Jean-Georges Vongerichten strides through his Shanghai restaurant, an entourage of similarly dazzling-white, fellow-chefs in tow. He oozes assured confidence as might be expected of a restaurateur of his stature.

 

His New York Jean Georges is regularly placed among the world's top five restaurants. His Shanghai restaurant is a cathedral to cuisine. Its somber and elegant midnight blues; high, copper ceiling and curved booths and arches are in stark contrast to the dramatic exuberance of the Pudong view across the river.

 

To quote Jay McInerney, one time leading luminary of the Brat Pack literary movement, now respected food and wine commentator writing about Vongerichten in the New York Magazine: "It's probably safe to say that in the past two decades, no single chef has had more influence on the way New Yorkers dine out -- or on the way other chefs cook and other restaurants look."

 

 

Incorporating flavors he found and loved in Bangkok with the cuisine he grew up with in France catapultes Jean-George Vongerichten to early success, first in New York and now around the world.

 

Vongerichten was in Shanghai this week on one of the Frenchman's thrice yearly pilgrimages to his other seriously high-end restaurant. He now has 18 restaurants around the world but only two, according to him, qualify as serious gastronomic and aesthetic masterpieces -- the Jean George in New York and the one here in Shanghai.

 

With 20 years at the top of a very demanding game, his Marlon Brando looks, circa "Last Tango in Paris," and his bristling energy, this Gaul in charge of an ever-expanding empire is still very much the chef's chef.

 

"I have people to do my bean counting and all the serious managerial stuff. After 32 years I still spend most of my time in my kitchens and restaurants analyzing what tastes good and looks right," he says. Having created his savory mushroom soup with chili, ginger, black beans and parmesan, he exclaims: "Simple! Non?"

 

The taste is anything but, tanginess countered with black, forest earthiness proceeded by a long ginger burn. Vongerichten describes it as "wacko."

 

"I just love to please people," says the engaging New York resident who spends one week per month traveling. "It's a whole culture that I try to create. It's the complete experience from booking a table, the lighting, the food, getting the bill to leaving -- very aspect must be right."

 

His detractors, and they do exist, claim he's increasingly more of a franchise manager, he has more than 2,000 employees, but this he dismisses out of hand: "We treat our people well and we don't like losing good staff. If I've spent five years training a chef, he or she will be good," says Vongerichten, unflusterable.

 

"We train up many, many chefs each year and many of them will be presented with opportunities to set up other places. I don't want that to happen so I open my own new places and keep my people."

 

Warming to his theme, he continues: "Part of the strength of my position is that I work with so many chefs and they each bring their own ideas to the table. This helps to keep me fresh."

 

Eric Johnson, chef de cuisine at Jean Georges, is a good example.

 

"I've been working with Jean for nine years now," says the Long Island native, in charge of the Shanghai Jean Georges kitchen. "Firstly in New York, then in Paris and now here in Shanghai. His approach is very collaborative, he listens and, despite his undoubted celebrity, he still manages to maintain a proper sense of himself."

 

Along with the mushroom soup another new addition to the Jean Georges menu, as a result of this most recent visit, will be the red snapper sashimi with golden garlic, chili and sesame seasoning. The wafer-thin snapper is delicate while the sauce is packed with flavors that are eye-openingly explosive.

 

"The changes that I've seen in Shanghai even in the four years I've been coming are incredible. Outside here it used to be hard to get a taxi because there weren't many taxis. Now you can't get a taxi because there are too many people," says Vongerichten, adding: "Every time I come here another ten places have opened."

 

The young Vongerichten's interest in food was fanned by his mother in their Alsace home in France. Combustion took place after a 16th birthday meal at the three-star Auberge de L'Ill where he would later train. It was his early years spent at the Oriental Hotel in Bangkok that were to color his cooking and define him as a chef. He was one of the front runners of the fusion movement introducing Asian flavors to traditional French cuisine that started in the 1980s.

 

As Johnson astutely points out: "When you've had lemon grass, ginger and chili in your life it's pretty hard to live without them."

 

At 29 Vongerichten was awarded four stars by The New York Times for his food at Lafayette. That was in 1986. This year he has just been awarded four stars for the second year in a row by The New York Times.

 

"I just want to create food that is delicious from the first bite right through to the last," says Vongerichten. He's also particular about consistency, not for him the "a splash of this, and a pinch of that" approach. The scales are just about the most used piece of equipment in the Jean Georges gleaming kitchen. In a dish like his crunchy basil shrimp this policy pays dividends, the rice flour batter possessing a startling longevity of crunch, the basil vivid green and packing a punch. The overall effect: light, clean but with strong flavors, leaving the diner wanting more signature Vongerichten.

 

Zoo food, he doesn't do. That's ostrich, crocodile and the like. Shopping he does. "I'm a mad shopper, shoes, clothes or kitchen utensils, I like shopping."

 

In Shanghai he loves to breakfast on bo bing, the northern China pancake. His most memorable meal was in Matsui Sushi in Tokyo, lots of live seafood.

 

Vongerichten simple? Non. Wacko? Oui. Formidably successful and undeniably likable? Absolument! Absolument!

 

(Shanghai Daily November 2, 2006)