CELEBRATING A LEGENDRY FRENCH CHEF IN CHINESE STYLE
Hilary Biller shares a dinner embodying the spirit of Auguste Escoffier at a Johannesburg restaurant
Mounds of finely sliced, crisp seaweed. Chunks of spicy cucumber flecked with slivers of red chilli. A crystal-clear beef flank glass-noodle soup. A platter of steamed scallops in their shell, served theatrically in a flurry of billowing clouds of white smoke, like a spaceship ready for takeoff … This is a mere sample of the feast at the Red Chamber restaurant in Hyde Park, Johannesburg, last week. The evening celebrated a melange of China and France, prepared by Chef Emma Chen, Escoffier Disciple SA, and her team and brought together by the South African chapter of the Disciples Escoffier, an association that upholds the legacy of one of the world’s greatest chefs and culinary writers, Auguste Escoffier.
The “chef of kings and the king of chefs”, Escoffier became known to many through his excellent writing, like The Complete Guide to the Art of Modern Cooking (1903), a foodie’s treasure.
Scratch a little deeper and you’ll discover that the French chef’s legacy goes way beyond the books. He was the pioneer of the format of a professional kitchen and the brigade system, an organizational hierarchy still in use today.
Less well known is that Escoffier was instrumental in upgrading the appalling working conditions of chefs at the time, and went as far as establishing a union for the workers in tall hats.
His sweetest legacy, perhaps, is his creation of Peach Melba — gently poached seasonal peaches on a scoop of homemade vanilla ice cream topped with a raspberry sauce, first made in honour of the Australian soprano Nellie Melba.
The restaurant was stuffed to capacity with a merry mix of diners (thanks to the Bayede! wines), including many in the hospitality industry and a handful of SA’s top chefs, among them the previous president of the South African Chefs Association, Martin Kobald; the current president, James Khoza; and the affable Fortunata Mazzone of Forti Bar and Grill in Pretoria.
Between courses — prawns with fresh fruit, dragon boat kingklip, the decadent Peking duck for which Red Chamber is famous — new members were inducted into the Disciples Escoffier with great pomp and ceremony: a large wooden spoon tapped on each shoulder, a red sash, for chefs, placed across their chests and a miniature French copper pan attached to their chef’s jacket. Voila!
RED CHAMBER
Hyde Park Corner Shopping Centre Tel: 011-325-6048 info@redchamber.co.za