Roland Passot | |
|---|---|
 Passot at a staff appreciation dinner | |
| Born | |
| Culinary career | |
| Cooking style | French |
Rating(s) | |
Current restaurant(s)
| |
Award(s) won | |
Roland Passot is a French chef and restaurateur. His most well-known restaurant, La Folie, was open in San Francisco from 1988 to 2020. He is also owner of the more casual Left Bank Basseries and LB Steak restaurants. Passot was named one of "the eight wonders of Bay Area dining" by San Francisco Chronicle lead critic Michael Bauer. [2]
Passot was born in 1955 in Villefranche-sur-Saône, in France's Rhône-Alpes. [3] He is a classically trained French chef, having attended cooking school in Lyon while beginning as an assistant, at age fourteen, in the city's Léon de Lyon restaurant under Chef Paul Lacombe, and then Pierre Orsi Restaurant. [4] After Passot rose to the rank of assistant sous-chef at Léon de Lyon, Jean Banchet (who Passot considers his most important influence) [5] recruited him in 1979 to work at Le Francais in Wheeling, Illinois (near Chicago, Illinois | Chicago), then sent him in 1981 to open the French Room at the Adolphus Hotel in Dallas, Texas [6] (He was fired from the French Room after getting into a shouting match with its maitre d'). [7] In between, he opened Le Castel in San Francisco. [8] [9]
Passot opened La Folie on Polk Street in 1988, with his wife Jamie and brother Georges. A small brasserie in the Polk Gulch section of the Russian Hill neighborhood of San Francisco, it opened at a cost of $45,000 with no outside investors. [5] His wife conceived the name, which means "craziness" or "folly" in French, referring to the difficulty of opening a new establishment in San Francisco's competitive restaurant scene. [9] The restaurant remained a family business, with his wife serving as general manager and his brother as sommelier. [9] La Folie steadily gained in reputation until, by 2000, it was one of only several restaurants in the San Francisco Bay Area, California, to earn a "four star" review from the San Francisco Chronicle. [10] Avoiding "fusion" influences, the establishment was a contemporary French restaurant, with classic French use of stocks and sauces, but lighter than traditional French and with attention to local ingredients. [9] After 32 years in business, La Folie closed in 2020. “It’s bittersweet for me to let it go, but it’s time,” said Passot of the closing. “I’m turning 65 this year. It’s time to let the next generation do their thing.” [11]
Passot joined forces to open Left Bank [9] in 1994, with partner Ed Levine in Larkspur, California. [10] [12] The second Left Bank opened in Menlo Park, California in 1998, [12] and then San Jose in 2003. The restaurants serve French home-style cooking Passot calls "Cuisine Grand-mere". [13] In 2009, the Left Bank restaurant group opened LB Steak, a modern American Steakhouse, in San Jose's Santana Row. [14]
In style, Passot favors contemporary French cuisine, avoiding fusion, molecular gastronomy, and new devices or techniques such as sous vide. [7] Passot has a reputation for hiring and mentoring young academy-trained chefs. [9] A number of successful restaurant chefs credit Passot as a mentor, or as inspiration, including Richard Reddington, the Michelin starred Chef of REDD in Yountville, CA. Jeffrey Russell, Executive Chef at The Grand America Hotel in Salt Lake City, [15] Trey Foshee of George's at the Cove in La Jolla, California, [16] and Michael Kramer, formerly of McCrady's Restaurant in Charleston, South Carolina and (as of 2008) of Voice Restaurant in Houston, Texas [17]
In 1991 Passot was inducted into the Maitres Cuisiniers de France. [4] [18] His restaurant won the Zagat Survey awards for "Best Food" and "Best Nouvelle French restaurant" in 1998, and "Best French restaurant" in San Francisco, in 2002. He also earned a James Beard Award as "best rising star chef" of 1980, [3] and other "best" designations and awards from USA Today, Food & Wine Magazine, Gourmet magazine, Gault Millau, and SF Weekly. [13] In 2001 the French Government awarded him the "Chevalier dans l’Ordre du Mèrite Agricole". [13]
A local caviar producer, Tsar Nicoulai, has named a product after him. [19]
Passot met his wife, Jamie, when she was working at the Four Seasons Resort in Irving, Texas. [20] They have two kids, Charlotte and Jean Paul. Known for being gregarious and social, Passot is a frequent participant in cooking shows and demonstrations, charity events, and television appearances. [6] After gaining weight from the stress of managing his restaurants, he lost 60 pounds by eliminating alcohol, sugar, and starches from his diet. [21]
French cuisine is the cooking traditions and practices from France. In the 14th century, Guillaume Tirel, a court chef known as "Taillevent", wrote Le Viandier, one of the earliest recipe collections of medieval France. In the 17th century, chefs François Pierre La Varenne and Marie-Antoine Carême spearheaded movements that shifted French cooking away from its foreign influences and developed France's own indigenous style.
Alain Pierre Sailhac was a French internationally recognized chef working in New York City, where he held the position of executive vice president and dean emeritus at The International Culinary Center, founded as the French Culinary Institute. Sailhac earned the first-ever four-star rating from The New York Times while at Le Cygne in 1977. He went on to be a chef at Le Cirque, the 21 Club, and the Plaza Hotel.
Thomas Aloysius Keller is an American chef, restaurateur, and cookbook author. He and his landmark Napa Valley restaurant, The French Laundry in Yountville, California, have won multiple awards from the James Beard Foundation, notably the Best California Chef in 1996, and the Best Chef in America in 1997. The restaurant was a perennial winner in the annual Restaurant list of the Top 50 Restaurants of the World; the voting process has since been changed to disallow previous winners from being considered.
California-style pizza is a style of pizza that combines New York and Italian thin crust with toppings from the California cuisine cooking style. Its invention is generally attributed to chef Ed LaDou, and Chez Panisse, in Berkeley, California. Wolfgang Puck, after meeting LaDou, popularized the style of pizza in the rest of the country. It is served in many California cuisine restaurants. California Pizza Kitchen, Round Table Pizza, Extreme Pizza, and Sammy's Woodfired Pizza are four major pizza franchises associated with California-style pizza.
Prosper Montagné was one of the most renowned French chefs of the Belle Époque and author of many books and articles on food, cooking, and gastronomy, notably Larousse Gastronomique (1938), an encyclopedic dictionary of the French culinary arts. While Montagné was once as famous as his friend Auguste Escoffier, and was one of the most influential French chefs of the early twentieth century, his fame has faded somewhat. In the 1920s, Montagné, Escoffier, and Philéas Gilbert—their close friend and collaborator, and an acclaimed chef and writer in his own right—were the French chefs and culinary writers esteemed above others by many French journalists and writers. After Montagné's death, the chef and author Alfred Guérot's description of the troika as the "celebrated contemporary culinary trinity: Auguste Escoffier, the father; Philéas Gilbert, the son; Prosper Montagné, the spirit" reflects the reverence in which all three were held by the French culinary community.
Ron Siegel is an American chef who formerly worked in San Francisco. In August 2012, it was announced he was joining San Francisco restaurant, Michael Mina, as executive chef. He had been Chef of the Dining Room at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel, taking over for Chef Sylvain Portray in 2004. Siegel is perhaps best known for his 1998 appearance on Iron Chef, becoming the first ever U.S. citizen to win in Kitchen Stadium. His cooking style is known for blending haute French cuisine with subtle Japanese touches.
The kitchen brigade is a system of hierarchy found in restaurants and hotels employing extensive staff, commonly referred to as "kitchen staff" in English-speaking countries.
Laurent Manrique is a French restaurateur and Michelin-starred chef. He currently owns establishments in San Francisco and Mexico.
Fleur de Lys was a French restaurant in San Francisco, California, US. It closed in June 2014 after a 28-year run.
François Massialot was a French chef who served as chef de cuisine to various illustrious personages, including Philippe I, Duke of Orléans, the brother of Louis XIV, and his son Philippe II, Duke of Orléans, who was first duc de Chartres then the Regent, as well as the duc d'Aumont, the Cardinal d’Estrées, and the marquis de Louvois. His Le cuisinier roïal et bourgeois first appeared, anonymously, as a single volume in 1691, and was expanded to two (1712) then three volumes, in the revised edition of 1733–34. His lesser cookbook, Nouvelle instruction pour les confitures, les liqueurs et les fruits,, appeared, also anonymously, in 1692.
Jacky Robert is an American chef who helped to create fusion cuisine in the 1980s. He is the cofounder, with Martha Castano, of the non-profit OnBoardForKids.Org
Michelle Mah is the director of operations for The Slanted Door Group in San Francisco, California. She was previously the chef de cuisine at The Slanted Door, consulting chef at The Brixton, and executive chef at Midi.
Daniel Patterson is an American chef, restaurateur, and food writer, considered a leading proponent of California cuisine.
Roger Vergé was a French chef and restaurateur. He is considered one of the greatest chefs of his time. The Gault Millau described him as "the very incarnation of the great French chef for foreigners".
Christopher Kostow is the executive chef at The Restaurant at Meadowood in Napa Valley, California. Under chef-owner Kostow, The restaurant was awarded three stars by the Michelin Guide consecutively from 2011 to 2019. In 2013, Chef Kostow was awarded the James Beard Foundation Award for "Best Chef: West".
Thomas McNaughton is an American chef, restaurateur, and cookbook writer. He is the chef and owner of Flour + Water, Penny Roma, Flour + Water Pasta Shop, and Flour + Water Pizzeria in San Francisco, California.
Quince is a restaurant in the Jackson Square neighborhood in San Francisco, California. Opened in 2003 by chef Michael Tusk and his wife, Lindsay, in Pacific Heights, the restaurant has been located in Jackson Square since 2009. A sister restaurant, Cotogna, opened next door in 2011.
Cafe La Haye is a restaurant in Sonoma, California in the United States. It was opened by owner Saul Gropman in 1996. When Michael Bauer was food critic of the San Francisco Chronicle, Cafe La Haye was a perennial listing in his annual Top 100 restaurants list and one of his favorite restaurants in Wine Country. Cafe La Haye sources food produced within 60 miles of the restaurant.
Érick Jacquin is a French chef, naturalized Brazilian, who works in Latin America. He became better known after joining the talent show MasterChef, broadcast in Brazil by networks Band and Discovery Home & Health. The chef also presents the program "Pesadelo na Cozinha", broadcast by Band, which aims to help restaurants on the verge of bankruptcy to rise. Since 2019, he started publishing videos on his YouTube channel, where he presents the preparation of recipes in the kitchen of his restaurant Président, with the participation of his employees. On October 8, 2020, he scheduled a debut on the band of the Minha Renda program, always on Thursdays, at 10:45 pm.
La Folie was a French restaurant in Russian Hill, San Francisco, in the U.S. state of California. The fine dining establishment had received a Michelin star, before closing in 2020.
