Charlie Palmer's Aureole: 20 Years

By JULIETTE ROSSANT Time is against most restaurants. As in the great film, High Noon, it plays an important part in every aspect of restaurant survival. The time has to be ripe for the restaurant's menu and price point. The owner has to plan for enough time for the restaurant to become established – not just money to open, but money to survive the ups and downs of the first year or two or three. Restaurants that survive twenty years and still have time ahead of them are rare¬–especially in New York, where the hunt is on for the newest of the new. In some cases time is on a restaurant's side. Such is the case with Charlie Palmer's flagship Aureole in New York. In 2009 it moves to the Bank of America Tower, leaving behind the townhouse Charlie bought with investors in 1988 to house his American restaurant that he hoped would rival Lutece (which survived for 43 years). It has been home to many excellent chefs working their way through its small, cramped kitchen to eventually go out on their own - see Super Chef's articles on Dante Boccuzzi and Bryan Voltaggio, both Aureole alumni. In celebration of those 20 years, Charlie is hosting Aureole Gala Dinners on October 31 and November 1. "20 bites" from the last two decades of Aureole are featured in nine-course tasting menus with wine pairings. Here is Charlie on Aureole's evolving cuisine: It was 1988 New York when cotton was high and food was tall. We should probably have called it the era of "architectural digestion" because a few creations were as intricately constructed as skyscrapers. It was an unbelievably exciting time to be running my own kitchen. No longer trapped by tradition our cooking became audacious– some dishes stood out for their pure and straightforward use of impeccable ingredients, others in the strength and complexity of flavor combinations….Over the years, Aureole's food has become more "real"– for lack of a better description-and the wine cellar more varied, picking up on the ever increasing wine knowledge and enthusiasm of our guests. His own term, Progressive American Cuisine, seems the perfect term for an evolving American vision - one echoing Walt Whitman. The 1988 dish is Sea scallop sandwich, crisp potato crust, saffron pan juices, still Aureole's most popular dish. From 1998 comes Quail, sweetbread and corn pudding, black trumpet mushrooms. Charlie writes, "This dish connected me to my days at the Culinary Institute of America becasue the sweetbreads and the black trumpet mushrooms were both from the Hudson Valley." Finally from 2007, Caramelized cauliflower florets and puree, American caviar, poached egg - his version of a great farmhouse breakfast. Check out the rest of the two decades of dishes by clicking here. Read more about Charlie's career and the history of Aureole in Super Chef. Previous articles: Rising Star: Bryan Voltaggio's Volt Dante Boccuzzi: Restaurant Dant Charlie Palmer's Practical Guide to the New American Kitchen Charlie Palmer: Renaissance Chef Kitchens: Better With a Super Chef? Charlie Palmer: Dry Creek Kitchen Floweth Go Forth, Gerry Hayden & Claudia Flemming! Elections East 2: Washington Sports Night Charlie Palmer Ties as Washington's No. 1 Steakhouse Charlie Palmer: Bipartisan Turf Surfs the Hill Chef Don Pintabona Advises Innovation Technorati Tags: superchefblog, Juliette Rossant, super chef, celebrities, chefs, food, restaurants, cooking, branding, cuisine, blogging, food blogging --> back to Super Chef