Jean-Georges Vongerichten is not only a pioneer of East-West fusion cuisine but arguably its finest technician. Born in Alsace, France, he trained under such French culinary masters as Paul Haeberlin, Paul Bocuse and Louis Outhier. As one of Louis Outhier's "flying squadron of chefs" he opened French restaurants for Outhier in Bangkok, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Japan (as well as Switzerland, Portugal and London).
But while he was cooking French throughout Asia, he was eating and learning Thai, Malaysian, Chinese and Japanese cuisines. The results of these culinary transfusions began to show up on the menu of The Grosvenor House Hotel in London where he was chef de cuisine in 1985, and his inventive fusion dishes earned the restaurant its first Michelin star.
In 1986 in New York he opened the Lafayette restaurant in the Drake Hotel for Outhier, where his now-developed French-Asian fare won that restaurant four stars from The New York Times. Today he owns, wholly or in partnership, nine restaurants (Jo-Jo, Jean-Georges, Mercer Kitchen, and Lipstick Cafe, all in New York; four Vongs, in New York, Chicago, Singapore and London; and the Prime Steak House in Las Vegas. Jean-Georges restaurant was awarded four stars by The New York Times, and Vongerichten has won three James Beard Foundation awards: best chef in New York City, best new restaurant (Jean-Georges), and best chef in America. He is the author of two cookbooks. Vongerichten was in Chicago making his periodic visit to Vong, when we learned about his upcoming and most ambitious project yet -- a hotel.
Q: What was Outhier's "Flying Squadron?"
A: At the time Outhier was a three-star Michelin chef in France, he was consulting around the world. The first consulting job he had was at the Oriental Hotel in Bangkok in 1980, and the French restaurant he opened there was the Normandie. I was 23 years old and the first chef. I spent two years of my life there.
Asian Persuasion
Q: How was that job, exciting?
A: Frustrating. I was there cooking French food, and 80% of the customers were local. And they wanted French food, truffles, foie gras. For Thai people at that time an apple tart was very exotic. But I was going to the markets every day and discovering lemon grass, lime leaves, ginger, galangal and other spices. Western chefs were not using any of these. I was like a kid in a candy store. And I was eating Thai food for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Q: Were there French chefs in your kitchen?
A: All my cooks were Thais. So I learned from them. I was a classically trained French chef used to browning bones and making stock for hours and hours to make a nice sauce. But they could take water, lemon grass and shrimp and 10 minutes later you have the best soup in the world: Tom Yum, the classic Thai lemon grass-shrimp soup. It was a real eye opener. It changed my entire vision of food.
Q: What about the hot peppers? I bet you didn't have any of them in Alsace?
A: The herbs I grew up with were things like parsley, rosemary, thyme, chervil -- I never heard of coriander. The first time I had some it tasted like soap. And the spiciest thing in Alsace was juniper berries.
Q: So your palate at 23 took to all those new tastes, but what about your stomach?
A: At 23 you adapt.
Q: Were you able to put any of these new tastes on the menu of the Normandie?
A: No. That was the frustration. But I experimented on my own.
Q: So after two years in Bangkok where did you go?
A: Singapore. I opened the Restaurant de France in the Meridien Hotel. Another new experience -- Indonesian and Malaysian ingredients and spices. I was 25 and everything was new -- the people, the religion, the tastes, and the street food, amazing!
Q: Then Hong Kong?
A: Yes and we opened Pierrot restaurant in the Mandarin Hotel. Now it is Vong. That time I stayed for a year and learned about Chinese food. I shared my kitchen with the Chinese chefs for the Chinese restaurant in the hotel. Everything those chefs used was alive -- the fish, the poultry. And the produce was impeccable. And imagine how I, trained in French cutting techniques -- the julienne, the brunoise -- took to how the Chinese chefs cut and cooked their food so quickly. I loved it.
Q: So you have learned Thai, Indonesian, and Chinese cooking. What next?
A: Japan. I spent six months at the Plaza hotel opening the Rendezvous restaurant. Again something new. No spices, no chilies. Japanese cuisine is very focused, very disciplined and very specialized. Whole restaurants were devoted to tempura, teriyaki, and even chicken. Certain restaurants serve the whole chicken: first the leg meat, then the breast meat, then the comb, the liver, neck, feet -- the last thing you eat is the skin.
East Meets West
Q: By the time you got to London -- after Geneva, Switzerland and Lisbon, Portugal -- were you ready to start putting all your Asian expertise into practice?
A: London was the perfect playground. The English are already familiar with East Indian food through their colonies, and the spices I brought back to England were very well received: foie gras with ginger and mango, roast lobster with Thai herbs -- that sort of thing.
Q: In 1986, when you opened Lafayette restaurant in the Drake Hotel in New York, after three months the restaurant was packed and The New York Times gave it four stars.
A: That was where I made a name for myself. I changed everything. I love New York. People are so hungry for new ideas there. When Outhier's contract was up, he left but I stayed.
Q: So why did you decide to open your first restaurant, Jo-Jo?
A: By 1990, I had been a chef for 15 years. Either I continued to be a chef or else I do something on my own. I asked the hotel if I could take over the restaurant as my own and pay them rent, but they declined. I had a customer who used to come to the Lafayette and once told me that if I ever wanted to open a restaurant, to call him. So I found a tiny, little bistro on 64th and Lexington and called Philip Suarez.
Big Gamble
Q: If memory serves, 1990 wasn't the best year to open a restaurant. In New York restaurants were closing. The stock market took a nose dive.
A: Right. But I called Philip and we had lunch and I told him I needed $200,000. He wrote me a check on the spot. I signed the lease on January 24. On January 25 the Gulf War started. My business plan was to pay back the money in five years.
Q: Did you stick to that plan?
A: No. I paid him back in six months. The check average was about $45 per person including wine. The place was packed -- we served about 300 people a day.
Q: So owning your own business was a piece of cake?
A: Not at all. I knew the kitchen but learning the business was very difficult. We had one telephone line and my girlfriend was the manager. I didn't know what I was doing and she didn't either the first few months. The food saved us -- and we learned.
Q: Next you opened Vong?
A: After a year I decided I didn't want to spend the rest of my life in a tiny closet. And I had always had this fantasy of a French-Asian restaurant: French dishes, American meat and produce, and Asian spices, herbs and vegetables. I believed people were intimidated by Asian restaurants, so my idea was to meet them halfway. The salmon and lobster would be familiar, but the spices and flavorings would be different. So I again approached my backer, and I borrowed $1 million and we created Vong.
Q: Which became wildly successful.
A: I opened the door and it was packed. And it has been going that way for nine years. But I am very passionate about this restaurant.
Controlled Growth
Q: And now you have four Vongs. Was the concept easy to clone?
A: Vong is very easy to transport. Although we use 150 different spices, the recipes are very precise. Everything is on disk and the spices are all weighed. If I gave you a disk tomorrow for Vong, you could open one.
Q: Are you going to open a multi-unit string of Vongs through your relationship with Lettuce Entertain You Enterprises?
A: Vong is in Chicago because of Richard Melman's wife, who came to Vong in New York and persuaded him to bring it to Chicago. We are 50-50 partners, so they can't do anything without me. I want to keep Vong small.
Q: How small?
A: No more than six.
Q: How do you manage quality control? I know that the recipes are on disk and the spices are all weighed, but what about day-to-day control?
A: This business is all about people. In Chicago we have Geoff Felsenthal as chef and he works as a team with the managers and waiters.
Q: What about food cost?
A: Controlling food cost has never been a problem for me. Food cost is all about buying right, buying seasonally and pricing accordingly, and especially controlling waste. Chefs need to be aware of waste every day. We print he menu at Vong on a daily basis, and we run a 28% to 30% food cost.
Q: What made you open a steak house in Las Vegas?
A: The people at Bellagio wanted me to do a Vong, but I didn't think Vong was right for Las Vegas. So I said, "If I were to do anything here it would be a steak house." So they said, okay. We opened the Prime steak house serving 10 cuts of meat, 10 different potatoes (because all you ever see at a steak house is a baked potato, and 10 different sauces. We are open only at nights and we did $14 million the first year. I do some appetizers from Vong and Jo-Jo, and some fresh fish.
Checking In
Q: The big question is -- what's next?
A: Building a hotel. It will be a small luxury hotel for 50 rooms that will pamper people, give them everything they need.
Q: Where?
A: In New York in the West Village on Perry Street.
Q: What is your schedule?
A: We broke ground in May, and we project 18 months to completion. And we have the best architect ever: Richard Meyer who designed the Getty Museum in Los Angeles.
Q: The projected cost?
A: $80 million.
Q: What will the restaurant be like?
A: More like a living room than a restaurant -- couches, chairs and great service.
Q: And the food, the menu?
A: I have no idea! Yet.
