Inside The World of Le Bernardin: Review

Inside the World of Le Bernardin," by Eric Ripert and Christine Muhlke, is the most fun book you'll ever read about a restaurant you love.
Chaotically organized and seemingly random in its choice of topic from page to page, it's full of more intimate backstage details than any great eatery has ever shared about itself.
Of course, "On the Line" is self-promotional. It celebrates Le Bernardin for changing "how Americans ate fish" - a justifiably immodest boast from a place built on the misleadingly modest mantra of "great fish, prepared simply."
But the book is also shaded with past tragedy - the death in 1994 of original chef Gilbert Le Coze at age 48 - and by a gnawing sense of how precarious the whole magnificent enterprise is today.
Gilbert's sister, Maguy Le Coze, who founded Le Bernardin with him in 1986, owns it with the great chef Ripert. Their serene stewardship and the restaurant itself has seemed as permanent as Manhattan schist.
But Ripert and Muhlke buried their lead - the "secret," revealed on Page 11 and echoed later, that "the lease on Le Bernardin runs out in 2011." Ripert hopes to "successfully renegotiate," but guarantees nothing.
In that light, repeated descriptions of bad plumbing and a too-small kitchen sound like a prelude to uncertain talks with landlord Equitable. And the whole book can be read as a testament to the glory that was, should the end come.
"On the Line" is a strange fish itself, full of sidebars and fact boxes like the ones usually found in trade paperbacks. Ripert and Muhlke had to overrule editors who wanted a conventional approach - i.e., the same one that puts readers of other books written by chefs to sleep.
Like most restaurant tomes, "On the Line" does include recipes you can't replicate at home. If your progressive marinated fluke quartet doesn't come out like Le Bernardin's, well, you're not Ripert or Chris Muller, his chef de cuisine.
But the greatest pleasure lies in a ton of demystifying minutiae about a place with three Michelin stars, four New York Times stars, and the Zagat Survey's top food rating - accolades that for once actually mean something.
The pantry stocks Heinz vinegar, Hunt's tomato paste and Libby's sauerkraut. Muller can't stand chatty kitchen workers and "long hair in particular drives him nuts."
Then there's porter Fernando Uruchima's daily schedule, from 6:30 a.m. till 5 p.m., for checking in deliveries and seeing to myriad indispensable tasks ("10:17 - adds to to-do list, 'No live sea urchins. Check squid!' ")
Ecuadorean -born Uruchima is one of a marvelously multicultural team. Muller, who's been there since 1993, is from Wisconsin, and pastry chef Michael Laiskonis hails from Detroit. But we also meet Martinique-born executive sous chef Eric Gestel, Barbados-born saucier Vincent Robinson, Moroccan-born maitre d' Ben Chekroun and Austrian-born wine director Aldo Sohm.
But the most haunting photo is of Maguy and Gilbert Le Coze - surely the most beautiful siblings ever to migrate from Paris to New York - sharing a rowboat in Central Park.
It's a reminder of mortality you can't help relate to the great institution they created. Long live Le Bernardin.
source: newyorkpost

Eric Ripert Signs With PBS To Do Avec Eric

Eric Ripert, the internationally recognized chef of Le Bernardin restaurant in New York and frequent guest judge on Bravo's "Top Chef," will star for the first time in his own TV series, called "Avec Eric," debuting nationally in the fall on PBS.

Ripert and Le Bernardin have received numerous accolades, earning the highest ratings possible from the New York Times, the Michelin Guide and Zagat.

Ten episodes of "Avec Eric," distributed by American Publication Television, are scheduled to run in the fall.

Eric Ripert was raised in France and learned to cook at a young age from his grandmother. When he was young, his family moved to Andorra. He later returned to France and attended culinary school in Perpignan. In 1982 he moved to Paris where he worked for two years at La Tour d'Argent, a famous restaurant more than 400 years old. Ripert next worked at Jamin and was soon promoted to Assistant Chef de Partie. In 1985 Ripert left to fulfill his military service, after which he returned to Jamin as Chef Poissonier.

In 1989 he moved to the United States and was hired as a sous chef in the Watergate Hotel's Jean Louis restaurant. He stayed for two years before moving to New York City in 1991 to work for David Bouley. He stayed for just a few months before being offered a job at Le Bernardin. In 1994, Ripert became Le Bernardin's executive chef after Gilbert Le Coze died unexpectedly of a heart attack. The following year, Ripert earned a four-star rating from the New York Times, and in 1996 he became a part-owner. In the Michelin Guide NYC 2006, Ripert's Le Bernardin was one of four New York City restaurants to be awarded the maximum 3 Michelin stars for excellence in cuisine.

If his name isn't familiar, you may remember him from his appearances on "Top Chef". He also was a guest on Anthony Bourdain's "No Reservations", where they both worked the cook line in Anthony's old workplace at Les Halles.

Eric will follow in another famous French chef on PBS, Jacques Pepin.