Dining in the kitchen

Berkeley, October 20, 2009—

DINING IN THE KITCHEN downstairs at Chez Panisse is a particular pleasure. The table is small, the light bright, the ambiance distracting, I grant you: but that's the point. You sit between the pastry kitchen and the salad-pasta table; a little further is the line, the stoves, and the hearth. Dishwashers shuttle quickly and smoothly between kitchens and dishroom. Waiters hustle in, chalk up orders, pick up plates. Bussers fetch bottles from the wine room. The pastry staff quietly and intently go about folding lattices of pastry across tartes, whisking sauces, plating desserts.
We dine downstairs at Chez Panisse rarely; it's always a specal treat. We're tolerated in the kitchen because we know these people, have worked with them for nearly forty years. We still feel honored to be there.

This dinner began with these leeks in vinaigrette with prosciutto, egg, capers, and cornichons, a spray of chervil on the side. The vinaigrette was thick, verging toward a mayonnaise. Leeks from the restaurant's Sonoma valley farm; egg and prosciutto with flavor that manages to be both delicate and deep.
Afterward, "tea-smoked Bolinas black cod" — don't ask me how that's done — with spinach and wild mushrooms: complex, spicy, smoky, certainly exotic. Then grilled duck breast with duck-leg confit and a faux-cassoulet (my term, not the menu's) featuring fresh shell beans, at least four different kinds each maintaining its integrity. And then an apple-quince tart with Calvados ice cream. Quite an amazing dinner, no matter where you eat it.

Sancerre, Les Monts Damnés, Chavignol, Thomas Labaille, 2007; Morgon, Côte du Py, Jean Foillard, 2008; Touraine, Domaine La Grande Tiphaine, Damien Delecheneau, "Côt, vieilles vignes", 2008