User:Joedelta/Jean-Louis Palladin

Jean-Louis Palladin Jean-Louis Palladin was a chef who brought an approachable French cuisine to American audiences. His blend of French cooking sensibilities with the use of regional American foods made him unique, both in his time and today. Jean-Louis Palladin had a classical French culinary background, tempered with the regional area where he grew up. He was able to apply his mastery of cuisine to local American ingredients. Although it is possible that Jean Louis is best known for his restaurant The Four Seasons at The Watergate Hotel in Washington D.C., he was also a pioneer in many aspects of French and American cuisine.

Biography
Jean-Louis Palladin was born in 1946 in Condom, a small southwestern French town in Gascony, France. Condom, France is known for the production of Armagnac, as well as for its unique name. He began his culinary career by apprenticing at a local restaurant when he was 12 years old. He attended hotel school in Toulouse, and then became a saucier at Monte Carlo's Hotel de Paris. Palladin then moved to Le Plaza Athenee in Paris the following year. Jean Louis opened the restaurant Tables Des Cordeliers in Gascony in 1968 at the age of 22. It is notable that Jean Louis was an accomplished chef at a young age, and that he won, at the age of 28, two Michelin stars for his restaurant. In 1974, when he got his stars, he was the youngest chef at that time to do so.

Palladin may have gotten two stars in France, but he didn't rest on his laurels. In 1979, he moved to America to open Jean-Louis at the Watergate, in the Watergate Hotel in Washington, DC. While the Watergate hotel may be notorious for other reasons, Jean-Louis developed a distinct reputation for the hotel by fusing local ingredients with french cuisine sensibilities. He was the chef at the restaurant for many years. In 1997, he opened The Napa Restaurant in the Masquerade Village in the Rio Suite Hotel and Casino, in Las vegas. He also became chef-owner of Palladin Restaurants in New York City and in Washington D.C. in 1997, but none of his other restaurants received the fame of The Four Seasons at The Watergate.

When he arrived in America, Jean-Louis became particularly interested in the ingredients available in the local Chesapeake area, the region where the Watergate Hotel is located. He specialized in preparing Chesapeake blue crab and rockfish, local produce like tomatoes and corn, and cultivated relationships with local farmers to grow organic vegetables and fresh herbs. He encouraged local farmers to raise poultry and meats to the standards he'd been accustomed to in southwest France, and by doing so, helped to revolutionize how we view locally grown food.

Palladin made French cuisine more accessible to Americans, both chef and gastronome alike. Although his name is not a household one for many of us today, he influenced many chefs who learned from his passion for local ingredients and from his cooking techniques.

Palladin was approachable and "down to earth." Those who worked under him remember him fondly. His persona was the opposite of that of the snooty French chef, and while he took food seriously, he never alienated those around him. Notable chefs who were mentored by him are: Eric Ripert of Le Bernardin; Daniel Boulud; Christian Delouvrier of Lespinasse; and Sylvain Portay, formerly of Le Cirque and now at the Ritz-Carlton in San Francisco. Drew Mieporent, who is responsible for restaurants such as Montrachet, Nobu and Tribeca Grill in New York and Rubicon in San Francisco, said, He was probably the most important influence in my life in terms of food, and He was part teacher, part confidant, a world traveler and the greatest French chef in America.

Palladin helped to change attitudes towards cuisine in America. Before Palladin came to America, many people compared food here unfavorably to that in France. By bringing out such foods as fresh foie gras, scallops plucked by scuba divers from the ocean floor and wild mushrooms, Palladin bridged the gap between what people were missing in France, and what they could get here. He used ingredients that most American chefs didn't use, like monkfish livers, squid ink sacs or anything else that was routinely discarded. In this way, he was a precursor to such chefs as Anthony Bourdain, who has founded a dynasty on serving offal and helping people to appreciate it.

In addition to being a famous restaurateur, Palladin wrote and created a landmark cookbook, called "Cooking With The Seasons." In addition to having recipes, the book is full of amazing photographs of food, meticulously prepared and presented. The book was published in 1989 and reflects some of the sensibilities towards food from that era. The photographs are elaborate, and while the presentation of the food may be beyond the abilities of the typical home cook, it is an inspiration in helping us view food as art as well as nourishment.

"Cooking With The Seasons" illustrates the idea that foods should be appreciated seasonally, and the book is organized as such.

Jean-Louis Palladin died of lung cancer at the age of 55 in November, 2001. Unfortunately, the nature of the culinary world at that time was such that it was a scramble for him to receive the care he needed. However, he'd been a mentor to many, many chefs, and many of them supported him throughout his illness and eased his passing. If he were still alive, he would have seen the success of his message: that of using local and unusual ingredients to make innovative dishes that still have roots close to home. :)

Palladin was one of the pioneers of using local ingredients in fine cuisine, like Alice Waters and Paul Prudhomme, contemporaries of his. The Jean-Louis Palladin foundation was founded in 2002 after his untimely death. It established a grant to help working chefs learn about the availability of local ingredients in fine cuisine. The foundation was subsumed by the James Beard Foundation, which ensured Palladin's legacy by establishing an endowment. The Foundation continues to administer the Palladin Professional Work/Study Initiative to honor the world-class chef who inspired many French and American chefs with his passion for integrity.

Some of Palladin's awards are: The James Beard Award as best Chef: Mid-Atlantic in 1991, and Outstanding Chef of the Year in 1993. In 1987, he was inducted into the Who's Who of Food and Beverage in America.

Palladin was survived by his two children, Verveine and Oliver.

Websites about Jean-Louis Palladin:

Books:

Becoming A Chef, by Andrew Dornenburg and Karen Page

Jean-Louis Cooking With The Seasons, by Jean-Louis Palladin and Fred J. Maroon

Culinary Artistry, by Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg