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What drew you to the industry
and why become a Chef?
Well first
and foremost I love to eat! I remember as a young boy
growing up in Lyon, France I would come home from school
and lift the lids on the pots in my mother’s kitchen. I
was a bit of a gourmand even at a young age as I had a
mother who could cook and a grandmother who loved to
feed me! I have fond memories of simple roasted chicken
that came right off the farm and my favorite, tête de
veau with sauce gribiche.
Growing up
in Lyon, which was really the gastronomic capitol of
France I chose to pursue a culinary career as I really
had an interest in cooking, but cooking in your mother’s
kitchen and working in a professional kitchen 12-14
hours a day was quite a different thing! You also had
the choice of taking an easier route or working in a
kitchen that would really challenge you in every aspect
and that’s the route I chose.
My first big
restaurant in Lyon was Le 3 Domes at the
Sofitel. This was the time of the classic kitchen
brigade where each department had a full staff. I mean
garde manger had 6 or 7 people, the pastry department
had 7 or 8 people, etc…it was a major operation and the
Chef was Jean-Marc Alix who was one of the top chefs in
France at the time (1970-71) It was a very disciplined
kitchen and a well respected
restaurant.
I had worked
as an apprentice first in a small place in Provence
called La Mirabeau, so it helped me transition
as a commis into this highly structured kitchen in Lyon.
I mean you just follow the rules, shut up and do your
work or get your butt kicked, that’s all.
It was the
early 70’s and because of my connections at Le 3
Domes I was able to land a position as a cook at
Jean-Paul Lacombe’s two Michelin starred Léon de
Lyon. The establishment had belonged to Paul
Lacombe who had just passed away and his son Jean-Paul
took over the operation with his mother and sister.
Jean-Paul was in his mid twenties so this was a large
undertaking for such a young man but because of his
youth Jean-Paul now started to introduce some of the
nouvelle preparations along with the traditional dishes,
so there was a real sense of excitement for me because
not only was I getting classical training but we were
starting to delve into what was considered cutting edge
for the time! It’s funny
but to give you an idea of the Léon de Lyon
kitchen, we still had ovens and stoves that ran on coal,
and every morning we had to start the fires and keep
them stoked all day, it was a real pain!
I was
fortunate because being where I was at the time Chefs
like Bocuse, Verge, Troisgros, Blanc, Guerard, and
others were in their prime and were really making
inroads with the nouvelle ideas, they really were the
fathers of this cuisine and I was starting out right in
the middle of it!
A turning
point came when my chef from the Sofitel told me there
was a chef in town by the name of Pierre Orsi who was
opening a restaurant here in Lyon and that he just spent
eight years in Chicago, and that I should go talk to
him. I’m about 19 at the time, a shy kid, and Orsi
talked to me like a son, heart to heart, and voila he
hires me as his chef! I mean I’m not a chef but here I
am a chef! So it was Pierre and his wife Juliette,
myself and a brigade of about ten cooks. I had no idea
why he was so taken with me but I learned so much and
was thrilled to work under a chef who came from the ‘new
world’, right? I mean I was exposed to wild rice for the
first time and we even utilized a microwave for pulse
‘poaching’ fish- it was something new and exciting! I
might add each era has things that are new and exciting.
Now it’s molecular gastronomy and the hydrocolloids,
which by the way big processed food companies have been
using for decades. So regardless of the era you try to
learn these new things and then stay true to who you are
as far as your cooking philosophy is concerned while
utilizing newly acquired techniques. It’s about
balance.
Now, how I
got from Lyon to here is that Pierre Orsi’s best friend
was Chef Jean Banchet who opened Le Français in Wheeling
IL, just out side of Chicago. I met him when he came to
visit Pierre and he told me that he wanted me to come
back with him to America and be a sous chef at La
Français. This was 1976, my first time this far from
home, I spoke no English but wow, this was America! I’m
in downtown Chicago like a kid in a candy shop just
mesmerized but the immensity of the city and the
skyscrapers, the huge cars, everything was so big and
me, I come to America and am making $250 a week? I had
never made this kind of money in France, I thought I was
a king!
There were
few Americans in the kitchen at Le Français mostly
French, Mexicans, and one Japanese guy I think.
But it was ironic that I knew Paul Bocuse, and I knew
how he ran his kitchen –very tough, a lot of yelling,
you know and I said to myself I’m never going to work
for this guy and I end up under Banchet who turned out
to be worse! Banchet and Le Français were the standard
of French cuisine in Chicago and the pressure was
tremendous. In 1976 we were flying almost everything in
from France, it’s not like today where you have great
ingredients locally, so the amount of money spent was
crazy. In addition to the workload and pressure Jean
Banchet was a tyrant- screaming, abusive, I mean he
constantly put the kitchen through an experience. So one
day he threw a saddle of lamb coming out of the oven in
my face and I just snapped and we had a big fight, after
that he shook my hand and I became like the king in the
kitchen, he never bothered me again! Crazy. I guess he
was just pushing me to my limit, I don’t know but I
never had a problem with him from that point on, but now
the kitchen staff was afraid of me! Unfortunately
through all this I became worse than my master, I
actually learned to be a kitchen tyrant, I’ll explain
how that came back to haunt me in a
bit.
It was 1979
and I decided I wanted a new job, and in France it was
always by referral, you didn’t leave one job unless you
had another lined up. So I spoke to Jean Banchet and he
connected me with the late Jean Bertranou at L’Ermitage in
Los Angeles. Bertranou said the he needed me to start in
October of that year and this allowed me about a month
off to go back to Lyon and visit my family and then come
back to L.A. Chef Bertranou was even going to be in Lyon
at the same time and he said it would be good to have
lunch together while there. Everything looked great. So
back in Lyon we meet for lunch and he says to me so when
are you going back to La Français? And I’m like, what?
I’m not going back to La Français, I’m going to work for
you at L’Ermitage! Well, he said, I don’t have an
opening right now. So I’m like freaking out- no job,
running out of money and Bertranou tells me something
totally different than what we had agreed upon! He tells
me anyhow go to L’Ermitage when I get to L.A. and see
chef de cuisine Michel Blanchet. First I get on the
phone to my friend Wolfgang Puck at Ma’ Maison and tell
him the story and he says come, come, we’ll find you
work. So I get to L.A. and go see Blanchet and find out
he and Bertanou had a big fight and were not speaking
and Bertranou had me in his hip pocket in case Blanchet
walked, well he didn’t, they made up and my job was
gone! Anyhow, Michel was gracious enough and was going
to help me but it was actually Wolfgang who found me a
sous chef position at a now defunct French restaurant in
San Diego, it was a relatively nice place but coming
from La Français it was a step down in quality and how
things were run and I was very vocal about it so I did
not last long. It’s funny during this time I was taking
my days off and going up to L.A. to Ma’ Maison and
hanging out and star gazing! I’d see actors like Jack
Lemon and Orson Wells, and it was like WOW real live
movie stars!
My next stop
was San Francisco where I took over the reigns of Le
Castel in the early 1980’s. We were the new kids on the
block, and I revamped the menu toward more nouvelle
cuisine and we were a hit! I was flying in fish from
France and trying to get with other French chefs in town
to get together and bring stuff in because there was
really not a lot of resources at the time, besides game
birds like squab, quail, poussin- these things were
local in fact I think I was buying some of them from
Bala when he was raising birds before he took over
Preferred Meats. At the time my food cost was like 50%
but who cares when you are 24 years old and an emerging
superstar? This was my first job really as the executive
chef and getting heavy press, the Chronicle, Newsweek,
all the journals were talking about us, movie stars were
flying in to dine with us- I was riding high and my ego
was big- it was a party, but we weren’t making any
money! Well the restaurant sold and I did not want to
conform to the new owner’s ideas so I moved
on.
This was
1981 and Jean Banchet called me and asked if I wanted to
open the Adolphus Hotel with him in Dallas. I got there
and had carte blanche, and a brigade of young cooks that
had worked for chefs like Jacques Maximin in Nice. I was
in my early twenties and Dallas embraced me, I was up on
billboards, I was in magazines, double page spreads in
the paper- I acted like no one could touch me. I’d make
the owner of the hotel wait when he came in for dinner,
I’d swear at the GM, break doors- I mean just terrible.
Thanks to the abusive years under Banchet I learned to
be a tyrant and I did it better than Banchet himself!
Now, here’s where the tide turns, one day I threw a
roasting pan of bones at the F & B director and told
him to lock himself in his office, he did. Next day I
come in it seemed like everything was cool and at the
end of the day I was escorted out of the hotel at gun
point by security and promptly fired! I broke down, I
cried, I knew I had to change but a turn around like
this takes time, eh? The final blow is that I started a
catering company that did pretty well and did this with
the intentions of opening my own restaurant in Dallas
and showing the Adolphus a thing or two! Well when I
pursued this venture the architect told me that I would
not succeed because I had made so many enemies that the
restaurant would never happen. At this point I sold my
shares in the catering business and moved out of Dallas,
came back to San Francisco and took the Chef’s position
at Chez Michel, a little wiser and a bit more humble
than when I left.
Chez Michel
only lasted about a year after I got there and closed in
1987, we opened La Folie in 1988. My landlord owned a
building where there was a little restaurant that was
not doing well and wanted me to buy it, my wife and I
had only $45,000.00 to our name and he said look, I will
be your banker and you take it and we worked out the
terms and opened our French restaurant on a shoe string.
My wife is the one who named it La Foile which means
“folly, madness, craziness” for being newlyweds and
opening a restaurant with almost no money in San
Francisco’s competitive market and I did almost all the
pre-opening work myself! That has been 22 years ago now,
and we are still going strong!
Culinary
highlights:
- When I met
Paul Bocuse while
working a Leon de Lyon. I mean the man was a real
figure right? And then later in my career he called me
here at La Folie and said he was bringing some friends
in for lunch. But Chef, I said we don’t serve lunch.
He said, what do you want me to bring food with me? I
said very well Chef, come in, come in- well the
friends he brought with him were Chefs George Blanc,
Pic, and Troisgros. Wow, an honor for sure!
- Meeting
and become good friends with Julia Childs.
She dined
at La Folie many times, really she was the mother of
French cuisine in America. I asked her once what I
needed to do to be healthy like her and she said just
eat more butter and foie
gras!
What do you like most/least
about being the boss?
Most: Well, of
course it’s great to make your own decisions but you
also have to bear the brunt of responsibility for those
decisions. But really the ability to influence in a
positive way those that work for you is special. For
instance Richard Reddington started out in my kitchen
years back and he went on to become a terrific chef and
have an acclaimed restaurant of his own, it’s a passing
the torch to the next generation and is a highlight for
me.
Least: Besides
paying the bills? I would say firing someone, but look
sometimes it has to be done. If someone is affecting the
peace of the kitchen or not doing their job the
stability of the operation depends on someone making
that call and a chef has to do these things at times.
Although they need to be done it’s never
pleasant.
What chefs influenced you the
most?
- Jean
Banchet of course
he is the one who brought me to
America.
- Jacques
Maximin a chef
ahead of his time even though he has not received the
prominence that others have, but the man is a genius
when it comes to
cuisine.
- Alain
Ducasse he also
came to America and succeeded and I think his food is
real and has integrity, a great chef.
If you could keep only 3
culinary books, what would they
be?
- Le grand
Livre de Cuisine
–Alain
Ducasse
- La Methode
& La Technique
–Jacques
Pepin (great chef & good
friend)
- French
Feast
–Stephane
Reynaud
Favorite kitchen
gadget:
An egg
topper
Culinary trends that bug you/
trends you like:
BUGS: I think
trends themselves are not a bad thing but I don’t like
it when these trends start to become gimmicky. For
instance the molecular gastronomy as they call it, some
great tools and techniques have come out of this that we
use- but we use it where it makes sense to use it and
not simply for the sake of using it. Although some of
these things are cool, I like to keep my cuisine a
little more truthful and natural. It bugs me when you
see a trend reflected in a menu and little else. For
example, sous-vide is great for certain applications,
but if everything goes into a vacuum bag where there is
no error because it’s at a calculated temperature on an
automatic timer it makes the process sterile to me and
does not show the talent of cooking where the contrast
of the little imperfections heightens the experience,
like a slight caramelized char on a roasted bird
highlights the succulence of the meat, these
uncalculated things make the cooking real to me, it
gives it a non-robotic human touch.
LIKE: I like the
trend of sustainability and farm to table. This is a
resilient planet yet fragile at the same time and I
think we need to focus on doing things right with
raising our food and supporting our farmers. We need to
educate our children also on what real food is. I like
the philosophy of going back to our
roots.
An ingredient that you’re
attached to:
Salt. All
different kinds but especially fleur de sel, it almost
has a sweet taste, beautiful!
Most memorable dining
experience:
Eating in my
parents garden as a kid back in France is a great
memory. Then there was this place in Lorgues, Provence
in the early 90’s that Jacques Maximin recommended
called Chez Bruno. This Chef is like 250/LB and 6’2”-
big guy and found out Maximin, whom he calls ‘Max’ sent
us and we were instant friends. He sat us at a table
under a fig tree outdoors and proceeded feed us- it was
great, this commis comes by with a basket full of
truffles and shaves them tableside. He offers three
wines, white, red, rose’ and they all come from friend’s
vineyards the whole thing was only 50 Euros! The food
was great but the experience was amazing as Bruno went
from table to table suggesting, recommending, saying
things like you are my guest and I will prepare this or
that for you and I realized with total skill and
hospitality he was pacing not only the execution in the
kitchen but also what items were being sold as he was
effortlessly directing guests in how they should order
without them even knowing it- it was perfect balancing
act directing business yet you felt a human touch from
the heart throughout!
Favorite ‘elbows on the table
hole in the wall’:
There’s this
little burger joint in Mill Valley I like, I forget the
name now but I take the kids and they love it. I also
like East West Deli on Polk street.
A food item you hate to admit
to liking:
Peanut
butter (I didn’t at first but I do
now.)
Three things in fridge right
now:
Cheese,
saucisson, Champagne
Secret junk food indulgence:
In N’ Out
Burger
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Roland
Passot on Preferred Meats:
“The quality
of product has always been of utmost importance at La
Folie. I personally am a believer in, and regularly go
to, farmer’s markets and what I appreciate about, Bala
Kironde, and Preferred Meats is that they bring the
farmer to the chef. From Martin Emigh’s incredible lamb
raised outside of Sacramento that we fell in love with,
to naturally raised Angus beef... I appreciate
Preferred’s farm to table approach.”
-Roland
Passot, Chef/Owner, La Folie, San Francisco, CA
 
California Pure Lamb
w/eggplant, butter
beans, Roulade
of Quail & Squab w/ Truffle Jus
marbled potatoes, lamb jus
Preferred is proud to serve Chef
Passot at La Folie.
Join our family today!
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