Restaurateur of the Year Ernest Zingg Has Never Wavered at The Cellar
Ernest Zingg has dedicated his entire adult life to the hospitality industry. From the time he attended, as a young man, the world’s most prestigious hotel management and culinary school in Lausanne, Switzerland, he has worked in every facet of management and ownership in the food and lodging domain.
Born in Switzerland, he later became a citizen of Canada. He began his professional career by working in the famed Grand Hotel in St. Moritz. He worked in other celebrity-studded hotels such as the Hotel de Champery in Valais, Switzerland, and The Ritz, Inn at the Park Four Seasons, Windsor Arms and The Constellation in Canada. In Gravenhurst, Ontario, he became the proprietor of the Ascona Place Restaurant (with five separate dining scenarios). It was regarded as one of the premier playgrounds of the rich and famous and celebrities were his main clientele. In 1985, Ernest and his wife, Gertrude, moved to Southern California and purchased The Cellar restaurant in Fullerton.
The Cellar has its own illustrious history. It dates from 1969. The restaurant,in what was the actual cellar of the old California Hotel, a historic site originally built in 1922,was created by the some of the same artisans responsible for Disneyland attractions. The rough-hewn interior with panoramas of wild animals and elegant complements in seating and table settings provides an extremely unique and glamorous dining experience. You do feel you are in a cellar setting, albeit a very chic one, with the fresh flowers, candlelight, gleaming silver and glassware and food preparations that have become known to a worldwide clientele.
While the original owner set the course of the restaurant, it has been under the leadership of Ernest Zingg that the most coveted awards have been heaped upon it. If ever there was a tireless spirit and a man with a vision of bringing to North Orange County something extraordinary, it is Ernest Zingg. Awards include the AAA Four Diamond plaque, inclusion as one of the 10 Best French Restaurants in America, membership in the Epicurean Rendezvous group of eminent restaurants, the Golden Sceptre and Bacchus Award (the highest rating) from the Southern California Restaurant Writers, and membership in the Distinguished Restaurants of North America. More recently, the International Restaurant & Hospitality Rating Bureau presented its Millennium Restaurant International Award of Excellence recognizing The Cellar being one of America’s Top 100 Restaurants of the 20th Century.
Then, there’s the most difficult award of all to achieve, only in part because of the inordinate inventory expense involved: the Wine Spectator Grand Award. That puts The Cellar in a very small international club of restaurants that have the most prestigious wine cellars in the world. Ernest turned an aging, ill-kept supply of wines that he acquired along with the restaurant, into a cellar inventory of 16,250 bottles, with 1,360 selections on the wine list. Those wines could not be housed in the makeshift storage that was formerly in place, so he built two vinoteques to keep the white wines at a constant 45 degrees. He also built a main wine cellar, housed on two levels, with a controlled temperature of 55 degrees for the red wines and a constant humidity of 65%. This is the definition of commitment.
The food at The Cellar makes most diners wish for a camera so that they could preserve the artistry on the plate before destroying it with the fork and knife. The menu features a splendid array of classic dishes with a distinctive year 2000 touch. Duck liver and black truffle terrine, black mussels in fennel-scented white-wine cream, seared sea scallops and white asparagus spears are four of our favorite appetizers from the current seasonal menu. Classic Dover sole, lavender-flavored rack of lamb, roasted rabbit with mushrooms, roasted duck with sour cherry sauce and a veal chop with apples and walnuts are high on our list of entrees.
To finish off any meal, the desserts are honored in a European manner. That means that while they satisfy their meaning as a completion to the meal, they are not overly doused with sugar in the American tradition. So, rather than feeling overfed and uncomfortable, you instead feel that everything had its place in the meal and that each course complemented the others. That is the mark of a very good restaurant indeed.
I salute you, Ernest Zingg, for putting in the tremendous effort, for making the investment, for never wavering in your commitment to bring the best of wining and dining to us. You epitomize what a Restaurateur of the Year should be.
