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People behind the restaurants
WELCOME BAHAMAS - NASSAU, CABLE BEACH & PARADISE ISLAND - 2005
People behind the restaurants
There's eating, says chef and restaurateur Ronny Deryckere, and then there's dining. The difference is only partly the food, for you can get great meals at any number of restaurants around Nassau.
"If someone wants to go out eating that's one thing. But when it comes to dining, it means the service is good, the food is first class, the atmosphere, the premises, the whole operation is in good shape and clean, and after the evening is over you're really happy about the experience."
It's not just wonderful food artfully prepared, echo other top chefs, it's a little thing called "ambience."
Vongerichten's Dune
Jean-Georges Vongerichten, one of the best-known and innovative chefs in the world today, serves his dramatically flavourful dishes in a sophisticated atmosphere at Dune, an upscale dining room overlooking the beach at the One&Only Ocean Club on Paradise Island. There's a touch of the Orient at Dune, both in the decor and in the dishes.
At last count, Vongerichten operated six restaurants in New York City (Jo Jo, Jean-Georges, Lipstick Cafe, The Mercer Kitchen, 66 and Vong). There are more: in Chicago, Las Vegas, London, Hong Kong and, of course, Nassau. In fact his newest venture will be the Cafe Martinique at Kerzner International's Marina Village on Paradise Island, due to open in the autumn of 2005. The original Cafe Martinique was made famous in the 1965 James Bond movie Thunderball.
Vongerichten was born and raised near Strasbourg in Alsace, France, where he learned to cook from his mother and grandmother, who made delicious lunches every day for employees in the family business.
His formal training began when he was 16 at the Auberge de l'Il, studying under chef Paul Haeberlin. Such was his talent that he went on to work with world renowned culinary artists, including master chef Louis Outhier in southern France.
He spent three years at the Oriental Hotel in Bangkok. According to one critic, this stint gave Vongerichten a "love for the exotic and aromatic flavours of the East that would later translate into his own interpretation of his menu at Vong."
Vongerichten rocketed into prominence while still a young man, opening the first of his New York restaurants at the age of 29. He's won many awards, including several from the picky food critics at The New York Times and Esquire magazine.
Vongerichten says his philosophy is "all about creating cravings. I try to create places that fulfill peoples" cravings. People become comfortable with a couple of items on the menu in a particular restaurant and I keep those favourites on the menu all the time."
Vongerichten has authored two books: Cooking at Home with a Four Star Chef and Simple Cuisine, which adapts his recipes for home cooks. Here's a summery dish from Dune.
Ribbons of tuna, avocado, lime, spicy radish & ginger
(serves four)
Lime syrup
1 cup lime juice
1 cup sugar
Combine in a pot, bring to a boil, remove from heat and allow to cool.
Tuna
12 oz tuna
4 tbsp olive oil
1 Thai chili, minced
1 shallot, minced
Cut tuna into spaghetti-like strips, season with salt, shallot, chili and olive oil to taste. Divide into four equal portions.
Ginger marinade
1/2 cup ginger
2 tbsp olive oil
1/2 cup champagne vinegar
1/2 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup lime syrup
Peel ginger and chop roughly. Puree in blender with just enough olive oil to spin. When smooth, mix with remaining ingredients.
To serve
2 small ripe avocados, diced
Salt
Juice from 1 lime
4 tbsp olive oil
5 red radishes
Chili oil
Mix avocado with salt, lime juice and olive oil. Slice the radishes 1/4 in thick and keep in cold water until ready to serve. Just before assembly, drain radishes, season with salt and toss with chili oil.
In the bottoms of four small bowls, arrange generous spoonfuls of the avocado. Top with about six slices of the radish and arrange half the tuna portion in a bundle on top. Add more radishes, the remaining fish and top with radish. Spoon the marinade around and drizzle with the chili oil.
Deryckere's Sun and...
The three signatures of Ronny and Esther Deryckere's superb Sun and... restaurant are, in the chef's own words: "quality, service and cleanliness."
The son of a diplomat, Deryckere was born in Belgium and educated in the Belgian Congo. His career in the culinary arts began in 1961 when he was 14 years old. He went to the Emile Cryzon Institute in Brussels and, after graduation, began work as a pastry chef, an exacting craft he enjoys to this day. He worked in Brussels, Paris and Dublin and eventually moved to The Bahamas to work at Lyford Cay in 1966.
Two years later he was working in the posh Cafe Martinique on Paradise Island and it was there that he met and married his wife Esther and moved with her to work on famous Cat Cay, a privately owned island south of Bimini.
The couple came back to Nassau in 1974 to the newly opened (and now closed) Del Prado restaurant in the El Greco hotel on West Bay Street. From there he moved on to Graycliff where he launched the dinner business.
Then it was June 1981 and the Deryckeres decided to strike off on their own, purchasing Sun and... from a colourful Nassau character, Pete Gardiner, a former RAF wing commander who sometimes met guests in his bare feet. That ended when Ronny and Esther took over, having firm views on proper dress. The Deryckeres have relaxed the code from "jacket and tie required" to "smart casual," but T-shirts and jeans are out.
Here's one of the chef's recipes for diners with a decent wardrobe and a sophisticated palate.
Filet mignon tartare
(serves one)
6 oz filet mignon (Angus)
1 tsp finely chopped onion
1 tsp extra fine capers
1 tbsp chopped parsley
1 tsp Dijon mustard
2 tbsp peanut oil or corn oil
2 tbsp Lea & Perrins Worcestershire
1 egg yolk
Salt and pepper
Mix egg yolk with mustard and oil. Add onion, parsley, capers, Worcestershire sauce, salt and pepper to taste.
Slice filet mignon thinly then chop into medium ground consistency. Mix half the sauce into the meat. Add more sauce if needed.
Shape the meat on the plate and dress with gherkins, capers, onion rings, frisse lettuce, chicory lettuce and tomato slices. Serve with toast.
Curry's Matisse
Owner and maitre d' Greg Curry and his wife Gabriella have captured a feeling of friendly elegance at Cafe Matisse, located behind Nassau's pink Parliament Buildings. It's in a century-old building that was once a private home. Today, it's a favourite meeting place for the downtown business crowd for lunch and one of the city's favourite places for an Italian dinner.
The Currys have set up charming areas indoors, decorated with prints by Henri Matisse. Outdoors there's a walled courtyard where you can dine under the stars amid tropical greenery.
"I let my restaurant speak for itself," says Curry. "Sometimes we're complimented for our food, sometimes for our service, sometimes for our gardens." He spent a year and a fortune renovating the home after he bought it in 1995. Gabriella - an internationally known fashion designer - contributed strongly to the decor and eclat.
As it turns out, the restaurant was named not for the painter but for a chef of same name whom the Currys met in Milan, Gabriella's home town. When Matisse the chef could not come to The Bahamas, Matisse the painter became the restaurant's motif.
Cafe Matisse is decidedly Italian, featuring dishes prepared with freshly made pasta by three fine chefs from - where else" - Milan. The following recipe is courtesy of Cafe Matisse.
Cranberry
duck with
semolina
pudding
(serves four)
4 duck breasts
2 cups white wine
3 oz semolina
2 egg yolks
1 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1 cup dried cranberries
1 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp lemon zest
1 cup white wine
Salt and pepper Thyme
Rosemary
Deep-fried parsley
Salt and pepper the duck breasts and place in a large, very hot frying pan, skin side down. Add sprigs of rosemary and thyme. Cook until skin is crispy. Remove liquid fat. Turn breasts over and cook for a few more minutes in a moderate oven. When medium rare, remove duck and set aside.
In the same pan, heat the wine and add the cranberries, sugar, lemon zest and a little water. Simmer for about 20 mins until slightly thickened.
In another pot, boil the milk with
salt and black pepper, add semolina
and whisk. Add egg yolks and Parmesan cheese. Cook and continue
to whisk for about five minutes. Place pudding in cups and let it rest.
Meanwhile, slice the duck and arrange on a plate. Pour cranberry sauce over the meat and serve with the semolina pudding. Garnish with deep-fried parsley.
Connor's Villaggio
Mark Connor has been setting a high standard of cuisine ever since he came to The Bahamas in October 2001 to open Ristorante Villaggio, which has become the place to enjoy Italian and cosmopolitan food in western New Providence.
Ristorante Villaggio is located at Caves Village, on West Bay Street at Blake Road. Aside from the restaurant, which is the main venue for Connor's artistry, there's a piano bar (where you can enjoy a selection from the "chef's temptations" menu), and Cafe Villaggio, a casual place for lunch. The restaurant has an ambience that mixes upscale New York and sunny Italy, with a choice of inside or alfresco dining on Italian fare, accompanied by a fine selection of American and European wines.
Connor is an Englishman, from Oxford, who has spent his professional life creating and serving dishes in hotels, restaurants and cruise ships around the world. Don't be surprised at the last mentioned venue: "The level of cuisine on cruise ships rivals that of high class restaurants," avers the friendly chef.
While studying catering and culinary management at Westminster College in London, Connor became an apprentice chef at the Spread Eagle Hotel in Witham and then moved on to London where he put in two and a half years as chef de patrie at the Grosvenor House Hotel in Mayfair.
He was tutored there, incidentally,
by Vongerichten.
After London, Connor honed his skills in upscale venues around the world, including those in Bermuda, Canada and on ships cruising the seven seas. Among the ships was the Orient Cruise Line's Marco Polo.
From late 1994 until the fall of 1997 Connor and a partner owned an open-kitchen restaurant in Trento, Italy. He picked up the secrets of Asian cooking as consulting executive chef at the Dorsett Regency in Kuala Lumpur. Later, he was senior executive chef on the Orient Lines' Crown Odyssey.
Here's Connor's recipe for a light and delicious summer meal.
Lobster salad
(serves 4)
Court bouillon
2 leeks, chopped
2 carrots, chopped
3 onions, chopped
2 celery sticks, chopped
2 fennel bulbs, chopped
4 garlic cloves, chopped
1 gal water
1 sprig each: thyme, parsley, basil
and tarragon
1 tbsp sea salt
2 lemons, sliced
4 star anise
1 oz white wine
Bring to a boil and simmer 30 mins; strain through muslin and reserve.
Salad
4 small lobster tails
2 mangoes
3 tbsp classic vinaigrette
5-1/2 oz baby spinach leaves
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
Bring court bouillon to a gentle boil and poach lobster tails for
5-6 mins. Remove from heat and allow to cool in the bouillon. When cool enough to handle, remove the meat from the shells and return to the bouillon. When cold, remove
and drain.
Peel and dice the mangoes. Toss with half the vinaigrette. Toss the spinach in the remaining vinaigrette and season with salt and pepper. Arrange spinach in the centres of the plates.
Scatter mango over the spinach. Slice crawfish and arrange on top.
Garzaroli's Graycliff
After 30 years, Enrico Garzaroli still enjoys owning and running - along with his wife Anna Maria, son Paolo and daughter Roberta - the five-star Graycliff hotel, restaurant, cigar
factory and Humidor Churrascaria restaurant in Nassau.
Garzaroli was inducted into the world of fine wine at an early age by his grandfather, who owned a restaurant in Lake Como, Italy. By the time he was 12, Garzaroli swears he could tell the difference between a good wine and a great one.
His early training shows because down in the ancient cellars of Graycliff, aging gently, are about 250,000 bottles of wine. It's one of the biggest cellars in the world and some bottles, such as a vintage Romanee Conti, sell for up to $50,000 each.
Following in his grandfather's steps, Garzaroli took courses at a school for hoteliers in Stresa, on Lake Maggiore. After graduating, he worked at the upscale Aerogolf Sheraton hotel in Luxembourg. There, he "learned from many mistakes," he says, his own and
those of others.
At one time he ran an inn near Zurich that catered to a small but demanding clientele. Perhaps that's where the idea of owning an exclusive boutique hotel like Graycliff was born.
Garzaroli visited The Bahamas on holiday in 1973 and fell in love with the place, but there was no intention to settle here. "There was no plan. Everything just happened," Garzaroli says with a laugh today. But he admits there was an immediate attraction when he first visited Graycliff, originally the home of a privateer and later of a British duke and later still a Canadian millionaire.
After buying Graycliff in 1974, Garzaroli changed the mansion from a private dwelling to a commercial enterprise, without changing the look of the place. In 1995 he bought the adjoining West Hill House, making it his home. Then in 1997, he acquired what used to be Postern Gate and is now the Humidor "Churrascaria - a Brazilian restaurant - and the Graycliff Cigar Factory. Here's an appetizer from the kitchens of Graycliff, named after the padrone.
Fettuccine Enrico
(serves four)
12 oz fresh egg-noodle fettuccine
Butter
1 small onion
1 cup sliced mushrooms
2-1/2 cups heavy cream
6 heaping tbsp Parmesan cheese, plus extra for garnish
Freshly ground pepper
Chopped parsley, for garnish
In a skillet, cook the onion and mushrooms until soft; add cream. Bring to a boil, add Parmesan cheese and cook for 5 mins. Add freshly ground pepper.
Bring one gallon of water or broth to a boil. Add fettuccine and cook until al dente (about two minutes). Add pasta to sauce and divide among four plates. Dust with chopped Italian parsley and freshly grated Parmesan cheese.
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