been hailed as the world’s best hotel restaurant.

Chef Eric Briffard’s new book, Le Cinq (Glénat), lifts the veil on the extraordinary alchemy of impeccable cuisine, exquisite service and stunning décor that makes dining here so totally of-the-moment yet so delightfully timeless. An oversized tome with 352 gorgeous pages, it is nothing short of palatial.

Elsewhere in the French capital,

palace chefs are exploring new territory, with everything from Cantonese to comfort food. In one of the newest twists, Le Meurice’s three-star chef Yannick Alléno has dreamed up La Table d’Yquem, the ultimate in exclusive dining. Designed by hot young interior decorator Noé Duchaufour-Lawrance,

the private eight-seat salon, slated to open in 2013, offers an unobstructed view of the action in the hotel’s gastronomic kitchens. While not the first of its kind (the Plaza Athénée already has a small dining room adjacent to its kitchens), La Table d’Yquem intends to raise the bar in terms of both décor and its positioning as a “gastronomic laboratory,” offering menus created around Château d’Yquem, perhaps the world’s most famous wine.

For the Royal Monceau-Raffles Paris, joint ventures are the key to keeping things fresh. Since it reopened in 2010, the hotel has had an ongoing relationship with pastry icon Pierre Hermé, and this past November, Michelin-starred Japanese chef Nobu Matsuhisa joined chef Laurent André in the kitchens of La Cuisine for a four-month, dinner-only appearance that is slated to run through the first two months of 2013. The hotel’s awardwinning Il Carpaccio restaurant mixes things up by inviting in top culinary talents from Italy. “Our focus is ‘emotional luxury,’” says general manager Omer Acar.

“Every day we work to create a ‘wow’ experience that will make guests’ visits surprising and unforgettable, time after time. Collaborating with leading chefs fits perfectly with this philosophy.”

Exotic cuisine has swiftly become a signature at Shangri-La Hotel, Paris, where chef Frank Xu won

a Michelin star last year for the capital’s first Cantonese-inspired gastronomic restaurant, Shang Palace. Imaginative takes on Asian influences at L’Abeille have also garnered the hotel’s executive chef, Philippe Labbé, two stars; this past fall, Gault & Millau named him “Cuisinier de l’Année 2013.” Later this year, the hotel will add even more spice to the mix: Indian and Burmese guest chefs are slated to headline at the hotel’s “everyday” restaurant, La Bauhinia.

Perhaps no Paris chef is more renowned for his appreciation of Asian cultures than Thierry Marx, executive chef at the Mandarin Oriental. Now, in a counterpoint to the minimalist, zen-inspired creations at his restaurant gastronomique, Sur Mesure, Marx has introduced the culinary equivalent of a favorite cashmere turtleneck: a Sunday Roast lunch menu, served at the hotel’s less formal Camélia restaurant.

FOUR SEASONS HOTEL GEORGE V, PARIS 31 av George V, 8e; Tel. 33/1-49-

52-70-00; fourseasons.com/paris. / LE MEURICE 228 rue de Rivoli, 1er; Tel. 33/1-44-58-10-10; lemeurice.com. / ROYAL MONCEAU-RAFFLES PARIS 37 av Hoche, 8e; Tel. 33/1-42-99-88-00; leroyalmonceau.com. / SHANGRI-LA HOTEL , Paris 10 av d’Iéna, 16e; Tel. 33/1-53-67-19-98; shangri-la.com. / MANDARIN ORIENTAL PARIS 251 rue Saint-Honoré, 1er; Tel. 33/1-70-98-7888; mandarinoriental.com/paris. – TI

SPECIAL DELIVERIES The biggest attention-grabber at Paris’s Salon International de l’Alimentation or SIAL (sialparis.com) last October was WikiCell, a company producing food packaging that is either edible or biodegradable, mimicking the skin of a grape or orange or the shell of a coconut. Imagine a tapioca “box” filled with ice-cream balls whose edible outer coating eliminates the need for paper wrapping. You can try them yourself at the newly opened WikiBar, located in the Lab Store (4 rue Bouloi, 1e; labstoreparis.com), a concept store near the Louvre selling futuristic inventions such as Aeroshot: powder shots of inhalable caffeine or chocolate … calorie free! – HSH

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Trending Now

Petit homard aux saveurs de l’île aux Epices, delicious inspiration from the new Epices & Roellinger, with photos by Vincent Lejalé.

SPICE ROUTE Given the huge sums of money spent and quantities of blood spilled to obtain spices over the millennia, it is surprising that they have become so, well, bland—rows of little jars on kitchen shelves waiting for recipes yet rarely inspiring them. But for Olivier Roellinger, the chef from Cancale, Brittany, spices have been a lifelong passion, and he has spent 30 years retracing the route des épices taken by sailors who set out from nearby Saint-Malo. Along the way he has discovered the best suppliers for the 120 spices he masterfully weaves into his cuisine, which garnered three Michelin stars before health problems obliged him to scale back to a less demanding rhythm.

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“That was in 2008, and at first I was devastated,” he admits. “But then I realized that I could reach a much larger audience than the patrons of my restaurants; now I have no regrets.” He is doing just that through his Epices-Roellinger shops in Cancale, Saint-Malo and Paris (more are in the works), each stocked with a heady array of spices, including some 20 varieties of peppercorns and nine different salts, as well as grand cru vanilla beans, chili peppers, flavored oils, teas… .

“Nowadays, people want to reduce their intake of sugar, salt and fat, but they don’t want to sacrifice taste,” explains the chef, who frequently works with cardiologists

and diabetes specialists. “Spices offer a delicious alternative, but most of us don’t know how to make the best use of them. They’re sort of like perfume—people tend to use too much or not enough.” Which is where the magic of his poudres d’épices comes in. These mixtures— some 27 have been concocted to date—are each composed of seven to 25 spices. He approaches them very much the way a nose comes up with a new perfume, starting with ideas, feelings, memories and impressions, then searching for the precise combination of elements that will evoke them.

Originally trained as a pharmacist, Roellinger looks every bit the part as he sits at his desk working on a new poudre, surrounded by dozens of jars, mortar and pestle, scales and weights. Exhibiting the excruciating perfection of the three-star chef he is, he often spends several years going from idea to final product. Yet while the components may have been imported from around the world, the end result is very much anchored in his native Brittany, conceived with local produce, seafood and meat in mind. “I would never, for example, make a blend of Cajun spices. I have no authority in that area,” he explains. “France’s culinary strength has always been its ability to adopt influences from around the world, using them to create something entirely new and different.” And wonderful. His poudre des Bulgares sprinkled on plain yogurt is positively addictive.

Roellinger prides himself on taking an educational approach to his business, staffing his shops with knowledgeable salespeople who enjoy coaching customers in how products are made and their limitless possibilities. In addition, his Web site provides consumers with extensive background information on all items as

well as suggested uses, recipes and, frequently, accompanying videos.

And this past October, the chef and Christian Lejalé published Epices & Roellinger (Imagine & Co), an attempt to share his extraordinary passion, knowledge and expertise. The result is a collection of glorious voyages back in time and around the world that lead, as always, to inspired and inspiring culinary creations. / EPICES ROELLINGER 51 bis rue Sainte Anne, 2e; Tel. 33/1-42-60-46-88; maisons-debricourt.com; epices-roellinger.com.

GARDEN VARIETY It can be argued that no one knows vegetables like Alain Passard, the three-star chef who famously declared in 2001 that légumes—and not fish or meat— would henceforth be the focus of the menu at his Paris restaurant Arpège. He then went one better and planted potagers to supply his restaurants—a decade before U.S. chefs began doing the same.

So what trends does this visionary chef see in the world of veggies?

“People—not just restaurants— are finally rediscovering and respecting the seasons,” he says.

“They start buying tomatoes, cukes and zucchini in the middle of July, then move on to root vegetables in mid-October. What’s incredible is that even children are beginning to think this way.”

Soon, he predicts, anyone trying to sell tomatoes in the dead of winter is going to end up with a lot of unsold stock on his hands.

LEFT: Jean-Luc Poujauran with

his artisanal pain de campagne.

ABOVE: Jean-Yves Bordier’s handchurned butter with seaweed.

FOOD WITH A PASSPORT Were Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin alive today, he might be tempted to amend his most famous line to read: “Tell me what you eat and who made or grew it, and I’ll tell you who you are.” Indeed, consumers’ insistence on knowing where their food comes from is behind some of the biggest changes in restaurants and grocery stores. Organic products are the fastest-growing sector in French supermarkets, reasonably priced organic stands and épiceries are cropping up all over town, and professionals such as butchers Hugo Desnoyer and Yves-Marie Le Bourdonnec have become media stars in their own right. As three-star chef

Alain Passard put it, “People want food that has a passport, an identity indicating that it was produced by a farmer who has savoir-faire and who plays fair.”

For restaurants, citing provenance confers a stamp of integrity. A prime example is the recently revamped Grand Bistro de Breteuil in the 7th arrondissement. Its new €42 prix fixe menu reads like a Who’s Who of France’s top purveyors, from Jean-Luc Poujauran’s bread and Jean-Yves Bordier’s butter to olive oil from Château d’Estoublon, vegetables grown by Joël Thiébault and cheese by Marie-Anne Cantin.

The cost of these star-studded creds?

Prices have gone up 25 percent.

Thereby hangs the double-edged sword of provenance, observes food critic Alexander Lobrano, author of Hungry for Paris (Random House).

But there is no denying, he says, that

there’s a huge difference between industrial chicken and free-range fowl. What’s more, the excellence of these products has even transformed people’s perceptions. “Bordier’s butter is so delicious that it has caused people to actually notice a product they previously took for granted.”

The same is true for olive oil, thanks to the resounding success of purveyors specializing in small suppliers, such as Cédric Casanova’s La Tête dans Les Olives (10th) and Première Pression Provence, launched by L’Occitane founder Olivier Baussan.

At PPP, there is no doubt who makes the oils you are buying: Large blackand-white photos of the producers are part of the décor.

If the flip side is food snobbery, so be it, says Frédéric Hubig-Schall, owner of Astier, Café Moderne and Sassotondo restaurants as well as Jeanne A, his successful locavoredriven épicerie à manger (a grocery store with a few tables). “In any business, there are those who are more sensitive to marketing, image and bling,” he notes. “But there are also those who appreciate that the delicate flavor of true Jambon de Paris is a universe away from industrially produced ham. What interests me is finding and offering affordable

quality products made according to traditional methods by people who have real passion and integrity. Is it pricier than supermarket fare? Of course. But it’s less expensive than most people think.” In the 18 months since it opened, Jeanne A has been so successful that Hubig-Schall will soon open Jeanne B, a similarly themed épicerie in Montmartre.

Another sign of the times is Terroirs d’Avenir, a locavore sourcing initiative founded a few years back by twentysomething duo Samuel Nahon and Alexandre Drouard. It quickly became the purveyor of choice for Paris’s palace hotels as well as the capital’s top bistros, wine bars and caves à manger. By rounding up quality seasonal produce and drawing chefs’ attention to otherwise forgotten foods such as Pardailhan turnips and the Coucou de Rennes (a Breton chicken), they have managed to rescue a number of struggling small producers. This past October, they expanded their clientele to include the general public when they opened three boutiques—one for hard-to-find vegetables, a butcher shop and a fishmonger—all on the rue du Nil in the up-and-coming Sentier neighborhood (2nd).

Caveat emptor: Paris food blogger Adrian Moore cautions that great provenance does not a great restaurant make: “Good ingredients aren’t enough—good cooking has to follow.” / HUGO DESNOYER 54 rue Boulard, 14e; facebook.com/ParisBoucherie. / YVES-MARIE DE BOURDONNEC La Boucherie Lamartine, 172 av Victor Hugo, 16e. / LA TÊTE DANS LES OLIVES 2 rue Sainte-Marthe, 10e; latetedanslesolives.com. / PPP 8 Cour du Commerce Saint-André, 6e (among other Paris addresses); ppp-olive.com. / JEANNE A 42 rue Jean-Pierre Timbaud, 11e; restaurant-astier.com. / TERROIRS D’AVENIR 7 rue du Nil, 2e. –TI

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COFFEE COUP Le Creuset’s

Café Collection features everything you need for that perfect cup of java, including storage jars, French presses and mugs. Items are made of sturdy enameled stoneware and are available in red, blue, orange and brown. $12 to $60; cookware.lecreuset.com.

SOME LIKE IT HOT For the first time in 30 years, luxury range manufacturer La Cornue has

released an entirely new design—and it’s gorgeous. Freestanding pieces by Jean-Michel Wilmotte for his La Cornue W collection include a super-sleek cooktop that looks more like an elegant piece of furniture than something you’d actually boil water on. lacornue.com

MAD ABOUT SAFFRON Famous for its enameled cast-iron cookware, the Strasbourg-

based Staub has just released a new color, Saffron. This mellow yellow is particularly striking against the cookware’s matte black interior. From $54.99; staubusa.com.

BOX SETS Paper-bagging it is so passé.

Particularly when Monbento’s Frenchdesigned bento boxes offer a stylish and sustainable way to transport your lunch. $36.50; en.bentoandco.com.

CLEAN LIVING Presented in elegant 16-ounce

bottles, Astier de Villatte’s luxury liquid dishwashing soap comes in pepper, cypress and sage. Who knew your sink could smell as appetizing as your oven? €12; astierdevillatte.com.

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COTTON CLUB These aren’t your grandma’s tea towels. Atelier LZC’s charming designs for Tissage Moutet— a Basque table-linen manufacturer established in 1913—wed traditional craftsmanship with modern patterns and palettes. €13; atelierlzc.com.

THE LATEST ACCESSORIES FOR THE WELL-APPOINTED KITCHEN

BY MELISSA OMERBERG

CRISTEL ROCKS

Cristel—a French leader in high-end stainless-steel cookware and proud holder of a prestigious Living Heritage label— recently made its U.S. début. Its innovative new “L” line features removable handles that transform pots and pans into sophisticated serving dishes—and minimize storage space in the dishwasher or cupboard. $38-$518; cristelusa.com.

PERFECT SCORE

Co-designed with international wine critic James Suckling, Lalique’s 100 Points Wine Glass gets top marks for combining beauty and functionality.

Hand-crafted in crystal, it’s worthy of the best vintages. $140; lalique.com.

TEA TIME With their graceful fluted spouts, perfectly shaped bodies and exuberant handles, Mariage Frères’ hand-blown glass teapots make every day a tea party. Each model features a choice of colorful cast-iron openwork lids. $195; mariagefreres.com.

BULLE IN A CHINA SHOP With its pure white

glaze and soft curves, Bernardaud’s 21-piece Bulle dinnerware set dresses up even the most casual meals. $20 to $160; bernardaud.fr.

NEW HUES Lacanche, the Burgundy-based purveyor of high-end, handcrafted gas ranges, has just added three new colors to its line: Olive, Faience (a pale bluish-gray) and Griotte Red. If these don’t inspire you to expand your range in the kitchen, nothing will. €5,900; frenchranges.com.

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Calendrier French Cultural Events in North America

traditional portraiture with Impressionist brushstrokes, Albert Bartholomé’s exquisite • Wedding “In the Greenhouse” (1881) is a highlight of “Impressionism, Fashion, and Modernity.”

January-March 2013

NOTA BENE Combining the studied pose and styling of a traditional portrait with the vibrant palette and painterly brushstrokes of Impressionism, Albert Bartholomé’s “In the Greenhouse” (c. 1881) depicts the artist’s wife, Périe. When she died six years after its completion, he took up sculpture—the medium for which he is now best known—to create a monument for her grave. This canvas is among 80-odd figure paintings displayed in I mpressionism , F ashion , and M odernity , which opens in New York this winter after a successful run at Paris’s Musée d’Orsay. Exploring the dynamic between art and la mode from the 1860s to the 1890s, when Paris became the style capital of the world, the show includes period accessories, fashion plates, photographs, popular prints and clothing—notably Mme Bartholomé’s purple and white dress, which her husband kept until his death in 1928. Feb. 26 through May 27 at The Metropolitan Museum of Art; metmuseum.org.

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EXHIBITS Washington, DC XAVIER VEILHAN

(IN)balance is the first major U.S. museum exhibition of the works of the Paris-based multimedia artist Xavier Veilhan, whose take on the historical reflects a futuristic aesthetic and a fascination with cutting-edge technology; his 2009 show at Versailles summoned up the royal family’s departure in 1789 through a 50-foot-long faceted purple sculpture of a carriage and its team of six horses (see photo, page 19). The show includes photo-based works, paintings (some new) and sculpture.

Through Feb. 10 at The Phillips Collection; phillipscollection.org.

Kansas City, MO

© R M N - M U S É E D ’ O R S AY / H E R V É L E W A N D O W S K I ; © W I L L I A M C L I F T; R M N - G R A N D PA L A I S / A R T R E S O U R C E N Y / J E A N - G I L L E S B E R I Z Z I

AT HOME WITH PICASSO

Bonjour Picasso! offers a peek into the artist’s life at La Californie, the villa near Cannes where he lived from 1955 to 1961. Photographs by David Douglas Duncan, who enjoyed virtually unrestricted access to the household, show Picasso at work as well as at ease with his wife Jacqueline, children Claude and Paloma, and friends Georges Braque and Jean Cocteau. Complementing these is a selection of the artist’s own work including paintings and prints of former muses Marie-Thérèse Walter, Dora Maar and Françoise Gilot. Through Feb. 10 at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art; nelson-atkins.org.

New York THE ART OF SCENT

Through 12 renowned fragrances including Chanel N˚ 5, Jicky and L’Eau d’Issey, The Art of Scent 1889-2012 surveys the evolution of perfume since the introduction of synthetic molecules expanded the possibilities of the medium. Each work of “olfactory art” is presented individually, dispersed with special machines to preserve its essence and stripped of its commercial trappings. To illustrate the complex process of creating a perfume, the show traces the development of Lancôme’s Trésor from written brief to final product.

Through Feb. 24 at the Museum of Arts and Design; madmuseum.org.

pictures of their earlier incarnations. He also painted the same image in different styles, a practice perhaps rooted in his days as a student copying the Old Masters. Matisse: In Search of True Painting brings together 48 paintings that illustrate how the artist used recurring motifs to experiment with perspective, color and other variables. A selection of sculpture and works on paper, including the 158 plates made from a series of drawings titled “Themes and Variations,” rounds out the show. Through March 13 at The Metropolitan Museum of Art; metmuseum.org.

San Francisco LOUVRE TREASURES

Showcasing the exquisite results of court patronage of the decorative arts in 17th- and 18th-century France, Royal Treasures from the Louvre: Louis XIV to Marie-Antoinette exhibits a selection of snuffboxes, Sèvres porcelain, wool and silk tapestries, and other luxurious objects, some of which have never before left France. Highlights include a solid gold coffee grinder made for Madame de Pompadour and the gemmes de la Couronne, the Sun King’s personal collection of vases sculpted out of amethyst, agate and other hardstones and mounted with gold and jewels. Through March 17 at the Legion of Honor; legionofhonor.famsf.org.

Phoenix WILLIAM CLIFT

For four decades, the American photographer William Clift returned again and again to the fortified tidal island of Mont St. Michel in Normandy and the volcanic rock formation Shiprock in the New Mexico desert. These two seemingly disparate subjects share not only a similar towering form, but also a spiritual dimension—the former for its venerable abbey and the latter as a site sacred to the Navajo. A selection of otherworldly black-and-white images from the two series are on view in Shiprock and Mont St. Michel: Photographs by William Clift. Through April 7 at Phoenix Art Museum; phxart.org.

Long Island City, NY CYPRIEN GAILLARD

New York MATISSE PAINTINGS

Fascinated by the artistic process, Henri Matisse once hired a photographer to document the evolution of his paintings and then conceived an exhibition that juxtaposed finished works with

Cyprien Gaillard presents work by the 2010 winner of France’s prestigious Prix Marcel

This mysterious view of Mont St. Michel, part of a photographic series by •William Clift, is on display at the Phoenix Art Museum.

Duchamp, which includes a show at the Centre Pompidou. Embracing entropy, Gaillard probes the tension between architecture and nature, destruction and preservation through media ranging from painting and sculpture to largescale interventions. As part of his “parc aux ruines,” made up of sites around the world, he covered the grande allée leading to the Renaissance château of Oiron in western France with crushed concrete from a demolished suburban highrise, while his video montage “Desniansky Raion” (2007) combines scenes of a massive gang fight in suburban St. Petersburg, the festive demolition of a Paris housing project and illegally captured aerial views of a Kiev apartment complex. Jan. 20 through April 8 at MoMA PS1; momaps1.org.

New York SHOE OBSESSION

Through some 150 examples of contemporary footwear by established and up-and-coming designers alike, Shoe Obsession examines how such high-end labels as Manolo Blahnik, Christian Louboutin, Pierre Hardy and Roger Vivier went from cladding the feet of wealthy fashion insiders to being fetishized by the masses. Credit or blame “Sex and the City” for ushering in this change, which has led many women to revise their notion of what’s too high—with regard to both price and heels. Feb. 8 through April 13 at The Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology; fitnyc.edu.

agate and enamel ewer •(c.An 1650), one of the Louvre’s

Montreal

traveling treasures.

The recipient of the 2008 Prix Marcel

LAURENT GRASSO

Duchamp, multimedia artist Laurent Grasso is fascinated by notions of time and space, and by our limits in apprehending reality. Laurent Grasso: Uraniborg, an exhibition he conceived as a work of art in its own right, incorporates a corridor that allows viewers only glimpses of pieces later visible in their entirety. The show includes videos, drawings, neon creations and paintings from the “Studies into the Past,” series, which combine elements from masterpieces by artists such as Botticelli and Mantegna with depictions of meteorological and other events. Feb. 7 through April 28 at the Musée d’Art Contemporain de Montréal; macm.org.

New York SWANN’S WAY CENTENARY

Marcel Proust and Swann’s Way: 100th Anniversary celebrates the 1913 publication of the first volume of Remembrance of Things Past through a display of the author’s notebooks, preliminary drafts and other documents from the collection of the Bibliothèque nationale de France.

Rounding out the show are several letters between Proust and his mother, and an assortment of period postcards bearing images of Paris and Illiers, the inspiration for the fictional town of Combray. Feb. 15 through April 28 at the Morgan Library & Museum; themorgan.org.

New York THE PATH OF NATURE

Spanning the period from the dawn of the French Revolution to the reign of Louis Philippe, The Path of Nature: French Paintings from the Wheelock Whitney Collection, 1785–1850 displays 51 paintings in all major genres. The numerous plein air pieces on view reveal an F R A N C E • W I N T E R 2 0 1 2 -1 3

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intriguing shifts through time and space that characterized the hit TV series from which it takes its name (through Jan. 27 at the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery at Barnsdall Art Park; lostinla.com).

Other highlights include a series of discussions and roundtables between artists and architects from Paris and Los Angeles and a live, game-show–style competition between four teams of L.A.-based curators.

Through April at venues citywide; cnp-la.org.

New York FASHION AND TECHNOLOGY

An array of more than 100 garments, accessories and textiles spanning 250 years, Fashion and Technology considers how technological advancements from sewing machines to synthetic dyes to online shopping have influenced clothing design and production. Highlights include a seamless Pierre Cardin dress from 1968 made with moldable Jean Paul Gaultier’s Op-Art jumpsuit (1996), “Cardine” fabric and Yoshiki Hishinuma’s polyurethane dress (Fall a Balenciaga dress 1999-00) and Charles James’s evening gown designed by Nicolas (c. 1955), all featured at the Museum at FIT. Ghesquière that combines cutting-edge Columbia, SC materials with traditional couture techniques. Through May 8 at the Museum FROM MONET TO MATISSE Comprising 55 paintings, pastels and at the Fashion Institute of Technology; watercolors, Impressionism from fitnyc.edu.

Monet to Matisse brings together works by Renoir, Pissarro and others Boston who eschewed the traditional subCÉZANNE AND GAUGUIN jects and style favored by the Salon Visiting Masterpieces: Cézanne’s The to depict the world around them in a Large Bathers offers Boston museumway true to the immediacy with which goers an opportunity to view one of the eye captures movement, transient the Philadelphia Museum of Art’s most light and shadow, and complex graprized possessions hanging alongside dations of color. As suggested by its one of their own city’s artistic jewels, title, the exhibition also looks ahead to Gauguin’s “Where Do We Come From?

Modernism through works by Cézanne, What Are We? Where Are We Going?”

Gauguin, Braque and others. Jan. 25 Innovative takes on the classical theme through April 21 at the Columbia Museof Arcadia, these two monumental canum of Art; columbiamuseum.org. vases represent their respective creators at the peak of their powers and influLos Angeles enced a generation of Modern artists, notably Picasso and Matisse. Feb. 2 CECI N’EST PAS Ceci n’est pas … Art Between France through May 12 at the Museum of Fine and Los Angeles is a months-long Arts, Boston; mfa.org. program of exhibitions, performances, screenings, lectures and other events Washington, DC involving more than 100 creative talents COLOR, LINE, LIGHT from both sides of the Atlantic. FeaturColor, Line, Light: French Drawings, ing some 40 works by Tatiana Trouvé, Watercolors, and Pastels from DelaThomas Hirschhorn, Jim Shaw and croix to Signac presents 100 works other artists, the opening exhibition, from the collection of the Arkansas Lost (in LA), draws inspiration from the businessman James T. Dyke, a major

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donor to the National Gallery of Art. Covering the period from 1830 to 1930, these works on paper represent a wide range of subjects and artistic movements, surveying the evolution of modern draftsmanship in France from Romanticism through neoImpressionism. Jan. 27 through May 26 at the National Gallery of Art; nga.gov.

New York HENRI LABROUSTE

Henri Labrouste: Structure Brought to Light is the first U.S. solo exhibition dedicated to the 19th-century architect, a pioneer in the use of exposed iron framework. Some 200 watercolor drawings, vintage and modern photographs, fragments and other items are organized into sections exploring his philosophy of design; his principal creations, most notably the Bibliothèque SainteGeneviève and Bibliothèque nationale in Paris; and the inheritors of his legacy, from his pupils and followers in France and abroad to later figures such as Louis Sullivan and Frank Lloyd Wright.

March 10 through June 24 at the Museum of Modern Art; moma.org.

quintet. This winter, the ensemble visits four North American cities to perform its concert version of West Side Story (for four singers, five percussionists and piano) and Portrait of Claude Debussy (its interpretations of preludes, nocturnes and other pieces using contemporary percussion instruments). Feb. 21 at the Palais Montcalm in Quebec City, Feb. 23 at Place des Arts in Montreal, Feb. 26 at La Maison Française in Washington, DC, and March 1 at the French Institute Alliance Française in New York; lespcl.com.

Los Angeles GÉRARD GRISEY

A pupil of both Messiaen and Dutilleux, Gérard Grisey is best known as one of the founders of Spectralism, a method of composition based on computer analysis of sound waves. Monday Evening Concerts hosts the L.A. premiere of his rarely performed Le Noir de l’Etoile (1991), a piece for six percussionists that incorporates the sounds of two pulsars. March 18 at Zipper Concert Hall at the Colburn School; mondayeveningconcerts.org.

Richmond

PERFORMING ARTS Washington, DC MUSIC FOR THE CITY OF LIGHT

French violinist Julien Chauvin joins the Folger Consort for the early music ensemble’s annual performance at the Washington National Cathedral. Titled Paris: Music for the City of Light, the program features ceremonial pieces composed by Lully, Charpentier, Couperin and others for services in Louis XIV’s Royal Chapel at Versailles. With period strings, organ and the Cathedral’s chamber choir. Jan. 11 and 12; folger.edu.

Washington, DC, and New York LALLA ROUKH

The period music ensemble Opera Lafayette performs the modern premiere of Félicien David’s 1862 opéra comique Lalla Roukh, based on the Orientalist romance by the Irish poet Thomas Moore. Featuring the classical Indian troupe Kalanidhi Dance. Jan. 26 at the Kennedy Center Eisenhower Theater and Jan. 31 at Lincoln Center’s Rose Theater; operalafayette.org.

North American Tour PERCUSSIONS CLAVIERS DE LYON

Founded in 1983, the Percussions Claviers de Lyon prides itself on its eclectic repertoire, which includes adaptations of works by Ravel, Bach and other celebrated composers as well as contemporary works written specifically for the

FRENCH FILM FESTIVAL

The 21st annual French Film Festival showcases 24 of the latest shorts and features from France, all presented by their directors and/or leading cast members, who also hold post-screening question-and-answer sessions. March 21 through 24 at the Byrd Theater; frenchfilmfestival.us.

New York CINÉMATUESDAYS

The French Institute Alliance Française continues its CinémaTuesdays series in January with Young French Directors; Gwendal Sartre’s Song Song (2012), in which a composer searches for inspiration, is one of three U.S. premieres in the lineup. February brings a celebration of the films of Léos Carax, including 2012’s much talked-about parallel-life fantasy Holy Motors; the director will be on hand to introduce The Lovers on the Bridge (1991) and answer audience questions after the screening. March turns to fashion with The Man Makes the Clothes: Pierre Cardin in Film, a selection of pictures featuring the celebrated designer’s costumes, among them Cocteau’s Beauty and the Beast (1946) and Louis Malle’s Viva Maria! (1965), starring Brigitte Bardot and Jeanne Moreau. At Florence Gould Hall and Tinker Auditorium; fiaf.org.

—Tracy Kendrick For a regularly updated listing of cultural events, go to francemagazine.org.

© 2 0 12 T H E M U S E U M AT F I T

emphasis on the natural world and tradition of outdoor painting that predated Impressionism by nearly a century. Other areas of focus include Rome, where many French artists went to study painting, and the early 19th-century vogue for depicting Italian peasants, brigands and clerics. Jan. 22 through April 21 at The Metropolitan Museum of Art; metmuseum.org.

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Temps Modernes

Reality Check

by MICHEL FAURE

supranational! You just have to put everybody together: the French personal Europe, which at the moment is causing me considerable with the Germans, the Italians with the English,’ etc. Yes, that’s conanxiety. I love it “for what it is,” as Charles de Gaulle used to say. venient and sometimes quite tempting; but those are chimeras, myths.

As an idea in the process of taking shape. As a space in which I feel (…) That’s not how you deal with realities.” comfortable, with friendly neighbors who are similar yet different. I Yet today’s reality is beginning to resemble that chimera. The love it because it brought peace to an ancient land whose history is a other EU member states are no longer all that “foreign”—we travel litany of battles; because it offers us an expandmore, and students often spend a year in a difed horizon in which exchanges of all kinds— ferent European country thanks to a fantastic commercial, intellectual, romantic—flourish. exchange program known as Erasmus. Their Yet we can’t say it’s in top form. Its instituparents may have lived in Berlin or Rome durtions are being challenged, its currency endaning their increasingly globalized careers. And so gered, its cohesion jeopardized and its future many French people operate boulangeries and threatened. Every politician advances his own hedge funds in London that our presidential solution, yet none seem likely to improve candidates thought it wise to stop off there things. With so many bitter remedies, I someduring last year’s election campaign. Without times wonder if the cure won’t kill the patient. denying our roots or our history, we feel more My personal Europe isn’t necessarily the same and more European, and the borders between as other people’s; some are less enthusiastic or us have disappeared. As the Franco-German consider it utopian, bureaucratic, distant. Still liberal leftist Daniel Cohn-Bendit so aptly put others are afraid of it, fearing that their national it, “Our first name is our country and our last identity will dissolve in a vast space with which name is Europe.” they can’t identify. Many accuse it of evils that So, yes, Europe is going through a rough aren’t really its fault—ills most often caused by patch, like a teenager stuck between childhood inappropriate national policies. But Europe is and adulthood, trying to work out exactly who a convenient scapegoat; populist figures love to he is. As a geographical entity, it has a long denounce Brussels, immigration and the markets, and bloody history. But as a national idea, it’s that unholy trinity for narrow-minded thinkers. still quite young. I’m glad it received the 2012 Nor is my Europe the Europe of my youth, Nobel Peace Prize, which I hope will serve as an when it was a somewhat hazy concept whose incentive to keep up the good work. We still can existence I discovered as a curious teen. In 1965, only barely imagine that our old nation-states General de Gaulle, who was hoping for a commight one day vanish into a European meltmon market—already quite an achievement— ing pot that’s greater than the sum of its parts. enjoined us not to dream too much about Europe.

Certainly, talking about “Federal Europe” or “Of course,” he said in a still-famous television the “United States of Europe” is still somewhat interview, “one can jump up and down yelling taboo—de Gaulle’s “chimera” again—but refus‘Europe! Europe! Europe!’ But it amounts to ing to think about it would mean ignoring the 1965 broadcast, de Gaulle • In a famous nothing and means nothing.” In other words, see cautions general’s good advice, defying the new reality. against irrational exuberance Europe for what it is and how it can move forward, over “Europe, Europe, Europe!”

There’s now a historic momentum for Euroand be realistic. I was 15 back then; those who’d pean integration; it’s disorderly and hectic, but been my age when World War II broke out were only 40. As the survivors certain. Just as our grandfathers defined themselves as Flemish, of that conflict, they rightly thought it extraordinary that within two Bavarian, Bourguignon or Lombard and our fathers as French, decades, another war on the Continent had become unthinkable.

German, Belgian, Italian or Swedish, we are increasingly European.

Soon I began traveling “abroad”—meaning to other European I’m convinced that in a nearer future than we may imagine—when countries—for the first time. Getting a passport, changing money, today’s children are grown-ups—Europe will be our common nation, going through customs and learning to mime what I wanted were even if we don’t yet know what institutions it will have or how it will all wildly exotic. And de Gaulle was certainly right when he said that come about. In any case, I hope to be around to celebrate the event. foreign countries were not like our own. During that 1965 broadcast, And when it happens, we’ll jump up and down, singing “Europe! f he had exclaimed: “There are those who cry: ‘But Europe must be Europe! Europe!”

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INA.FR

This is a love letter to Europe. To my own

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