André Soltner, the influential French chef who died at 92 in January, was remembered warmly by household and mates for his frugal habits, although a memorial to have a good time him on Saturday afternoon in Manhattan was something however.
A 16-piece orchestra perched above the cathedral-size ballroom at 583 Park Avenue welcomed friends to their gilt chairs with strains of Handel and Bach filling the air, a rampart of yellow and apricot flowers lining the stage. Beneath a large crystal chandelier, a sea of chef’s whites assembled to honor the person behind the famed restaurant Lutèce, who many within the room thought-about a hero, if not a detailed mentor.
Daniel Boulud, who’s Mr. Soltner’s fellow Frenchman and the chef of the Michelin-starred restaurant Daniel, sat subsequent to Thomas Keller, of Per Se and the French Laundry. Danny Meyer, the restaurateur behind Gramercy Tavern and Shake Shack, sat in a row simply behind them, with the celeb chef Tom Colicchio close by. Jacques Pépin, at 89 one among Mr. Soltner’s few contemporaries current, donned his chef’s uniform for the afternoon.
The focus of culinary star energy ought to have required a delegated survivor.
“Lutèce was not a elaborate restaurant,” Mr. Boulud mentioned affectionately, recalling the restaurant in a comfortable townhouse on East fiftieth Avenue that Mr. Soltner helped make right into a vacation spot for French delicacies from its opening in 1961 to its shuttering in 2004. “You walked in and there was that little bistro feeling within the entrance, and it felt like a house.”
Mr. Soltner started as head chef on the restaurant, ultimately shopping for out his associate, Andre Surmain, in 1973. He was a continuing presence till he bought it to Ark Eating places in 1994, whereupon he turned a dean on the French Culinary Institute in Manhattan.
Mr. Soltner and his spouse, Simone, who died in 2016, lived above the restaurant, which drew the likes of Henry Kissinger, Marilyn Monroe and Mick Jagger. On the memorial, a slide present projection with pictures of notes left by notable, and well-fed, patrons by means of the years drew oohs and ahs from the group.
A big display screen projected pictures of Mr. Soltner all through his life, starting from his youth within the Alsace area of France by means of his years at Lutèce and later as an educator and mentor, many together with his companion of eight years, Maryvonne Gasparini; his mirthful, Gallic smile unchanging.
“I’ve but to discover a image the place André didn’t look glad,” mentioned Glenn W. Dopf, a longtime buddy of Mr. Soltner’s. Mr. Dopf and Jacques Torres, the pastry chef and chocolatier, had been emcees of the memorial, which included remarks from Mr. Boulud, Mr. Keller, and Rodrigo Campos, who met Mr. Soltner as a 16-year-old whereas working as a cleaner in his constructing in New York and is now a chef himself.
Mr. Campos spoke of how he had expressed his need to be a chef, with Mr. Soltner taking {the teenager} below his wing and arranging for him to ultimately attend culinary college. He’s now the manager chef at Mr. Boulud’s Centurion New York restaurant.
“He didn’t count on something again,” Mr. Campos mentioned of Mr. Soltner’s generosity.
Anne Vandevoorde, a niece of Mr. Soltner’s, was one of some members of the family who spoke, remembering her well-known “tonton” with fondness. “Having no kids was a supply of disappointment, however you’ve got been a father to many,” she mentioned.
Invoice Peet, who’s the manager chef at Tavern on the Inexperienced and was a chef at Lutèce for 15 years, shared an anecdote of his previous boss having knee surgical procedure within the morning and displaying up for the night dinner service later that day.
“André was the instance,” he mentioned. “He by no means took off.”
As friends descended to a decrease stage for lunch, a band that evoked Mr. Soltner’s Alsatian roots performed “La Marseillaise,” the French nationwide anthem, whereas a silent coterie of ushers from the Frank E. Campbell funeral home, which organized the afternoon’s proceedings, herded the likes of Martha Stewart and the chef David Burke right down to the awaiting feast.
Hardly a typical post-service repast, the assorted stations boasted such delicacies as smoked mushrooms by Jean-Georges Vongerichten, bacon tarte flambeé by Gabriel Kreuther and bonbons by Mr. Torres.
Mr. Pépin’s desk in a far nook turned the middle of gravity as comparatively youthful cooks, like Mr. Keller and Mr. Boulud, knelt in dialog to the room’s elder statesman and plates from every meals station had been delivered.
“André can be very sad with all of the waste,” Mr. Pépin mentioned with an ironic smile, indicating a half-eaten plate of smoked salmon crepe in entrance of him. Mr. Soltner’s propensity for economizing had been recalled by Mr. Dopf upstairs earlier, with reported habits like judiciously saving wine corks to make use of to stability unsteady eating tables or inserting burned out lightbulbs within the freezer with the assumption that the chilly might revive the filament.
In a room of individuals often called celeb cooks, Mr. Soltner had been the prototype.
“He was very a lot,” Mr. Boulud mentioned. “However he hated to get the eye. He didn’t need it. André was humble.”
Mr. Boulud described his late buddy’s meals as trustworthy.
“André was somebody who did not want caviar, truffle or Foie gras to show that he might cook dinner,” he mentioned earlier than describing a few of his favourite dishes with relish: a soup of mussels, then a pheasant with braised cabbage, and a souffle.
“Easy and simply excellent,” he added. “He made New York his village, and so they all got here to his home.”
