The Chef’s Perspective A Chat with The Bocuse Restaurant’s Sergio Remolina It takes an extraordinary amount of planning, design, construction, marketing— and tasting!—to open a new restaurant, and the Bocuse is no exception. Along with the efforts of administration, staff, students, and a steady stream of contractors, the success of The Bocuse Restaurant’s launch rested in no small measure with its opening faculty team: Chef-Instructors Rob Mullooly ’93, Sergio Remolina, and Stéphane Weber; and Maître d’Instructors John Fischer ’88, Doug Miller ’89, and Phil Papineau. Shortly after the February 15, 2013 grand opening, Chef Remolina shared a few thoughts with us about Bocuse—the man and the restaurant. A native of Mexico, Sergio Remolina was raised on his French mother’s home cooking. Before launching a successful restaurant career in Mexico, he earned his diploma of cuisine and pâtisserie at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris and staged in Michelin-starred restaurants. At the CIA, Chef Remolina previously served as chef-instructor in the Escoffier Restaurant. To help him envision the menu for the Bocuse, he flew to France last fall and spent four days with Paul Bocuse at the 87-year-old chef’s L’Auberge du Pont de Collonges, Brasserie L’Est, and Brasserie L’Ouest.
What was it like to train with Chef Bocuse and his staff? It was a very nice experience for me. I was happy to go back into a French kitchen—which is very tough, very disciplined—because I did my training in places like that. Spending time in the kitchen with Chef Bocuse as his guest, I was able to walk around all day with a spoon and taste. I watched the service, I talked to him and his chefs, and I got to observe his food philosophy and his work philosophy. At The Bocuse Restaurant, it’s all about transmitting this to our students. 14 TASTE
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Chef Bocuse is very generous and very humble. And he is a hard worker; he lives in the same building as his restaurant, and he is there at 7 a.m. every day he is in Lyon. When he walks into the kitchen, he’s able to see right away if someone’s doing something wrong. He’s sharp and he knows what he’s doing.
How does The Bocuse Restaurant menu re-imagine classic French dishes? We recreate the classics with a contemporary touch. For example, we take the traditional skate wing in brown butter with capers, lemon, parsley, and croutons and in Bocuse, we prepare the skate with a brown butter foam, fried capers, parsley fluid gel, and sourdough croutons. It’s clean, classic cuisine, using the newest cooking technology like thermocirculators and steam ovens. At the same time, we are paying homage to the classics. We don’t make the food “better”—that would be a lack of respect. We are trying to keep the integrity of the food and respect the flavor profile, focusing on fresh, local, and seasonal, just as Chef Bocuse does. We are working on his philosophy and following his example, not making the food the same.
How will the dining experience in Bocuse be different from what customers might expect? They can expect a level of service as good as at the Escoffier Restaurant but with that contemporary touch. It’s a more casual environment with more comfortable chairs, it’s more illuminated, and it feels more open. There’s more exciting stuff happening in the dining room; they’ll have ice cream created tableside. Plus, there is a pastry chef-instructor in the Bocuse now, and baking and pastry students who prepare the desserts. So customers will find desserts that are even more elaborate.
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