The Perfectionist by Rudolph Chelminski

By JULIETTE ROSSANT In The Perfectionist (Gotham, May 2005 -- listed by Amazon.com for publication tomorrow, May 19), author Rudolph Chelminski tells the story of Bernard Loiseau, the chef of France’s La Côte D’Or, who committed suicide in 2003. This isn't the first book about Loiseau, a colorful, driven man caught up in the pressure of keeping his three Michelin stars. His wife Dominique penned a book soon after his death, Bernard Loiseau Mon Mari and William Echikson wrote about his struggle for his third Michelin Star in Burgundy Stars: A Year in the Life of a Great French Restaurant. Don't read The Perfectionist to find out the "truth" about Bernard Loiseau but rather to luxuriate in a well researched book of gossip and wonderful descriptions of the great chefs of France, the details about meals, ego and influence. Rudolph Chelminski followed Louiseau's career for three decades. When I interviewed Barry Wine for Super Chef, he gave me a glimpse of what an American would have found visiting France in the sparkling years when Nouvelle Cuisine was revolutionizing French cuisine. The movement opened Wine's eyes, just as it did for Claude Verger, Loiseau's patron, who hired him as chef, first at the Barniere de Clichy, then at La Côte D'Or. Chelminski puts Nouvelle Cuisine in perspective, drawing out the ingredients that were each chef's contribution. There are terrific descriptions of Loiseau's and Michel Guerard's dishes and plenty about the business of fine dining. Chelminski quotes Verger on Loiseau's drive: "His ambition was there right from the start," Verger told me, "and I never put him down. He was the kind of guy who would be destroyed if you discouraged him."Verger's intution proved to be tragically prescient, but it was also perfectly apt." (p. 102) Passages like these kept me focused on Loiseau's end, though doubt did enter my mind as to whether Verger would have actually had these thoughts at the time -- literary license? Cheminski takes special care in describing the rise of the gastronomic press' importance in the making of young stars in France (and later the US). "Journalists are hungry but their pay is lousy, so be nice to them," Cheminski records Verger's advice to a very young Loiseau. (p. 105). It could just have easily been advice whispered into the ear of Wolfgang Puck (probaby by Barbara Lazaroff) or the legions of young chefs to follow him to America. Cheminski then quotes Pierre Troisgros: Jean and I were of the generation of cooks who had to work their way up, and you could never get to the position of chef before you had a certian maturity. Chef de cuisine at twenty-one or twenty-two struck us as an aberration. But Verger knew exactly the style of restaurant he wanted and the kind of modern cuisine he intended to serve in it. And he came on the scene at a time when gastronomic journalism was evolving, and Gault and Millau were looking for young chefs to make into stars. Just a few years earlier a success like that would have been unthinkable. Bernard and the Barniere would have remained completely anonymous." (p.106) This very exultation of the new and youth would eventually put pressure on Loiseau, who was challenged by the newest crop of chefs practicing even more outlandish cuisines like Michel Troisgros, Olivier Roellinger, Pierre Gagnaire, Michel Bras, Marc Veyrat, and Ferran Adria (pp. 292-3). Louiseau was also at a disadvantage since he was in a town, Saulieu, with virtually no tourism in the winter months. Chelminski quotes Andre Daguin about the financial burden of a three star restaurant: After all the investment you put into the place, and the cost of the personel, on those winter evenings when you've got two or three clients, a business like that is like a vacuum cleaner for your money... So what do you do to survive? You do things on the side. You open a bistro next door. You write books. You endorse products. You do special gastronomic weeks. That's how I got by in Auch. (p. 259) That could be a play book for any American celebrity chef as well, but it didn't work for Loiseau. There are terrific stories in The Perfectionist, like Paul Bocuse's bash for Loiseau when he won his third star. Chelminski provides the sumptuous menu and includes a description of Bocuse meeting Loiseau atop one of two elephants he had borrowed from the circus, getting Loiseau to get up on the second with a magnum of champagne (pp. 255-6). 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