Only one restaurant in Orange County gives us the opportunity to enjoy the best cuisine in Los Angeles without having to travel to the big city. The Cannery in Newport Beach is launching its third year of Meet the Chef Dinners where L.A.’s finest chefs come to us. Cannery owner Ron Salisbury says he is bringing chefs across the Orange Curtain. I’m already addicted from past occasions, so I think my readers will be equally impressed.
Each chef will prepare a menu to include a minimum of three appetizers, three starters, three entrees and two desserts unique to his or her restaurant. The Cannery’s guests will have the choice of ordering individual items from the visiting chef’s menu, the four-course prix-fixe menu, or the newly created four-course prix-fixe with wine pairings.
-March 4: Chef David F & #233;au. The executive chef of Los Angeles’ revered Cafe Pinot will kick off the 2008 series. Making his first appearance at the Meet the Chef program, F & #233;au is sure to make a lasting impression on guests with his contemporary California style cuisine.
F & #233;au earned his degree in classic cuisine at L’Ecole Hoteliere Helene Boucher in his hometown of Le Mans, France. After apprenticing at various two- and three-star Michelin restaurants in Paris, he went to work at the renowned Michelin three-star Guy Savoy Restaurant in Paris. Savoy soon entrusted F & #233;au to turn around his flailing Bistro de L’Etoile. Within a year, F & #233;au had earned the restaurant the title of “Best Bistro in Paris” by Magazine Capital.
Years later, F & #233;au decided to make a name for himself in America and packed his bags for New York City. He went to work at the famed Lut & #269;ce and wowed critics with his cooking philosophy.
“We do not use flour” he says, “little butter, no sauce, just the natural reductions as we concentrate on the product.”
It must have worked, because he earned the restaurant, and later its sister location in Las Vegas, multiple four-star ratings from Mobil and Forbes Magazine.
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The Cannery’s Felix Salcedo, previous guest chef Joseph Rivas: restaurant bringing back guest chef nights |
In 2006, F & #233;au joined the Patina Group as executive chef for Cafe Pinot.
-April 1: Chef Walter Eckstein makes his third appearance. He and his staff from Lawry’s of Beverly Hills will prepare your Caesar salad table-side and cook their famous prime rib to perfection.
Eckstein was born in a small city in Germany shortly after World War II. After he completed his elementary school education, he left home at the age of 14 to be a culinary apprentice in a hotel in the Bavarian Alps. He spent three years working in the various stations of the kitchen and one year doing just pastry.
Upon completion of his education, he moved to Sweden to begin his professional career. He spent six years gathering experience, moving on to a new hotel each year, until he attained the position of executive chef at the Sheraton Stockholm, which was the largest hotel in Scandinavia. After a total of 14 years in Sweden, he moved on to work in Denmark for a year and a half while he waited for a transfer to the U.S.
In 1980, he moved to Southern California as the Chef de Cuisine at the Bonaventure Hotel in Los Angeles, where he stayed for four years. He moved on to the Marina City Club as executive chef, and then went to Scandia to be its executive chef for a year and a half.
He went to Lawry’s The Prime Rib in Beverly Hills in September 1988 and the rest, as they say, is history. Walter has received many prestigious awards at various food shows, including gold medals and “Best of Show,” and is the holder of gold medals from the Culinary Olympics in Frankfurt.
-May 6: Chef Joe Miller of Joe’s and Bar Pinxto will make his third appearance at The Cannery. Take this opportunity to try Joe’s California-French cuisine and appreciate why he was awarded the esteemed Michelin Star for 2008.
Joe Miller received his first recognition as a chef at Katsu in Los Angeles. In keeping with Katsu’s intimate, casual style, he opted to open a neighborhood restaurant serving French-California cuisine at affordable prices. Miller, along with a few members of his original staff at Katsu, worked diligently and within only a month of fixing up the space on Abbot Kinney (in September 1991), the doors opened. The result of their labor,Joe’s Restaurant,is currently rated by Zagat Survey as one of the top 10 restaurants in Los Angeles, a reputation prospering through numerous positive reviews by major food and travel publications in Los Angeles and throughout the U.S.
Joe’s is a small restaurant on the edge of an esoteric neighborhood in Venice. It opened to rave reviews that continue to this day. Utilizing the talents and experience acquired from his training at the Culinary Institute of America, as well as his experience from serving at the helm of top restaurants including Le Perroquet in Chicago, L’Orangerie in Los Angeles, and from working for Michel Guerard in France at Eugenie-Les-Bains, Miller has created an institution that others often imitate.
-Chef Jared Simons of Violet is set to appear in September. October will welcome chef Creed Salisbury as the only OC chef and November’s chef is still to be determined.
These dinners have become tremendously popular. Call (949) 566-0060 for reservations, which you should make early. The Cannery: 3010 Lafayette Rd. (Cannery Village), Newport Beach.
For your reference when you happen to be in L.A. environs and want to visit these chefs, here are the addresses of their restaurants. Caf & #233; Pinot: 700 W. Fifth St., Los Angeles, (213) 239-6500. Lawry’s of Beverly Hills: 100 N La Cienega Blvd, Beverly Hills, (310) 652-2827. Joe’s: 1023 Abbot Kinney Blvd., Venice (310) 399-5811.
