Chef Profiles
Daniel Boulud Comes to Dinner
By Scott Haas published Jun 1, 2008
Once upon a time, grand French chefs at epic, eponymous establishments—Joël Robuchon, Guy Savoy, Georges Blanc—pretty much lived in their restaurants. The four walls, the garden, and the small gift shop were enough to contain their enormous egos and exceptional talents. Their self-esteem and reputations were bound up with ardent customers who travelled to their little places in Paris or Vonnas or Lyons.
That was before the advent of TV programs featuring eccentric chefs palling around with culinary buddies, or touring exotic spice markets, or eating potentially poisonous lizards in Indonesia. It was before chefs could even imagine having the power and credibility to construct culinary empires that include product lines as mundane as canned soup and frozen pizza (those courtesy of Wolfgang Puck, whose company has annual revenues topping $350 million). It was before chefs like Emeril Lagasse became household names on the Food Network and began demanding enormous fees as guest speakers. Want Bobby Flay at your event? For $50,000, he’ll get back to you.Fine dining has changed: restaurant business plans are ramped up by investors with very deep pockets; sous-vide cooking (which ensures uniformity of sauces and textures and viscosity and taste) has allowed chefs control in absentia; and couriers can ship ingredients overnight from virtually any corner of the world. Today, the biggest, best chefs—the ones with the grandest visions, the greatest creativity, and the organizational skills of a five-star general about to launch an invasion—are naturally playing a massive, global game. So when Daniel Boulud arrives in Vancouver this summer to take over Lumière and open a db Bistro Moderne next door, “I’m not opening by myself. I have 550 people just in my company in New York City. And 30 are top management who can go all the time to any of my restaurants if need be.”
