Chef Jean Louis Palladin was a legend in his own time and still casts a shadow over the contemporary kitchens of today. Chef Palladin is best remembered for his restaurant, Jean-Louis at the Watergate Hotel. He was a chef's chef and had over-the-top creativity.
Another great contemporary chef, Chef Michel Richard of Citronelle, is cooking a culinary tribute to his friend at the Latham Hotel in D.C. Chef Michel has crafted a menu from Chef Jean-Louis' cookbook, Cooking with the Seasons.
"Jean-Louis Palladin was born in 1946 in the small southwestern French town of Condom. In 1974, at 28 yrs old, Jean-Louis Palladin won two Michelin stars for his restaurant Tables Des Cordeliers in Gascony, France. At the time he was the youngest chef to have won two stars.
Always seeking a new challenge, Palladin came to America in 1979 to open Jean-Louis at the Watergate, in the Watergate Hotel in Washington, D.C. "
I had the pleasure of being in a 1987 Time Magazine in an article with him about restaurants with European connections. Some years later I dined with him at the Rio Hotel in Las Vegas where he had a restaurant. I was served some 12 lavish courses with selected wine and have rarely eaten so well.
Chef Jean-Louis's cook book still has a fresh, contemporary feel to it. It is high art and food forms the palette that paints the picture. The collection of ingredients attests to the cot-be-dammed cooking that the hotel could afford to support. Fresh hearts of palm, truffles in season, caviar, foie gras, cultured abalone, baby eel, caviar..all the stuff dreams are made of.
