The Book on Jean-Georges

You already know about Chambers Kitchen, the stone-cold lock for restaurant opening of the year. Jean-Georges Vongerichten likes the Twin Cities a lot, and Chambers may not be his last project here. With JGV in the mix, it’s going to be a tougher row to hoe for the local independent operators who lack his ready reserves for withstanding a couple of revenue-killing Saturday snowstorms and who rarely have the culinary firepower to execute so creatively and seamlessly, day in, day out.

Taking shots at the Big Kahuna is always easy, and many local foodies delight in picking apart the work that JGV has done here and elsewhere. GQ’s Alan Richman famously derided Vongerichten for not minding the kitchens in his Nassau, Las Vegas, London, New York City, Paris, and Shanghai restaurants—accusing him of underperforming and expanding too quickly. Closer to home, Kathie Jenkins at the Pioneer Press had the gumption to take shots after dining at one of its staff training meals, so the restaurant believes. I smugly asked Vongerichten why he felt compelled to include walleye on his menu.

I was prepared for the formulaic answer. Instead, he smiled and told me how thrilled he was when he first came to the Twin Cities to see that people ate freshwater fare here, something they won’t do in other U.S. cities. He has adored lake fish since his childhood in Alsace, where his family caught and cooked it on a weekly basis. For Vongerichten, it wasn’t the flavor of the moment, it was comfort food.

My visits over the past year to Vongerichten’s other restaurants—66, Spice Market, Perry St., Vong, Jean Georges, and Chambers Kitchen—show an organization hell-bent on proving there is a way to build an international group of restaurants that sing off the same stylistic song sheet, yet retain individuality. How does he do it?

Vongerichten spends the year on the road, teaching and working with his cooks, collecting ingredients (he had just come from China, loaded with two suitcases of product), and creating new dishes. He has a food voice and style, a unique French-Asian lilt, and embraces technology. He proudly walked me through the computer in the middle of the kitchen of Chambers, loaded with 3,500 recipes, photos, and video demos of his dishes. It’s the ultimate catalog of wisdom for his local staff when he and his brain trust aren’t on-site.

JGV and team have an impressive fluency with the creative process that most restaurateurs just don’t have the time or talent to develop. Plus, parking so many of his eateries in hotels gives JGV added financial flexibility and a built-in customer base that any restaurateur craves. He and his partner, Phil Suarez, are smart.

Vongerichten says it is as thrilling to work in a burgeoning food city like ours as it is to work in Paris or New York because of the growth potential for diners and the thrill of exposing a new audience to his food. While he wouldn’t confirm it, he did not deny rumors of a second eatery in the new W Hotel that is slated to open in the Foshay Tower in 2008.

My November column on derivative menus contained a sloppy generalization, which struck Kozy’s owner Bill Kozlak as implying that food at Kozy’s was the same as at Ike’s. This was not my intention. My point is that the casual chophouse culinary style and vibe of supersuccessful Ike’s (an upscale burger bar with a handful of larger plates) is now widely manifested at other new restaurants, among them Kozy’s (a casual chophouse with a much larger steaks-chops-seafood selection than Ike’s). Kozy’s head chef, Carl Littlejohn, had run Ike’s kitchen. I did not mean to imply that the same menus or recipes are used at the two restaurants.