Interior Photo from Le Pré Catalan WEB Site
Le Pré Catalan has been a restaurant institution for many decades. Located in the Bois de Boulogne, an old royal forest, it has a feeling of times past and a place of verdent calm in the middle of Paris. Chef Gaston Lenôtre took over the location in 1976. Nestled in the Bois de Boulogne, the Pré Catelan is housed in a luxurious Napoleon III pavilion. The jewel of Lenôtre takes its name from Théophile Catelan, Louis XVI's hunting captain.
The Pré Catelan was inaugurated in 1905 and with its sublime dining room and many salons, its Caran d’Ache drawings, Badin sculptures and other bas-reliefs, it enjoyed an instant and immense success.
Gaston Lenôtre was the founder of the restaurant, catering, retail and cooking school empire Lenôtre, which embodies French savoir-vivre and savoir-faire, especially in the art of pastry. He passed away in January of this year.
From the N.Y. Times:
"His death was announced by his company. The cause was cancer, said Marie-Jo Dalibard, a spokeswoman for Mr. Lenôtre’s first wife, Colette, with whom he started his first Paris pastry shop.
Mr. Lenôtre was the exacting patriarch of French pâtisserie. He rejuvenated pastry making in the early 1960s and then created a worldwide group of 60 boutiques in 12 countries, which can cater to every whim, from truffled pâté for 25,000 guests, to a banquet for the queen of England, all with French flair, service and decorum.
Pierre Hermé, one of France’s leading pastry chefs, who became an apprentice at Lenôtre at 14, recalled in a telephone interview Thursday that Mr. Lenôtre “dusted, lightened and modernized the heavy pastries of the 1950s.” He added, “He made them lighter, more pleasureful, more desirable, and that’s fundamental in the world of pâtisserie.”
Gaston-Albert-Celestin Lenôtre was born May 28, 1920, on a small farm in Normandy. Both of his parents worked in restaurants in Paris, and after his father’s illness forced them back to Normandy, he struggled to find a place in a restaurant kitchen. Before World War II broke out, he peddled homemade chocolates in Paris on his bicycle for pocket money.
After the war, Mr. Lenôtre opened his first bakery in the small Normandy town of Bernay. Success there led him to buy a small, struggling bakery in the fashionable and quiet 16th Arrondissement in Paris in 1957, with Colette.
Mr. Lenôtre was immediately successful. His cakes, pastries and chocolate creations presaged the arrival of nouvelle cuisine of the early 1970s, which demanded a return to simple preparations and the freshest ingredients. He cut the cream, lightened the mousses and focused on quality ingredients, like good butter.
In 1964 Mr. Lenôtre started the catering service, which, thanks to new techniques in freezing during production and the inclusion of gelatin to stabilize mousses, quickly mushroomed from weddings and small events to serving thousands at a time.
In 1971, Mr. Lenôtre opened a cooking school in Plaisir, west of Paris, to train professional pastry chefs. The legion of cooks who passed through his schools or his kitchens have helped preserve and transform the rest of the industry. “He really understood that without transmission, his profession had no future,” Jean-Claude Ribaut, the food critic for the newspaper Le Monde, said in an interview."
I had the pleasure of spending a month in the kitchen at Le Pré Catalan in 1981. Chef patrick Lenôtre was in charge of the kitchen. It was a great opportunity to see a busy two star Michelin restaurant in action. The restaurant is huge and has large rooms for banquets.
During my stay there, there was a banquet for all the ambassadors stationed in Paris along with the president of France. The part I remember most was that a Terrine of Foie Gras was on the menu. I commented to the chef that is was a favorite and I had always wanted to have it with Chateau d'Yquem. Minutes later, I had a thick slab of terrine, several slices of brioche and a BOTTLE of 1970 Chateau d'Yquem. I must say that is was the richest intoxication I have ever had.
The kitchen brigade had a great esprit de corp. Each week one of the cooks prepared a staff meal based on their regional cuisine. The most interesting when we had andouillettes which are small sausages made from pork chitterlings and tripe. I recall that they were assertive in flavor and needed beer to wash them down.
When my turn came, I made a mongrel California dinner of Flour Tortillas with Beef Fajitas, Guacamole and my Mother's Cheesecake. The French crew had a problem with the spicy food.
I found chefs in France to be equally generous with recipes. I had access to and hand copied all of the recipes used at the restaurant, including the volume pastry recipes that I use to this day. It was here that I first encountered baby eels, known in English as elvers. They are clear as glass with two black spots for eyes. The elvers were prepared simply by sauteeing in olive oil with garlic and white wine.
Ingredients
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 2 garlic cloves, minced
- 10 ounces baby eels, cleaned
- 1/2 cup white wine
- Salt and pepper
- 1 tablespoon chopped parsley
- 1 tomato, peel, seed and dice
Directions
Heat oil in saute pan. Add minced garlic and baby eels and saute until cooked through. Add white wine, season with salt, pepper, tomato and parsley, and simmer until the meat of the eels has turned opaque. Serve in a deep dish bowl.
Another great dish on the menu was a Sea Urchin Soufflé. Fresh urchins were clean out and filled with a very light scallop mousse mixed with herbs, meringue and the urchin meat. Just before being served, the soufflé was injected with a cream sauce based on pureed sea urchin. This soufflé was served up on a silver tray with a white napkin folded into an "artichoke."
Tastefully yours®,
Chef Michael Hutchings
Watercolor on Menu Cover 1981
Main Menu
Desserts
Chef's Menu
Food Photo from Le Pré Catalan WEB Site
