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“The difference in American food and French food,” Rose says, “is the difference between a French summer movie and an American blockbuster.” Opposite: His duck, figs, foie gras, and black olives.

SICK OF FUSSY TASTING MENUS FROM CHEFS WHO ARE LONG ON TATTOOS AND SHORT ON TALENT? SO IS DANIEL ROSE, THE AMERICAN GUY WHO GOT TOUT-PARIS BACK TO THE BASICS OF FRENCH COOKING—AND HAS RETURNED HOME TO OPEN NEW YORK’S HOTTEST NEW RESTAURANT.

124 ESQUIRE / NOVEMBER 2016 PHOTOGRAPHS BY G ENTL AND H YERS French cooking; he believes otherwise. He is certain that Auguste At its best, the French table is unsurpassed in its civility, culture, Escoffier, the premier French chef of a century past, knew what and sophistication, the sole drawback a seemingly inevitable atmo- he was doing, but he does not feel all possible efforts have been ex- sphere of solemnity. Says Rose, “French restaurants have become too hausted in uplifting the cuisine. Rose appears to have perfect pitch much like churches, too reverential. If they’re going to be churches, where French food is concerned, an innate ability to extract maxi- they should be like southern churches, providing a shitload of fun, mum flavor from dishes that have been around since the guillotine. not all that guilt.” For a generation that has rejected classic French “French cooking,” he says, “is a codified encyclopedia of things food without ever trying it, that considers it a punch-drunk culi- that most people find pleasurable. It might be sole seventy different nary calamity, Le Coucou offers an unparalleled opportunity to ex- Before he even thought about cooking for a liv- ways. The dishes are tried, tested, and approved pleasure providers.” perience food considered the finest ever created. It’s like getting ing, Daniel Rose left his Chicago home to study At a time when any dining other than casual appears moribund a chance to go back in time and see Babe Ruth in the batter’s box. European culture in Paris, “because,” he says, “I in Manhattan, Rose and Le Coucou stake a bold claim to a new era Rose is celebrated as a chef, but the secret behind his tri- thought all French girls went topless—I’d seen a in fine dining. The excitement accompanying the opening in June umphs in Paris, and even now at Le Coucou, is that he is New movie where they were all wearing only suspend- was reminiscent of the glory days of the legendary New York restau- York’s latest great front-of-the-house man. He stands in front ers.” That didn’t work out quite as he’d hoped, and rant inaugurations of the late ’80s and early ’90s, which heralded of his open kitchen, commanding yet cognizant of the esprit de neither did his first try at higher education abroad, the advent of with Gilbert and Maguy Le Coze, Res- corps of the kitchen brigade behind him—he would have made so he decided on the next best thing: to join the taurant Daniel with Daniel Boulud, and Bouley with David Bouley. a second-rate Foreign Legion soldier but an impeccable officer. “front line of life.” The year was 1999, and he set Le Coucou provides the chance for diners to relive what so many Often, hearing from a server that an agonized customer had to out for the French Foreign Legion. feared was all but gone, barely a memory: French food as a thrill- choose one dish over another, he will send out a small taste of the He had always been a wanderer, having been given ing restaurant option. It came along just as interest in such food one not chosen, partly as a gift and partly as a tease. His best gift, that privilege by indulgent parents, so he boldly was fading. Rose isn’t reinventing the cuisine; he is revitalizing however, is that he makes the dining experience personal, never marched up to headquarters—five-eight and even and adding luster to once-beloved dishes that have become like a fundamental virtue of . He wanders through the skinnier than he is now, not exactly a born killer, faded paintings by an Old Master in the Louvre. He can make dining room ever so casually, bringing plates to customers and or even, for that matter, a born cook—and was a hundred-year-old recipe strikingly vibrant. His assistant at schmoozing engagingly—he is Jewish, which might help. In Paris, promptly rejected. Spring, Aurielle Valat, says his gift is making French cuisine joyous notorious for surly front-of-the-house service, he had unknowingly “I’m sure they asked him, ‘How many push-ups and generous—“that’s the way he captures French tradition, mak- and naturally become the warmest and most welcoming of hosts. can you do?’ and that was that,” says his younger ing it even better than the Rose was not quite an un- brother, Zak. way you fantasize it. He known when he arrived in Not true, says Daniel. He was sent away, he says, makes magic.” FOR A GENERATION THAT HAS REJECTED CLASSIC FRENCH New York to open Le Coucou. because the Foreign Legion was flooded with FOOD WITHOUT EVER TRYING IT, THAT CONSIDERS IT His first version of Spring, a battle-scarred former Yugoslavian soldiers “with A PUNCH-DRUNK CULINARY CALAMITY, sixteen-seat bistro located in blood dripping from their knuckles” and they didn’t LE COUCOU OFFERS AN UNPARALLELED OPPORTUNITY TO EXPERIENCE an obscure arrondissement and need him. “The guy at the gate in a white kepi with FOOD CONSIDERED THE FINEST EVER CREATED. featuring a single fixed-price no teeth looked at me and said, ‘There is nothing menu, was a sensation. Before for you here.’ ” Rose prepares Rose, Paris had never embraced Asked what his new identity—a prerequisite— quenelles de brochet an American-born chef. Within a year of its opening, would have been had he been accepted, he says, in a lobster sauce. the French newspaper Le Figaro proclaimed Spring Right: The dining room, “I was going to pretend I was Canadian. I thought with chandeliers the most difficult table to book in town. I could pull that off.” inspired by Istanbul’s ries. Eric Ripert, chef and co-owner of He came back home to America with no celebrity Hagia Sophia. the three-Michelin-starred Le Bernar- credentials, no published cookbook, no TV show, If nothing else, Rose has always been intrepid. Not always focused, din, ate at Le Coucou several months ago nothing that makes a chef a “personality” in the U. S. sometimes imprudent, but never anything except the cleverest and said, “I haven’t seen anyone talented like this in a long time.” He had no advance men, just ebullient praise from guy around. Rose’s veal terrine comes with milkweed pods that burst with customers at Spring. Everything he’s accomplished He was at times a cabana boy at his uncle Herb’s pool; or a kid ma- tingling juices, a startling variation on the traditional pickle. He here has been unlikely, nearly impossible, but he ap- gician with two doves, Dave and Doug, both female, and a pet snake calls the pods “a wink to foraging.” The lamb chops—Ripert raved pears unfazed by pressure. that often found its way into his sister’s underwear drawer. (“We about them—are accompanied by small tomatoes stuffed with He is not like any other chef you know. He has a had a shrieking sister,” says Zak.) He was director of a local sailing braised lamb shoulder and chard. He does quenelles de brochet single tattoo on his arm. It reads, in French, Je vis un school on Lake Michigan even though he knew little about sailing; in a lobster sauce and garnished with a lobster claw—quenelles rêve permanent (“I live a permanent dream”). When a college lab assistant specializing in cat dissection; and a rather probably predate Napoleon. asked to clarify, he references the poet Wallace Ste- blessed child who was never told no by his parents until the day he When he decided his menu required a chicken dish—what Man- vens, the Romanian musician Gheorghe Enescu, Eu- informed them that he planned to kayak from Texas to Guatemala hattan restaurant survives without one?—he spent months search- clidean geometry, and The Odyssey. Is it any wonder and needed to buy a gun for the trip. “I think my parents are still on ing for an acceptable bird. “For him, it is products,” says his friend he has little difficulty mastering French recipes? antianxiety medication from that,” he says. Gregory Marchand, chef-owner of the restaurant Frenchie, in Paris. “People who see the tattoo think I’m a hipster None of his adventures had anything to do with food. “He is so much in love with products.” Finally, Rose settled on a who broke a lot of rules,” he says, “but really I’m His early life prepared him for almost everything except combat halal butcher shop in Ozone Park, Queens, where no chef of classic an old conservative French cook.” and what he has now become: the foremost interpreter of classic French cuisine had gone before. French food in the world today. At age thirty-nine, he is lauded for Once, in Paris, at his restaurant Spring, he served me fried sole The year was 2006. In New York, David Chang opened his downtown-Manhattan restaurant, Le Coucou, where he offers alongside blood pudding. Dismayed, I asked him if he was intend- Momofuku Ssäm Bar in the East Village. The res- French food of impeccable character, slightly adapted from the de- ing to introduce a weird version of surf and turf to , and he taurant would incite a restaurant revolution that finitive versions found in cookbooks dating back to the early nine- replied that the combination was inspired by geography, not per- has dramatically changed dining. teenth century—the very beginning of haute cuisine. versity. “The sole is from St.-Jean-de-Luz, in the Pays Basque,” he His dishes featured unexpected colors, unusual Think of his food as Nouveau Escoffier—fresher, livelier, and more says. “The boudin came up on the same truck.” They were perfect consistencies, unlikely combinations, and a touch of stimulating than the traditional cream-laden constructions that glo- together, on the plate as well as on the road. untidiness. His customers sat on stools or at a coun- rified, and at the same time stupefied, the French table for centu- Most diners think there’s nothing left to learn about classic ter in a hard-edged dining [continued on page 136]

126 ESQUIRE / NOVEMBER 2016 127 He rallied. Each day, he rode his scooter recipes and do with them what others could Daniel Rose to the farmers’ market by the Place des Fêtes not. When he resolves a problem, the answer [continued from page 127] area. Chang metro station to buy fresh meat and vegeta- will come to him through a process difficult was revolutionary, original, oddly idealis- bles, loading up a metal box welded to the to explain, one related more to the Socratic tic, and, it turned out, transformative. His back. Each night, the customers came, always method than to the Julia Child method. was the food of momentary gratification, curious, ever patient because the first course French chefs who have risen through the food without a past and, it often seemed, wasn’t served until everyone with a reser- apprentice system, a test of culinary man- without a future. Nothing has remained the vation had arrived. Spring was more like a hood, do not think this way. Most of them same since he opened Ssäm Bar. Today, in nightly dinner party than a restaurant. There rarely get past middle school. At eighteen, New York, his influence is extensive. Res- was a romance to Rose’s food, as there is to any they’ve reached a position in the kitchen taurants invent dishes that are sampled, beloved cuisine, something absent from the somewhere between peeling potatoes and served, forgotten, replaced. Dining out is often delicious but generally distant food of overseeing the storeroom. akin to gasping. No one sits down at a ta- the innovative chefs following Chang. He began cooking after being rejected by ble and takes a deep breath. the Foreign Legion and obtaining his degree That same year, Rose opened Spring in a For the first time, Rose is not alone. His part- from the American University of Paris. He section of Paris where nobody dined. Work- ner at Le Coucou is Stephen Starr, the Phil- was twenty-one, way behind schedule for ing alone in his tiny kitchen, he prepared adelphia restaurateur whose vast portfolio a French chef. After graduating in 2000, he every plate himself, often bringing the food is inching closer to fine dining. Starr says moved on to the Paul Bocuse cooking insti- to customers. He helped clean up after the of Rose, in wonder, “He stays in his restau- tute in . The school soon sent him to a workday was done. rant, and in his head he wants to make ev- three-Michelin-starred restaurant in Brus- He was counterrevolutionary, traditional, ery dish and serve it to the customer per- sels, where he was unhappy. absolutely idealistic, and, it turned out, sonally.” The two are tenants of Aby Rosen. “What an idiot I was,” he says. “The chef perhaps the last great hope for French cui- Rosen is a real-estate mogul who did much was doing exactly what I love now. I never sine and the traditions that accompany it. to end the tradition of fine dining in New said goodbye. I ran away in the middle of the Without French restaurants, young men York by kicking the Four Seasons out of the night.” He returned to the school, and the di- are doomed to propose marriage to young Seagram Building, which he owns, but he rector immediately sent him off again, this women at their local Chipotle Mexican Grill. now appears to be stimulating its rebirth time to a small restaurant in Brittany under His was the food of memory, of stability, and by harboring Le Coucou. Chef Jean-Luc L’Hourre. “It had no stars, of an almost immeasurable past. His signa- One of the wonders of the restaurant is just a simple tasting menu for forty-eight ture dish at Spring was pigeon, popular in that it operates at all, given Rose’s almost to- euros and an all-lobster menu for seventy- France since the Middle Ages and a particu- tal inexperience in running such a complex two,” says Rose. “Jean-Luc taught me about lar favorite of Louis XIV, the Sun King. venture. His second wife, Marie-Aude Rose, sacrifice and taste and exploration of prod- “The difference in American food and the first cook he hired at Spring—she had ear- ucts, how to give them coherence.” French food is the difference between a lier cooked at the three-star Pierre Gagnaire That set the pattern for his early culinary French summer movie and an American in Paris—says, “Here he only has to focus on life, because L’Hourre worked alone, pre- blockbuster,” Rose says. “Both are made food and his kitchen team. In France, he was paring every dish himself, assisted by interns by talented people. The French movie has frustrated, because if something went wrong, like Rose and a dishwasher named Lulu. “I some boring parts. It’s too long. It’s provoc- he was the one who had to call the plumber.” learned to love cooking, products, seasons. I ative. There might be parts you don’t under- None of Rose’s skills came from nature learned to embrace the sacrifices necessary stand. Judgment is suspended until you see or nurture, and certainly not from need. He to be good at the job. Now I don’t do anything the whole picture. American culture is ex- grew up in the suburbs of Chicago, his fam- that doesn’t remind me of Jean-Luc.” From pressed in sound bites. It’s what you should ily well off. Nor was food fundamental to his there he moved to Le Pré du Moulin, outside be eating now. American food has no story.” existence. Celebrated French chefs write of Avignon, a one-Michelin-starred restaurant He reminded customers—yes, French cus- memorable family meals, of childhood kitch- still in business under Chef Pascal Alonso. tomers—why their cuisine had always been ens overflowing with benevolent grand- “Pascal showed me the power of simple thought of as the best, why it was unmatched. mothers, of licking wooden cake spoons. cooking, everything just right. A strawberry Even France doesn’t do classic French cui- His brother, Zak, says, “I don’t remember dessert tasted like strawberries—satisfying, sine particularly well any longer, not be- him ever cooking when he was under our efficient, nourishing.” cause the chefs are inept but because they parents’ roof. I can’t say he showed his in- What Rose offers, besides cooking talent, have moved on to newer interpretations that nate ability to me.” The only exception, by is a story, a startling and absolutely unlikely are not nearly as interesting as the old ones. family accounts, was when Rose briefly be- one. His friend Marchand says, “Daniel be- Two weeks after he opened Spring, his first came a vegan, cooking seitan and other meat ing an American in Paris is a great story.” wife ran off with a German, leaving him alone. substitutes at home. His sister, Nicole, says So, too, is Rose’s decision to open a restau- He kept going. He fell through a trapdoor in of that effort, “None of it tasted good at all.” rant in New York with barely any formal the middle of his kitchen and injured his arm His cooking philosophy emanates from training. Nobody would say he was ready, so severely that he couldn’t reach the top two productive stretches at St. John’s, a but he seldom seemed equipped for any shelves of his pantry. He kept going. He served progressive college in New Mexico. (He of the challenges in his life. He has not skewered pigeon hearts en brochette as part dropped out, went back, and dropped out changed. He remains exactly as he was in of his Valentine’s Day menu du marché. Prac- again.) There he studied ancient Greek, part Paris in 2006, when he unlocked the doors tically his only friend in Paris was his assistant of an incoming freshman’s curriculum. He of the first, tiny Spring and ended up sleep- at the restaurant, Elisa C-Rossow, a twenty- can, when prompted, recite the first line of ing on a restaurant banquette. year-old who walked in and asked for a job. The Iliad in ancient Greek. He says, “I only Earlier this year, Michael Cecchi-Azzolina, “We became really good friends,” she says. remember the first line of everything.” now the maître d’ at Le Coucou, walked in to “He had nobody else to talk with. He was so At age eighteen, he was learning to engage apply for a job while construction was under depressed after his wife left that he was sleep- with the world in a certain way. “The pro- way. He says, “The room was gutted, sheets ing on a banquette in the restaurant because he fessors at St. John’s would come up with the of plastic hanging down. The stove had ar- did not want to go to the apartment where he essential questions, and we had to come up rived, and I said to Daniel, ‘It’s so beauti- had lived with his wife. I would wake him up with the answers.” And therein lie the les- ful, I want to lay down on it.’ Daniel replied, and tell him to take a shower at my apartment sons behind his culinary accomplishments. ‘I slept on it last night. My apartment isn’t on the corner and come to work.” He would later use these lessons to analyze ready and I had no place else to go.’ ” ≥

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