Word: chef
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...where to buy one in the U.S. And, until recently, I couldn't answer your questions. Then, a month ago, kismet. I was at a sushi bar in the middle of the desert (Las Vegas) listening with approval as the Brit on the stool next to me browbeat the chef: "It tastes like a black plastic bag," he whined, pointing to his tuna roll. "I can't eat the bahhhg-tasting thing!" Figuring he was a fellow critic, I struck up a conversation. The man turned out to be Joe McAllister--CEO of Monimals Trading Co. Ltd. of London! "Where...
...from Concord, Calif., Tom Hanks didn't have a place. His parents separated when he was five, and he followed his chef father from job to job. "Basically he ran the kitchen in union dinner houses," Tom recalls. "Places with a net-and-nautical theme, with bamboo barstools and a dirty, disgusting kitchen." Early on, the boy learned the vagabond independence an actor needs. "I thought nothing of getting on the bus and visiting Mom four or five times a year...
Although both Ducasse, 43, and Vongerichten, 41, may have elevated their art a zillion notches above the usual run of Food Network stars, they are also typical of the new breed of chef-entrepreneur. Ducasse's unprecedented "deux fois trois etoiles"--achieved last March when Michelin inspectors gave his Paris restaurant its third star to join those already won by his Louis XV in Monte Carlo--has traditionalists sniffing that the master rarely actually cooks at either restaurant, but Ducasse likes to compare himself to an haute couture designer who depends on a team to execute his visions...
Ducasse and Vongerichten both began traditionally, apprenticed as teenagers to some of France's legendary chefs, but they refuse to settle for an old-fashioned career spent in just one kitchen. Vongerichten's Jean Georges won a rare four-star rating from the New York Times within three months of its 1997 debut; his Mercer Kitchen was the buzz of New York before it opened this fall; he has exported his French-Asian marvel, Vong, to London and Hong Kong. Both men have no qualms about lending their name. Vongerichten sells condiments through Williams-Sonoma, and Ducasse has just brought...
...Chefs at this level must tread a fine line between accessibility and mystique; revealing the trick behind that perfect spit-roasted lobster, after all, is a bit like a magician's showing just where he hid that bunny. But the drive to commercialize is inevitable. "We're working so hard, it's about time we make money!" Vongerichten exclaims. The famously perfectionist Trotter--himself no slouch in the self-marketing department, with half a dozen books, a new line of sauces and, in January, knives to his name--agrees. "It wasn't so long ago that being a chef...