Roland Henin happened on the scene, watched for a moment, then stepped in. He fished a few ears of corn from a supply box and stuffed them into Hyunh’s hands.
“And I don’t want to hear nothing more about it,” he said, and stormed away.
“There’s some hot-tempered chefs in here,” said Handke.
“I didn’t appreciate the temper,” said Henin. “But if you give the benefit of the doubt, there’s no excuses.”
Asked why he gave the corn to Hyunh, Henin replied, “If there’s a problem with him, it will show up in another way before the time is up.”
But here was the thing with Hyunh: despite the inefficiencies in his kitchen, his food looked delicious; vibrant colors, such as the fiery orange of butternut squash puree or the bright green of creamed spinach, promised big flavors. As the cliché goes, if you eat with your eyes before your mouth, then people would be predisposed to liking his food.
Henin strolled along the windows. In Kitchen 2, Rogers Powell was scraping a fluffy white puree out of a Robot Coupe food processor with a rubber spatula. Perhaps it’s a fish mousse, thought Henin. “It will be interesting to see if he makes a test quenelle,” he said. That’s the thing to do when you make a mousse—quick-cook a small quenelle in simmering water to see how it will taste when finished; then you can adjust the seasoning before it’s too late. This should be standard operating procedure in any kitchen, but a lot of cooks don’t follow the conventional wisdom. Not spotting a pot of water on Kitchen 2’s stove, Henin wasn’t optimistic.
Outside Kitchen 3, passersby were focused on how clean Hollings-worth and Guest were working. At any given time, it looked like they had just gotten there; as soon as a piece of equipment was used, it was stashed. But it was nearly impossible to get a sense of what the food would actually taste like as components were neatly assembled, then whisked away to the refrigerator or freezer until the time for service arrived. A number of the chef-judges also took note of a piece of equipment that Guest employed to slice potatoes, a Japanese turning vegetable slicer: the vegetable is impaled on a rod, which is snapped into place at the rear of the device. When the hand crank is operated, the vegetable is spun against a blade, producing long slices that roll out of the front of the mechanism like paper out of a fax machine.
Among the observers was David Wong of Canada, who had been selected almost two years earlier to be the 2009 candidate for his country. Wong was such an earnest soul that while he must have been there sizing up his competition, he seemed as if he were just along for the camaraderie. Wong had been sent to the Bocuse d’Or in 2007 to observe, and had many opinions on how to go about winning: “Every year, there’s a half dozen clowns who imitate previous years’ France platter,” he said. “If you’re not yourself in Bocuse d’Or, you lose.”
As with so much about the Bocuse d’Or, perceived reality changes from person to person. One past champion who agreed with Wong was 2005 champion Vieira, who had once said, “You have to pursue your own ideas, do what you feel is right, and give it 100 percent during the preparation and the big day, so that you have no regrets.” Then again, he was the French candidate, so being himself hardly seemed a risky proposition.
When the platters were paraded and tasted, Hyunh and Hollingsworth were the two who most impressed the judges. Neither of their presentations rose to the competition-style heights of Rosendale’s, but Hung’s seafood leaned that way, headlined by olive oil–poached cod topped with overlapping circles of scallop coins and black truffles. His Hawaiian prawn crêpe with leeks, chanterelles, and prawn reduction was bound up by a Chinese chive, and his ratatouille was deconstructed and topped with zucchini rounds, a peeled cherry tomato, and pepper. (The ratatouille was not an homage to Keller’s contribution to the Disney-Pixar movie. “That movie actually scared me,” laughed Hyunh. “I don’t like rats.”)
The platter met with approval from many judges. “Good harmony, overall flavors and textures were very good,” wrote Kaysen, while Jean-Georges Vongerichten proclaimed the seasoning “perfect.” On the other hand, Daniel Humm was underwhelmed, noting that the “execution could be better,” and a number of judges commented that the cod was leaching liquid onto the platter.
As Hollingsworth plated his fish, seemingly deaf to the crowd, the emcees were impressed with his preternatural calm. “It’s a known fact he’s air-dried,” said Besh, who was joined on Day Two by television personality Al Roker, who exhibited the ironic delivery that is his hallmark on Today. Of Hollingsworth’s even keel, Roker exclaimed, “He had his sweat glands surgically removed.”
Hollingsworth’s fish platter was love-it-or-leave-it straightforward cooking. A sausage-like coil of grilled cod belly occupied the center of the platter. In the corner were browned diagonal cuts of barigoule bread pudding (made by pureeing a classic braised artichoke preparation, adding cream, combining with ground bread, baking, and slicing it) topped with San Marzano (a variety of plum tomato) marmalade. The platter also featured an artichoke gratin topped wtih Hawaiian blue prawns, piment d’Espelette, and Niçoise olives. Society garlic blossoms, an edible, faintly purple flower, were strewn about the tray.
The results were, for the most part, unqualified raves. Patrick O’Connell loved it: “Somewhat sleek and elegant in comparison to many of the overwrought presentations of the other contestants,” he wrote on his score sheet. Some chefs differed on the same elements; for example, Daniel Humm found the fish “rubbery” and the bread pudding “dry” while Jean-Georges Vongerichten noted “great texture, all cooked perfectly.”
In Hyunh’s kitchen, order had been sacrificed in favor of getting the job done, but he was really pushing it: where some kitchens looked as though one could eat off the floor, Hung actually had food underfoot. A lone potato had been left to dry out there, along with a spoon and a spider (strainer). By day’s end, to nobody’s surprise, Hyunh would have accumulated the lowest kitchen score.
As the audience counted down from five to one in anticipation of Hyunh’s deadline, he and Goumroian set the meat platter in their window, continuing the slugfest: a potato-encrusted beef tenderloin, the tawny color of a giant knish, sliced open to reveal a mouthwatering, rare-red tint and rings of Swiss chard, braised beef cheeks, and foie gras between the meat and the potatoes. Roasted butternut squash disks were filled with pureed squash and topped with sage toast. The platter was completed with oil-poached potatoes and a creamed spinach tart.
“As chaotic as Hung’s kitchen was, who would have thought he could produce such beautiful food?” said Besh.
“Obviously he did,” replied Roker as he watched Hyunh jump up and down and punch the air in a manner familiar to Top Chef viewers.
Hyunh wasn’t winning the same approval from the meat judges that he had with the fish jury: “Very mediocre” wrote Laurent Tourondel in the “sophistication and subtlety” line on his score sheet.
Hollingsworth’s beef platter exhibited more showmanship than his fish had, headlined by a rectangular slab of beef tenderloin seemingly upholstered on top with bacon. The unnatural shape of the meat—significantly wider than tenderloin naturally is—was a quietly spectacular touch he achieved by using Activa, a brand-name transglutaminase, to “glue” two pieces of beef together. The Activa also fused the bacon to the beef, even when sliced. The beef was accompanied by bias (diagonal) cuts of potato mille-feuille; the name means “thousand sheets” and classically refers to a dessert with many layers of puff pastry. Here it referred to an escalloped potato composition layered with black truffle. The mille-feuille were topped with braised beef cheek balls wrapped in Swiss chard and Tokyo turnips. Little cigars of port wine–braised oxtail in feuille de bric (a light, crispy dough) were set directly on the platter, halved Violette figs propped against them, along with a scallion salad.
The judges were blown away: “Très grand plat,” wrote Georges Perrier. Tourondel wrote “the best of 4 dish” (sic) on his form, but also noted, “need to be more competition and less restaurant.
”
For Powell and Rellah, it would be a hard day, their platters received in a lukewarm way by the judges, even though they displayed no shortage of creativity: Rellah prepared all American-French hybrids such as cod cake, pipérade (tomato and pepper stew), chowder sauce, and caviar, and a potpie of oxtail and beef cheek, which he’d been developing since the summer, while Powell unveiled a daring platter featuring unpredictable touches such as a lobster-roe-and-squid-ink pasta, black-olive-tomato caviar, and corn-and-seafood-chowder fondant on his fish platter. On his beef platter, the tenderloin was set on a bed of vegetable brunoise (fine dice) and wrapped in a mushroom–foie gras crust. Unfortunately, despite patches of approval (David Myers appreciated that Rellah’s meat dish “ really represented what he wanted to achieve,” while Vongerichten praised the “great detail” and “good skill” on display on Powell’s fish platter), the prevailing feeling was that the dishes were, at the end of the day, unsuccessful.
Powell already knew that he hadn’t done as well as he’d hoped to. He had had some technical problems, as just about everybody did, but he also felt he had made a psychological error: on the previous day, he had sought out Paul Bocuse in the VIP area and told him the story of how they’d met years earlier. Bocuse remembered, and Powell told him how happy he was to be able to meet him as a cook. “I was really pleased with that moment,” Powell said later. “But I wonder if it [would have] been a better thing after I cooked. Because it is like I already got what I wanted. I don’t know. Maybe I am just trying to find excuses.”
Other candidates didn’t know how to evaluate their own performances. Back in their hotel room, Hollingsworth said to Laughlin that he thought he had done well. He knew he had taken a risk by not doing competition-style food, but was hopeful that even if the old-guard French chefs like Soltner and Sailhac might have been looking for a more ornate presentation, the younger ones such as Laurent Tourondel and Daniel Humm might be more open to understatement.
THAT EVENING, THE REAR area of the World Showplace was transformed for a gala dinner. Several hundred guests were on hand for a meal featuring dishes by Patrick O’Connell, Charlie Trotter, and Daniel Boulud. Absent was Thomas Keller, who had had to fly to New York City that afternoon for a function at Per Se that had been planned before the Bocuse d’Or USA came into his life.
The evening was exactly what one would expect of an event combining the worlds of Bocuse, Boulud, Keller, and Disney. At the end of the meal, Max McCalman, fromager of Terrance Brennan’s Picholine and Artisanal restaurants in New York City, presented the cheese course, but not before Remy the Rat from the movie Ratatouille, a chef’s toque affixed to his head, burst into the room and romped among the tables.
Dana Cowin, editor-in-chief of Food & Wine, announced the winners, consolation prizes first: Best Fish went to Hung Hyunh, while Best Meat went to Kevin Sbraga. Best Commis went to Adina Guest. The French Laundry newbie had to fight back tears because she thought that this award, like the fish and meat ones, meant that she and Hollingsworth were no longer eligible for the big prizes. Most upsetting to her was the feeling that she had let Hollingsworth down. “I was, like, this is Chef Tim’s deal. I want him to win. This is all about him, not about me at all. When I got it, my heart sank,” she said.
Continuing with the announcements, third place went to Michael Rotondo, who was also named Most Promising Chef, with a potentially bright future with the Bocuse d’Or USA. Second place went to competition veteran Richard Rosendale.
And first place went to Hollingsworth and Guest, who would go on to represent the United States at the Bocuse d’Or in Lyon in January. The audience burst into applause, then quickly filed back out to the reception room for passed chocolates, more cocktails, and dancing.
It felt like the end of something, but the truth was that it was only the beginning. As photographs were taken and interviews conducted, Kaysen sought out Hollingsworth on the stage. To the veteran, his successor seemed happy, but understandably dazed and confused as he processed the mission ahead.
“Get ready for a wild ride,” Kaysen said.
3
Three Months in Yountville
We are trying to do the best we can with a piece of striped bass.
—DEVIN KNELL
TIMOTHY HOLLINGSWORTH STARED INTO THE EYES OF YASUJI Sasaki, the Japanese candidate who would be flying his nation’s red-dotted sun flag into battle at the Bocuse d’Or. The American didn’t know what to make of Sasaki, who seemed the very picture of poise, and whose gaze gave nothing away. Of the twenty-three chefs against whom Hollings-worth would compete, the Japanese was among the handful he presumed to be most formidable. An admirer of Japanese cuisine—its purity of flavor and nowhere-to-hide reliance on pristine ingredients and the cook’s fundamental skill, especially with knife work—Hollingsworth trusted that Sasaki would be a fine technician, every bit as devoted to his craft as Hollingsworth was to his. He also took note of the man’s age: forty-one, just enough to be experienced without being over the hill.
Hollingsworth wasn’t in the same room with Sasaki, or even on the same continent. The Japanese chef was at his home in Kobe, Japan, a sous chef at Restaurant Alain Chapel at the Portopia Hotel, and Hollingsworth was at his home in Napa, scrutinizing the candidate photographs posted on the Bocuse d’Or Web site. Provided for fans and journalists, the profiles were a tantalizing resource for the candidates themselves. Of all the cooks and chefs in the world, just twenty-four would be throwing down in January. Regardless of who garnered the highest marks and who emerged empty-handed, it was an elite club and, for those who didn’t already know one another, this was as close as they’d come to meeting until the week of the competition. The site was the only opportunity to size each other up, as best they could based on a photograph and some factoids: in addition to a headshot and date of birth, many of the dossiers, or link-to sites for the chefs’ restaurants or national foundations, also featured brief profiles of the chef-candidates describing where they worked now and had worked, as well as statements on their philosophy of cooking.
Based simply on their country of origin, Hollingsworth had ideas about who the fiercest adversaries would be. Those were the profiles he clicked on first. The Norwegians had a fearsome track record at the Bocuse d’Or. Their cuisine may not be as highly regarded as, say, that of France, but their culture of cooking competitions and well-funded effort had produced three gold medalists and two silver. The Norwegians were the first team to beat the French at their home event, which may or may not have prompted a rule change: through 1999, in order to give other countries a chance, the victorious nation was not eligible to compete in the following Bocuse d’Or. Many believe that this demonstrated an air of superiority by the host country, who had won the top prize each time they competed, and are, of course, widely considered the kings and queens of Western cuisine, if not world cuisine. But in 1999, even with the French in contention, Terje Ness of Norway emerged the victor. Shortly thereafter, the Bocuse d’Or organizers announced that the winning country from the 2001 event would be permitted to return for the next Bocuse d’Or. Jérôme Bocuse said the timing of the rule change was a coincidence, but the Bocuse d’Or’s own Web site headlines its summary of 1999 as “The Norwegian Lesson” and describes it thus: “The victory of the Norwegian chef boosted the contest by proving that France was not invincible.” Since 2003, the French and Norwegians had such a stranglehold on the most precious of Bocuse d’Or metals—splitting the two top honors in three of the past five contests—that the reality of the competition, according to Michel Bouit, was that, “Twenty-two chefs are competing for the bronze.”
Hollingsworth looked up the Norwegian, Geir Skeie, whose headshot depicted a wisp of a young man the same age as Hollingsworth, with icy blond hair and laser-like eyes that looked right off the screen and through whoever was gazing at him. In 1993, when he was just twelve years old, Skeie had sat in front of the family television and watched in wonder as his countryman Bent Stiansen, who
had won the gold for Norway that year, described his Bocuse d’Or triumph on a cooking program. As he imagined glitter raining down on Stiansen at the Bocuse d’Or, and the crowd screaming for him, Skeie had decided that, according to the Bocuse d’Or press kit, “one day it would be his turn to participate.”
These profiles, many of which indicated longtime Bocuse d’Or ambitions, were among Hollingsworth’s first indications, other than past conversations with former housemate Lundgren, of what the contest meant to some European chefs. When he had taken on the Orlando challenge, he had no idea of what the Bocuse d’Or itself would be like. “I knew it was a famous culinary competition. Period,” he said.
Even now, he barely knew the half of it: in reality, the phrasing of Skeie’s profile—his “turn to participate”—was a politic way of expressing what Skeie really meant: it was his turn to win. At the age of twelve, he had already decided that he wanted to be a chef. “When I saw this on the TV,” said Skeie, who speaks in blunt though not unfriendly proclamations, “I thought that must be the best thing you can do when you’re a chef. I wanted to be the best chef, so that was the wish.”
Skeie describes himself as highly competitive, a guy who “always liked winning” and, just as importantly, hated to lose. As a boy, he played soccer and did some shooting (target practice and hunting), and his lust for victory often led to arguments with his friends and his brother.
Like many of the European candidates, Skeie wasn’t new to culinary competitions; if he were, he wouldn’t have been taken seriously as a potential candidate to represent Norway. Skeie’s competition experience dated back to 2000. He had been a member of the Norwegian national team, won the Norwegian championship in 2003, and placed third in both the Nordic and Norwegian Championships in 2004. To gather intel for the time when his own Bocuse d’Or moment arrived, Skeie went to Lyon on his own dime in 2005 and 2007 to attend the Bocuse d’Or as a spectator. He had not yet been selected as the Norwegian candidate when he attended the second time—that would come about two months later—but he had already made the cut to participate in the national trials.
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