Tue, August 05, 2008
Beijing's restaurant scene has scored big time with the entry of famed French chef Daniel Boulud. Jen Lin-Liu explores the culinary joie he'll be bringing to the capital
It’s about one in the afternoon and Daniel Boulud is in the kitchen of Maison Boulud, his new restaurant in Beijing, happily sprinkling ground espelette chilli onto the semi-translucent flesh of an Indonesian lobster that’s still twitching with life. Boulud transfers the lobster to a hot iron plate which sizzles with rosemary sprigs, leek, orange sections and asparagus. Within minutes, he has prepared a mouthwatering dish for a crowd of Chinese journalists who have been ‘oohing’ and ‘ahhing’ over every move. The key to cooking lobster is to ‘kill it and cook it as fast as possible,’ the French chef says with a laugh, as Champagne is distributed amongst the guests, and glasses clink delicately.
The occasion is the ‘opening’ of Maison Boulud, which quietly debuted one Friday evening in late June. Sans fanfare and with Boulud in the kitchen, the Maison’s dining room was filled with expectant restaurateurs, enthusiastic chefs and ardent foodies, dining on suckling pig, Beef Anglaise, and a delectable crab salad flavored with mango, tarragon, chilli pepper and tamarind.
As one of the world’s most recognised French chefs, 53-year-old Boulud is making a splash as the first global celebrity chef to set up shop in China’s capital. Boulud is best known for his eponymous restaurant, Daniel, on New York’s Upper East Side, which opened a decade ago to much acclaim. Since then, Boulud has opened three other eateries in New York City, and has branched out to Las Vegas and Florida’s Palm Beach. This year, with the opening of Maison Boulud in Beijing, a new venture in Vancouver, and a fifth eatery in New York, he will be officially operating nine restaurants around the world.
Boulud plans to visit Beijing several times a year, and, in his absence, the kitchen will be run by an energetic, youthful duo – executive chef Brian Reimer, and general manager Ignace LeClaire, both of whom have trained under Boulud for several years at Daniel NYC.
Boulud, like many celebrity chefs, has been plotting his entry into Asia for years in order to take advantage of what he calls a ‘growth market.’ Jean Georges has gone to Shanghai, Joel Robuchon has chosen Macau and Alain Ducasse is in Hong Kong. Why has Boulud chosen Beijing? ‘It could just as easily have been Shanghai or Hong Kong,’ he says, but he was drawn to the capital because he ‘fell in love’ with the Legation Quarter, Maison Boulud’s new home. The revamped compound, comprising five stand-alone buildings, was originally built by American architect Sid H. Nealy in 1903 to house the pre-1949 American Embassy. Maison Boulud is the project’s anchor tenant, while other restaurants, including an Italian venue called Ristorante Sadler and Shiro Matsu by Hong Kong’s Aqua Group, will open in the next few months.
Boulud says he will not water down his unabashedly French cuisine – he calls it French ‘soul food’, for a Chinese audience. It helps, he says, that the French and Chinese share a love for pig’s trotters and tripe. While he has stuck close to his French roots, Maison Boulud also showcases trendy cooking methods, like sous vide, which entails vacuum-packing an ingredient in a bag and heating it below boiling point for hours to seal in moisture and flavour. The chef also says he plans to feature something similar to his 32USD ‘Royale’ truffle burger that became a much-talked-about item at DB Bistro Moderne, his restaurant in Times Square.
One of the big challenges of setting up in Beijing is access to high-quality ingredients. Boulud is known for his fresh, seasonal fare, and this discriminating chef likes to source as locally as possible. He’s been happy with the fresh seafood but less enthralled with the herbs and meats. ‘China has been deprived for a long time, but restaurants are beginning to bring it to a level [paralleling] other cities in the world,’ he notes.
Boulud says his Beijing restaurant will be less formal than his flagship Daniel in New York, and he intends to keep prices moderate so that Maison Boulud does not become a ‘special occasion’ place. ‘We don’t want to come in with too much confidence,’ says the down-to-earth chef. ‘We want to be very modest. We’re in a new city, a new country, a new continent!’
