The Chefs Who Make It Happen

Let’s begin  by admitting a sad truth: French cuisine has never really flourished in Houston. There have been flashes of Gallic brilliance – longtime My Table readers probably remember La Réserve, Chez Georges, downtown’s Le Restaurant de France, DeVille, the Hotel Sofitel’s Le Cafe Royal, La Tour d’Argent and Cité Grill – but such restaurants usually flamed out without ever finding the local audience they deserved.

Even today greater Houston probably has fewer than 35 “French” restaurants, even counting those that self-identify as French on B4-U-Eat.com, such as Masraff’s. Think, by comparison, how many Tex-Mex restaurants we have, or Vietnamese, or Italian. But the influence of Houston’s French restaurants has always been far greater than their modest number would suggest.

And French chefs, who often seem bigger than life, are always highly visible on the local culinary landscape. For the special April-May 2012 edition of My Table devoted to French food in Houston, we sat down with leaders in the local French culinary world, including chefs, restaurateurs, educators, even a food truck operator. For more details about Houston’s French restaurants, such as addresses, phone numbers and websites, see Les Listings.

PHILIPPE SCHMIT

Chef/Owner, Philippe Restaurant + Lounge

Interviewing chef Philippe Schmit is a treat. It’s like going to a tutorial with a very good instructor. It comes through in how he relates details, like where a coveted fine sea salt comes from, or the origin of a particular type of oyster on the menu. If he taught culinary school, I am sure he would inspire admiration, a little terror and the desire to do better, as any good teacher should.

I’m not the only one who thinks Schmit is a good teacher of French cuisine: He just became the first chef in Texas to receive the rare and prestigious Maîtres Cuisiniers de France title. The mission of the Association that bestows the honor is “to preserve and spread the French culinary arts, encourage training in cuisine, and assist professional development.”

Why did you become a chef?

An uncle I never met was a chef, and my family talked about him all of the time. My mom was an incredible cook, and as cliché as it sounds, she inspired me. She cooked coq au vin, escargot, mushrooms and she baked incredible cakes. Her cakes were so good, I tried to lick the bowls.

A passion for cooking is not the same as passion for food, but I found I had both. Most of all, I wanted to travel, which is an advantage of being a chef.

What brought you to Houston?

A three-million-dollar restaurant in a hotel [the now-defunct Bistro Moderne at Hotel Derek, Schmit’s first restaurant in Houston.]

What challenges have you had in bringing French cuisine to Houstonians?

With the anti-French sentiment after 9/11, I really wasn’t sure I would be accepted. But you know what? If you work hard and have talent – if you have something to give – they will give you your chance. I loved Houston, and Houston loved me back.

We have worked hard to be approachable. We did our menu with almost no French words, because we didn’t want it to be off-putting. It’s hard sometimes, though. We get many compliments on our website, but people also get the impression from it that we’re chichi. We’re not. We wanted to break down all perceptions of French food being snooty, expensive and with small portions.

We have another challenge, and that is with sourcing premium ingredients. Houston should be a bigger food city. We’re number one in eating out, but probably number 10 when it comes to the best food cities. In order for chef-driven cuisine to do well, we need more chef-driven restaurants. We need more Bryan Caswells and Ryan Hildebrands.

For example, I like to work with organic microgreens. I want to be able to obtain sardines from Italy and sea salt from France. In order to get these things easily here in Houston, there needs to be more demand. This requires teamwork by everyone involved: restaurants, customers, suppliers and the media.

Finish this sentence. No French meal is complete without …

… a great sauce. The French invented most of the sauces, after all.

What do you cook most often at home?

I rarely cook at home, but I love eggs with black truffles or truffle oil.

If you were not a chef, what would you be doing?

I love people, so I might have been doing public relations or communications. I might have also been a women’s fashion designer, or a ballroom dancer because I love Argentinean tango. I like everything to be sexy.

DAVID DENIS

Chef/Co-owner Le Mistral

Interviewing chef David Denis gave me a new perspective. The French chefs in Houston are an extended family of sorts. Chef Denis and his brother, sommelier Sylvain Denis, recently partnered with chef Jacques Fox to open downtown’s brand-new Artisans restaurant. Before that though, both Denis and Fox taught at Culinary Institute LeNôtre under chef Alain and Marie LeNôtre.

Chef Philippe Schmit spoke warmly of Denis during my interview with him. And Denis mentioned that some former students whom he taught at LeNôtre have now been working for him for 10 years. The French world in Houston is a small, supportive one with many connections.

Why did you become a chef?

I grew up in the south of France, and food was always an important language in my life. I was very lucky to have my great-grandmother. She always cooked for the whole family and I spent a lot of time with her in the kitchen.

I was very hyper as a child, and it was hard for me to just sit on the bench at school. It is so much easier when you love something to be good at it. I was bad at school, yet when I went to culinary school I was first in the class. I was good at cooking, and suddenly I became good at school.

I have to run a business, but I love to sweat with my guys on the line. That’s my mojo!

What brought you to Houston?

I was a sous-chef in Switzerland where you can only work nine months of the year, and then they make you leave for three months. Every June, July and August, I’d go back to the south of France. I was a private chef for a family in St. Tropez.

One day, a good friend said, “There’s a family in Houston whose regular chef is sick. They have a big dinner tonight. Can you cook for them?” I said, “Sure, why not?” I came to this new house and started cooking for them. They loved the food, but I think what they loved most about me is I didn’t treat these rich people any differently than anyone else. As my grandmother used to say, “Everyone goes to the bathroom in the morning.” I cooked for them in France for three consecutive summers, and every year my skills were better thanks to the very good chefs I worked with the rest of the year in Switzerland.

Then, the family asked me to come to Houston and be a private chef. It was supposed to be for one year, but I met my wonderful wife, Elena, who had an Italian mother and Irish father. White skin, red hair … I am so lucky! I had to travel all the world and come to Houston to find this wonderful person. I’ve been in Houston for 16 years now. I started teaching at Culinary Institute LeNôtre and then opened Le Mistral.

What challenges have you had in bringing French cuisine to Houstonians?

Transitioning from being a chef, to a private chef, to a teacher was very easy. However, being a restaurateur is completely different. My brother, Sylvain, helped me open the first Le Mistral location, which was much smaller. We developed a reputation for cooking all this good French food. People would drive over wondering, “Is this really it?” when they saw it was in a strip center with a gas station in the parking lot. (Author’s note: In 2008, Le Mistral moved to a custom-built, much larger place nearby.)

All chefs cook for Houston differently. Even French chefs cook differently from each other. My goal for Le Mistral is to always cook French. I do not want to Americanize our food. However, I’ll take an ingredient that people know, like red snapper, Chilean sea bass, rack of lamb or shrimp and cook it French. Not everyone is going to accept kidney, tripe and tongue. With that being said, I do have escargot, foie gras and rabbit on the menu.

Finish this sentence. No French meal is complete without ….

… cheese! That’s the way to finish a French meal. If you really want to push it, a nice Calvados and a cigarette goes damn good, too. I don’t smoke anymore, though. I quit and I’m very proud of that.

Many people think French food is expensive. If one were to have a modest French meal, what would you recommend?

We have a $7 express lunch here at Le Mistral. It has a cup of soup and the pasta of the day and we call it “express” because it comes on the same plate. We don’t sell a lot of it, but it’s there, because I believe anyone should be able to come here and eat well. Whether someone makes $25,000 a year or $250,000 a year, I want them to be able to sit at a table with a tablecloth and enjoy fine dining. It’s also good for kids. Do I make money on this dish? I don’t know, but I don’t care.

If you were not a chef, what would you be doing?

I would be a hairdresser because I love women and I love to talk …

Read this entire article – including interviews with Dominique Bocquier and Eric LeGros at Au Petit Paris, Alain and Marie LeNôtre at Culinary Institute LeNôtre and Frédéric Perrier at Aura – in the April-May 2012 issue of My Table magazine, now on newsstands or available digitally.

Photo of Philippe Schmit courtesy of Philippe Restaurant + Lounge