EAT : Raleigh, North Carolina
Saint Jacques Restaurant, New Years Eve 2011 Dinner Service
My plan for this New Year’s Eve 2011 was to stay home with the family and hopefully stay awake until midnight to watch the ball drop on TV. That was the plan until my cell phone rang at exactly 1:41 pm on December 30, 2010. The voice on the other side was that of my great friend Lil Lacassagne, who owns the well respected fine dining French restaurant Saint Jacques. Years ago I worked at Saint Jacques and a great friendship was born from it. - Georges, do you want to come by the restaurant tomorrow night and give us a hand for our New Year Eve’s service? he asked me - But Lil, you know it has been at least 3 years since I have put on a waiter’s uniform. I am out of shape, slow, and have lost my mind since having kids. Do you know that it has been years since I had any nightmares about waiting tables? (FYI: ask any waiter about it, they all have them). - C’mon, you will be great Georges, you will see. It felt like one of those Kirk Douglas movies, you know the ones where one old bank robber is convincing another who is trying to make an honest living on how they should get together to pull one last job. I tell you that the old bank robber in me was very tempted. Even though I walked away from that life years ago, I do still miss working in fine dining restaurants: the rush, the camaraderie, and specially being surrounded by good food and wine. How can I honesty write a food blog and not jump at this opportunity? I wanted to write about Saint Jacques for a while now, and this would be my big chance !
Saint Jacques proprietors, Lil and Lori Lacassagne I met Lil Lacassagne almost 7 years ago during a very difficult time in my life. For the first time I had just been fired from a job: as a bartender in an Irish Pub by a coke addicted scum bag of a manager, and I promised myself then that I would never work in any restaurant again. Working as a bartender I had lost my ways: I was full of negativity, coming home from work at 4:00 am, sleeping until 1:00 pm and being surrounded by drinking and partying every night did not do wonders for my relationship with Carrie. At that point my artistic, personal, and professional lives were in shambles. I then heard that a new French restaurant called Saint Jacques had just opened, and being broke I told myself that I could muster enough courage to work in a restaurant again for at least a short while. I called and Lil abruptly cut me off telling me that he did not needed any help. I mention how I was half French and that maybe we could sit down for coffee and just talk. I guess I just wanted to practice my French and being unemployed I had a lot of free time. We did meet at Saint Jacques, and after an hour of talking about food, France and life in general he offered me one, possibly two, lunch shifts a week. A month later I was working 4 doubles a week. Lil brought back the love, passion and respect for food and wine that I had lost along the way. He is a perfectionist, a disciplinarian, a freak for details, he micro manages everything, and is brutally honest. But he is also a genuine person who has a great heart, a big sense of humor, and is a genius (and I do not use this word lightly) about food and wine. Ask him anything about food or wine and he will talk to you for hours, literally. Lil grew up in the South of France, graduated from Culinary School in Hyeres and trained at the famous "La Calanque" in the town of Cavalere. He began his career under the guidance of Roger Verge at the Moulin de Mougins and worked for several other 3 Star Michelins in Europe. Other pupils of Chef Verge include Alain Ducasse, Jacques Maximin, and Daniel Boulud among others. Lil’s lovely wife Lori who also runs the restaurant is another food industry force. She previously worked for 11 years on cruise ships traveling internationally within the Purser's Department then advancing to the first female Hotel Manager. They do make a great couple along with their 11 year old daughter Mahalee. .
Cutting the baguettes. The preparation before a big night like tonight is full of stress. Everyone in the room is making sure that everything is ready; we all know that in a little over an hour we will be running around like crazy. .
Setting up the butter .
Coffee Cups for the Lobster Bisque dish .
The Champagne on ice: every guest will be greeted with a glass of it
The wait staff setting up the glasses. This group was a serious, knowledgeable and friendly crew and I was happy to be welcomed by them. I tell you that in the middle of the dinner service it is pivotal for the wait staff to work together and they did that by showing a true spirit of team work. There were neither runners nor busboys on the floor, so they helped each other throughout the night by refilling water, doing the bread service, running food and re-setting the tables.
Lil Lacassagne during the pre-service meeting with the staff discussing all the details for the night. No stone is left unturned as he talks about specific tables, when will they be arriving, seating arrangements, personal preferences of the guests, how the computer terminals will be working and so on. He informs us that tonight a new restaurant record for dinner reservations are in the books. Not exactly the most encouraging words you want to hear when you have not waited tables for about 3 years. Chef Scarangella is also part of the staff meeting and he describes and discusses every single item and cooking method for every dish that will be served.
The back of the house: Chef John Scarangella, Doug Apelian, and James Freeze. If Lil and Lori are the brains behind the operation, and the wait staff is the lungs of it, then the kitchen staff is by far the heart and soul. The service can be as great as possible, but if the food is not to the level of what is expected, then I can assure you that the guests will not come back, plain and simple.
Chef Scarangella over seeing that every station of his the kitchen is ready for the dinner service. The kitchen did an outstanding job throughout the evening. The food came out on time and perfectly plated. .
The dining room ready for the service: the anxious calm before the storm. .
New Year’s 2011 dinner menu Here are images of the food served that night. The quality of the images is not great as I was taking the pictures throughout the night using only my phone. I laid a black napkin on the kitchen counter, and before taking the food out to the front of the house I would sneakily take out my phone and snap the photograph. I only had a few seconds to do this because I need it to take the food out as soon as possible. Even though the Chef agreed for me to photograph the food, the last thing I wanted was to get my butt chewed out by him for ruining his creations. .
Amuse Bouche: Parmesan gourgere filled with goat cheese and fresh herbs accompanied with a chilled glass of champagne .
Traditional Lobster Bisque Cappuccino topped with a creamy truffle cloud and served with a fresh herbs biscotti .
Baby Spinach Salad Fresh baby spinach, crispy smoked apple wood bacon bits, shaved button mushrooms, hardboiled egg, pickled onions tossed with a warm bacon vinaigrette After a Framboise and Champagne Sorbet, choice of one of the following dishes: .
Beautiful Chicken Breast Roulade Filled with an herb chicken mousse served with a Normandie sauce of thin slices of apple, smoked bacon and cream, Boulangère potato and Provençale stuffed tomato .
Fresh Lamb Loin Medallions Lamb and roasted herb juice, brushed with mustard and lightly crusted served with a homemade Boeuf bourguignon swiss-chard ravioli. .
Salmon in Lobster Sauce“a la Bretonne” Lobster champagne dill cream sauce on a Filet of Norwegian salmon gently pan seared till tender, served over caramelized leek and roasted mushroom risotto cake .
Entrecote de Boeuf (French ribeye cut) Rosemary and garlic crusted topped off with the cooking juice reduction Boulangère potato and asparagus hollandaise .
Le dessert: Trio of homemade Saint Jacques Favorites Chocolate mousse, vanilla crème brulée and praliné ice cream Profiterolle .
The dinner was a success, the restaurant is now empty and we have time for a quick New Year’s Eve toast before going home. As for me and the dinner service? I am proud to say that even though I did get slammed a couple of times I held my own pretty good and showed that for an old man I can still do the job. I will go as far as saying that I really enjoyed this whole evening a lot. That is not to say that I am planning another restaurant comeback anytime soon as the thing I do not like about working in restaurants did happened to me again to remind me why I walked away from waiting tables: coming home at 1:30 am to everyone sleeping and staying awake for a couple more hours due to the adrenaline from the dinner rush… and when I finally went to sleep, I did have again those uneasy dreams about waiting tables.
There is a very important story behind this photograph. Not only I am next to my good friend Lil, but in my right hand I am drinking a Château Margaux 2001, one of the best wines in the World. I do not really know why, but last New Year’s Eve I challenge myself that I would not drink alcohol throughout 2010. So for the last couple of weeks, after not drinking for a whole year, I had been pondering what would be my first drink of 2011. I finally made my mind that it would be a Guinness … that was until Lil made me an offer that I could not refuse.
Saint Jacques was named One of the Top50 Best Overall Restaurants in the United States by OpenTable Diners. More about Saint Jacques Restaurant CLICK HERE
More about Château Margaux wines CLICK HERE More about Chef Roger Verge CLICK HERE
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http://backofthehouse.tumblr.com/post/2577504425/from-the-kitchen