Chef debuts pastry creation in Newport

IDEA HATCHED: Eggsceptional Eggs, the new pastry creation by Michel Richard, chef at the Marble House in Newport. / COURTESY MICHEL RICHARD RESTAURANTS
IDEA HATCHED: Eggsceptional Eggs, the new pastry creation by Michel Richard, chef at the Marble House in Newport. / COURTESY MICHEL RICHARD RESTAURANTS

“I want my new restaurant to have a thick, French accent like me,” joked Michel Richard , chef at Marble House in Newport. He was on hand for the Newport Mansions Wine and Food Festival one week before the opening of his new patissierie, or pastry shop, Pommes Palais, in New York.
While he was here he experimented with a new dish that is expected to appear on his new menu. He also had an unexpected encounter with a local chef whose style is not as different from his as it may appear.
Michel Richard was born in Brittany, France, where he first learned to make pastry. Even after nearly 40 years in America, living and cooking from coast to coast, he has not lost his distinct accent.
In 1975 he moved to New York after an apprenticeship in one of the most renowned patisseries in Paris. It was there that his journey discovering American cuisine and adding a French accent to it began. He did not remain in New York City for long, leaving after a few years to open a pastry shop in Santa Fe, N.M. Then he set up shop in Beverly Hills with his best-known restaurant, Citrus. Richard spent nearly 20 years cooking for the Hollywood crowd. He is considered a pioneer in French/California cuisine – nuanced flavors but without the heavy sauces and complicated seasonings.
After Citrus and a few other ventures up and down the West Coast, he then moved to Washington, D.C., where Michel Richard Citronelle became his flagship restaurant.
Jake Rojas, chef-owner of Tallulah on Thames in Newport, may well have crossed paths with Richard. During his own culinary journey that eventually brought him to the City by the Sea, he once was the executive chef of the Sunset restaurant in Malibu, Calif.
Rojas is one of the leading practitioners in our state of “farm-to-table” cooking. His menu features a list of what he calls Farms and Friends, a listing of the area farms and purveyors whose produce he turns into contemporary dishes.
Richard’s Central Michel Richard opened in downtown Washington, D.C., and won the 2008 James Beard Award for Best New Restaurant. Central Michel Richard in Atlantic City followed, with Central Michel Richard at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas opening in the fall of 2011. The Vegas version has a distinction among the distinctive spots on and off the Strip. The restaurant holds the distinction of being the first-ever restaurant helmed by a James Beard Award-winning chef to be open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Outside of his restaurants, Richard regularly appears at charitable events and festivals across the country, designs menus for the National Gallery of Art, and his dishes are featured onboard Amtrak’s Acela First Class service. At the mansions festival opening party, Richard met his fellow chefs and wine purveyors and enjoyed their company and hospitality. He wanted to spend the rest of the evening with his wife at a Newport restaurant and asked his hosts for a recommendation.
Tallulah on Thames was mentioned and the Richards were off. The chef was delighted with the choice. “They were so friendly!” he said about Rojas and partner Kelly Ann. “[Rojas] made the best hanger steak,” he said. “It was medium rare, it was perfectly cooked and the vegetables were superb.”
Richard’s wife had local duck and their assistant enjoyed one of Tallulah’s chicken specialties.
Small wonder that Richard felt at home at Tallulah’s. The owners’ philosophy as stated on the menu sums it up: “A small restaurant … that highlights seasonal tasting menus in a space reminiscent of a Parisian brasserie.”
When informed about chef Rojas’ culinary philosophy, chef Richard said, “No wonder everything tasted so fresh. I may ask him for his recipe!”
Rojas may reciprocate. Richard used his culinary demonstration at the Newport festival to debut a new creation that will be featured at Pommes Palais. He had been testing it in a borrowed kitchen in Harlem as recently as a few weeks ago. His confection is called Eggsceptional Eggs. It is a pastry version – no chicken involved – made with a white chocolate shell filled with meringue for the white and lemon curd for the yolk. The innovative dish was created quite by accident. “I dropped an ice cube in melted chocolate by accident,” he said, “and voilà, I had a shape. So I started playing with it. I froze water in empty egg shells, removed the shells and used the egg-shaped ice cube to make my chocolate eggs.”
During his visit to my radio broadcast location from the annual festival at Marble House, as he was during the entire weekend from his book signings to his on-stage demonstration, chef Michel Richard was nothing short of jolly. His philosophy seems to live up to the title of one of his cookbooks – “Happy In The Kitchen.” •


Bruce Newbury’s “Dining Out” food and wine talk radio show is heard on WADK-AM 1540, WHJJ-AM 920 and online and mobile applications. He can be reached by email at bruce@brucenewbury.com.

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