Word: robuchon
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Young though it is, cuisine moderne has already collected its share of delectable cliches, most notably ravioli filled with shellfish and anything steamed in a packet of cabbage. At Jamin, the seductive interpretation is ravioli with langoustine on melting leaves of cabbage. Although always immaculately cooked, Robuchon's creations are occasionally a bit too bland. ! Examples are his celebrated fillet of lamb in a salt crust and the chicken poached in a pig's bladder that puffs up like a jolly balloon. Because he finds the quality of French beef and veal inconsistent, he does not serve them...
...sure that the kitchen's hard work is not undermined in the dining room, Robuchon employs a staff of more than ten as captains, waiters and busboys, which means that 45 diners are served by at least 30 employees. Among them is his slender, blond wife Janine, who oversees the checks. She also cooks dinner at home around 6:30, relying on bourgeois fare like gigot with flageolets. Robuchon loves it, as he did his mother's cooking back in his native Poitiers. Says he: "Such food is prepared with maternal love, and it cannot be judged by ordinary standards...
...might be expected, reservations at Jamin should be made at least six to eight weeks in advance. Like many proprietors of popular Paris restaurants, Robuchon tries for a balance between French and foreign customers, roughly a fifty-fifty split. "Nobody likes to be in a 'tourist' restaurant," he explains. What nobody seems to mind is the $30 to $90 check for dinner, which includes food and service but not wine...
Between meals and phone calls, Robuchon does more research in his kitchen, ever on the lookout for new combinations and dishes. Indicating the drawing on his menu of a lone, Lincolnesque figure, he says, "I am a compagnon and will always be one," explaining that he served as an itinerant apprentice, cooking in various regional kitchens before becoming a fully fledged member of the French chefs' guild...
...Robuchon is branching out. It comes as a surprise to see boil-in-bag main courses simmering away in his kitchen. "It will be used by the French railways for their first-class passengers on the Paris-to-Strasbourg route," the chef says. "It cooks for 14 hours, then it can be kept without freezing or preservatives for eight days. Now I test it in large quantities, then it will be packaged in portions." To Joel Robuchon, not even the sky's the limit. "Who knows?" he says wistfully. "May- be someday men will eat my food on the moon...