Chefs-in-Training: See what's Cooking at Spago and Boulevard
By Sarah Clark
Sarah.clark@chefschoolreview.com
Chef School Review Columnist
Spago and Boulevard have won numerous awards, from Zagat Survey's Best Restaurant Award to the prestigious James Beard Foundation Best Chef Award. Learn about the chefs, their training, and their culinary creations in these two consistently outstanding restaurants.
Oak describes her cuisine on her website as "classic French sensibilities..." and "...quintessentially modern American" with Latin, Asian, and Mediterranean influences. At Boulevard you might start with wasabi prawns with green papaya salad and progress to wood oven roasted lamb loin with provencal vegetables.
What's on the menu at Spago these days? A better question might be what’s not on the menu. The selection of first courses alone features 20 startling appetizers that include dishes as traditional as minestrone soup to those with Asian influences, such as marinated Japanese hamachi and tuna sashimi.
Main courses at Spago offer a wide selection of meat, poultry, and fish, including cuttlefish, duck breast, veal rib chop, lamb, and steak. Again, Asian influences are abundant, with dishes like Cantonese Style Roasted Duck and Steamed Wild Alaskan Salmon "Hong Kong Style." The bulk of the offerings betray a more traditional sensibility. For example, the kitchen offers pan roasted organic chicken with Oregon morel mushrooms and pan roasted French turbot with marjoram-lemon butter.
Spago Beverly Hills
Sarah.clark@chefschoolreview.com
Chef School Review Columnist
Spago and Boulevard have won numerous awards, from Zagat Survey's Best Restaurant Award to the prestigious James Beard Foundation Best Chef Award. Learn about the chefs, their training, and their culinary creations in these two consistently outstanding restaurants.
Boulevard in San Francisco
Boulevard has the distinction of being named San Francisco Bay Area's favorite restaurant by Zagat Survey for six consecutive years since 1998. Owner and chef Nancy Oakes has been nominated four times by the James Beard Foundation as one of the best chefs in California. Oak is a self-taught chef, schooled in the culinary arts by chef gurus Guy Savoy and Joel Robuchon.
The Cooking and Hospitality Institute of Chicago (CHIC) prepares more students in the Chicago area for successful careers in food service than any other culinary school — using the traditional, European hands-on approach to culinary education that was previously difficult to obtain in the Midwest. Affiliated with the prestigious Le Cordon Bleu, CHIC combines classical cooking techniques with leading-edge American technology.
Oak describes her cuisine on her website as "classic French sensibilities..." and "...quintessentially modern American" with Latin, Asian, and Mediterranean influences. At Boulevard you might start with wasabi prawns with green papaya salad and progress to wood oven roasted lamb loin with provencal vegetables.
Spago Beverly Hills
Wolfgang Puck is the founder of Spago, the restaurant that made him famous with the Hollywood set in the mid 1990s. His chef training was based in the classical French tradition, which included apprenticeships at notable restaurants in Paris.What's on the menu at Spago these days? A better question might be what’s not on the menu. The selection of first courses alone features 20 startling appetizers that include dishes as traditional as minestrone soup to those with Asian influences, such as marinated Japanese hamachi and tuna sashimi.
Main courses at Spago offer a wide selection of meat, poultry, and fish, including cuttlefish, duck breast, veal rib chop, lamb, and steak. Again, Asian influences are abundant, with dishes like Cantonese Style Roasted Duck and Steamed Wild Alaskan Salmon "Hong Kong Style." The bulk of the offerings betray a more traditional sensibility. For example, the kitchen offers pan roasted organic chicken with Oregon morel mushrooms and pan roasted French turbot with marjoram-lemon butter.
Chef School and Training
Today, larger numbers of cooking enthusiasts are earning their culinary credentials in formal chef training programs at culinary schools. Programs range in length with varying areas of focus. Chef school can bring you to a level of expertise that might one day match that sustained by chefs like Nancy Oakes and Wolfgang Puck.Sources:
Boulevard RestaurantSpago Beverly Hills
About the Author
Sarah Clark is a freelance writer based in Arlington, Virginia.Posted on September 6, 2005 at 11:14 AM
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