Ritz-Carlton Magazine - Fall 2012 - (Page 118)

FRESH DIRECT Clockwise, from right: Blanching scallions; the finished dish of quail with huckleberries, baby artichokes, mustard greens; huckleberry sauce. deserved. Words like “seasonal” and “heirloom” are intoned with a passion akin to religious devotion. “Forager” is an unremarkable job description. But the vignette just described is out of the ordinary, for as it happens, this particular forager is Parallel 37’s own esteemed chef, Ron Siegel. Exchanging his jacket for traditional whites, he proceeds to the kitchen, spinning out ideas for the day’s menu. Those perfectly ripe white peaches that have just been brought in will become a fruit glaze for duck breast. He will reduce a chicken stock with the fresh porcini mushrooms, then sauté more porcinis with grilled scallions, and pour the resulting broth over ravioli made from purple haze potatoes, garlic purée, olive oil and salt. “People say to me, ‘You still go to the farmers market yourself?’” Siegel remarks, ranging around in a dining room chair like a man much more at ease on his feet. “I honestly don’t know how to answer, but I think, ‘How could you not?’ The farmers and the incredible beauty of what they grow — I just find it all very inspiring.” He pauses and laughs. “And I want to pick everything myself.” Locavore custom dictates that there’s no shame in a busy chef faxing a shopping list to a farmer or dispatching an underling to the market. But for Siegel, the first notion would be unthinkable and the second is a concession he reluctantly, if routinely, must make to the demands of running a top-flight restaurant. “I don’t like to make lists,” he says. “I don’t like to pre-order. It should be about spontaneity, about feeling it. If you can’t create a menu from going to a farmers market, then you’re absolutely unqualified for this work.” Parallel 37, which opened in December 2011 and takes its name from the geographic latitude that runs near San Francisco, represents the coalescence of regional and global food cultures. For Siegel, it pays special homage to the local farmers who practice sustainable agriculture and to what he calls “a contemporary cuisine that is manipulated as little as possible. There’s a balance between complexity and restraint, and that’s what keeps it interesting.” While red meat (“I love a great steak!”), fowl and fish are mainstays of the menu, they are trusty chaperons for the life of the party — the magda cousa and Marina di Chioggia squashes, rosa bianca and la strada eggplants, lemon cucumbers, mustard greens, stone fruits, fava beans, Jimmy Nardello peppers and purple asparagus, to name just a fraction of Siegel’s repertoire. In keeping with the restaurant’s regional pride, the wine list includes a wide selection of Napa and Sonoma vintages, while the bar features artisanal spirits and handmade cocktail tinctures. The dining room’s design is a sleekly modern palette of dark woods accented by bright color, reflecting Siegel’s view that “California cuisine is sophisticated, but in a real and comfortable way that’s not snooty.” “Simple” is a word Siegel favors, but he hastens to add that “simple can be really difficult. Lots of elements in my cooking are labor-intensive, because when there’s love in the food — and believe me, there is — there will be labor.” The 46-year-old chef was reared and began cooking in Bay Area restaurants, but he earned his stripes in New York, working as a cook at Daniel on Manhattan’s Upper East Side in the early 1990s. The legendary French chef-restaurateur Daniel Boulud, who not incidentally grew up on a farm outside Lyon, was one of two guiding lights in Siegel’s Gallic education. The other was the equally legendary Thomas Keller, who lured him back from New York to Yountville, in the Napa Valley, as the first sous-chef of The French Laundry. To say that these luminaries put their cooks to the test would be something of an understatement. Siegel learned quickly that he had to learn quickly, and that nothing short of perfection would be tolerated. “I remember one night when Daniel just pushed me aside to shuck 118 w w w. r i t z c a r lt o n . c o m http://WWW.RITZCARLTON.COM

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Ritz-Carlton Magazine - Fall 2012

Ritz-Carlton Magazine - Fall 2012
Contents
Contributors
Editor’s Letter
President’s Letter
Falling in Love With ... San Francisco
Design
Technology
On the Boulevards
Shopping
Jewelry
Watches
Art
Gourmet Travel
Wellness
Golf
Okinawa
Culinary
Let Us Stay With You
Heritage

Ritz-Carlton Magazine - Fall 2012

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