Chef Sandro Gamba/Four Seasons Westlake Village

From left to right: Entrance; dining room; and chef’s table at Hampton’s;
Onyx dining room at the Four Seasons
(Chef Gamba Photo: Rich Marchewka; Hampton’s Photos: Barbara Kraft)

CHEF SANDRO GAMBA. We did a lot of fine dining last summer: Vintner’s Inn (Sonoma -- excellent), Auberge (Napa -- always fine), The French Laundry (perhaps the best in the country). But this summer it was chefs not just restaurants that drew our attention. Two we are singling out are attached to major hotels: Chef Sandro Gamba of the Four Seasons Westlake Village, and Chef Ron Siegel of The Ritz-Carlton San Francisco. If you’re not familiar with Westlake Village in southern California, you should be. It’s under an hour’s drive from Los Angeles and is the newest oasis and spa and recreational property under the aegis of the Four Seasons. Thomas Gurtner, a genial, courteous, and gentlemanly veteran general manager at Four Seasons, runs the property, which is poetic in its beauty and peace: nine acres of sculpted gardens, hundreds of trees, waterfalls, spas, fitness centers, holistic therapies, and an environment that encourages serenity and well being. Speaking of which, there’s a new California WellBeing Institute here, one of four already associated with the Four Seasons, where guests can get guidance and training from doctors and dieticians and staff on healthy living. When it comes to health, to gourmet dining, and to contemporary multi-cultural cooking, there is none better than Chef Sandro Gamba, who runs the three kitchens at the hotel, and who oversees Hampton’s, the signature dining room. Gamba is French; he apprenticed under Chef Lucien Pauly in central France, and trained in Paris with Chef Alain Ducasse. In the U.S., he joined NoMI in Chicago and later Lespinasse in Washington, D.C. He made Food & Wine’s list of the “Best New Chefs in America,” and was recently featured on the Discovery Channel’s “Great Chefs” series. He moved to Four Seasons Westlake Village over a year ago. As executive chef, Gamba has created contemporary California cuisine, offering lifestyle dining options that are attractive, flavorful, engagingly decadent, and totally satisfying, even with moderate portions. “When developing dishes,” says Gamba, “I follow the philosophy that ‘life is good and that good food is good for your life.’ I create healthy haute cuisine.” It’s enough to make us wonder why we have not always eaten as well and as sensibly. At Westlake Village you can be sure you are not paying to be hungry; this is not minimalist food portions of the kind foisted on an unwitting public by the French in the late ’70s. This is exactly the kind of dining, for example, Mireille Guiliano of the best-selling French Women Don’t Get Fat would condone. As for Gamba, he’s a disciple of a trinity of great mentors: Chef Ducasse, who insisted that a great chef needs high quality ingredients; Chef Robuchon, who taught him how to season a dish; and Chef Roger Verge, who taught him the art of Mediterranean cuisine. The several restaurants at Westlake offer a variety of menus. At Onyx, for example, the Japanese restaurant, Chef Masasuke Shimakawa creates sushi and sashimi and other more formal Japanese cultural cuisine. Nonetheless, Hampton’s is the place to be. The wine list at Westlake is not just another first-class list; it was created with the idea of marrying the wines with Chef Gamba’s innovative dishes, and to that end it succeeds. We paired one of Gamba’s favorite dishes, Gulf Snapper with roasted eggplant, tiny artichokes, with oven cured tomatoes and basil essence, with a Pinot Noir and a Meritage blend. Like the food, the wines were perfection.

Chef Ron Siegel/The Ritz-Carlton Hotel, San Francisco

From left to right: Dining room; cheese cart; fois gras in brioche; and mignardises

CHEF RON SIEGEL oversees the Dining Room at The Ritz-Carlton Hotel, still the best dining spot and the best hotel in San Francisco, a city with plenty of great restaurants and fine hotels. Siegel’s culinary métier is Modern French with Japanese influences, and his cooking is ethereal: puff pastries that nearly dissolve on your palate, cooking that is light, delicate, engaging and utterly satisfying. A hot foie gras in brioche was to die for; baby lamb ravioli was fabulous in its classic simplicity; sashimi of live spot prawns with yuzu and fresh wasabi was fresh and lively with an eye-opening plate presentation. Siegel admits to “cooking what he likes, what’s fresh, what feels right.” He has had considerable training with the star chefs, having worked with Michael Mina at Aqua in San Francisco, with Daniel Boulud at Restaurant Daniel in Manhattan, and with Thomas Keller at The French Laundry in Yountville. Readers may also remember Chef Siegel as television’s “Iron Chef,” defeating Chef Hiroyuki Sakai on national television in 1998. Siegel makes everybody’s “Best Chef” list, like Food and Wine’s, but this culinary wunderkind has emerged in the last three or four years as no other chef, and his joining The Ritz-Carlton has been especially good because the hotel’s resources allow him to create some fabulous cuisine and to match it with wines from one of the best lists in the world, a list which well-known sommelier Stephane Lacroix carefully oversees. Further, Chef Siegel has a wait staff that is military in its precision yet chameleon-like in its service: you know they are always there, doing what they do well, but remain comfortably invisible all the time. Siegel and The Ritz are a three-star Michelin dining experience, rivaling the elegance and excellence of Ducasse, Guy Savoy, and The French Laundry.

10th Professional Excellence Awards

From left to right: Honorees Michael Aaron/Sherry-Lehmann, John Shafer/Shafer Vineyards, and Miguel Torres/Torres Wines

Dave Reynolds, auctioneer

This magazine in conjunction with New York Institute of Technology awarded Professional Excellence Awards to Napa’s John Shafer of Shafer Vineyards, to Spain’s Miguel Torres of Torres Wines, and to Manhattan’s Michael Aaron, Chairman of Sherry-Lehmann, who gave a spirited speech about the emergence of the wine industry over the decades, and some words about Hal Friedlander, the 94-year-old New Yorker who bought 1966 Pétrus, 1966 Haut-Brion, and 1966 Château Lafite in 1972 from Sherry-Lehmann for $93 to $117 a case. The same wines at auction are now in the thousands. Each year the event grows, and this year’s Professional Excellence Awards netted NYIT more than $510,000 for student scholarships. The Awards were created by Richard Elia, publisher of QRW, and Edward Guiliano, President of NYIT (who, along with wife Mireille, write the “Wining and Dining” column for this magazine). More than 300 well-heeled and generous Manhattan supporters of education and of wine were on-hand for the three-day show: the “Taste Around, In Good Taste” at the NYIT Seversky Mansion in Old Westbury; the Winemaker’s & Chef’s Dinner at Del Posto in Manhattan; and the Awards Ceremony and Live Auction at the Hotel Pierre. Some top bid items: a Shafer vertical sold for $7,500; and a dinner for 13 couples by the Guilianos sold for $32,500. As always auctioneer Dave Reynolds picked the pockets handsomely of an accepting audience by urging, cajoling, and joking his way to the most successful financial auction in its ten-year history. Some past recipients of Professional Excellence Awards have been winemakers: Laurie Hook (Beringer), John Mariani (Banfi), Tom Shelton (Joseph Phelps Winery & Vineyards), Warren Winiarski (Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars), Jacques Lardiere (Jadot Wines), Jack Cakebread (Cakebread Cellars), Tom Mackey (St. Francis Winery), Michel Perrin (Château de Beaucastel), Prince Robert de Luxembourg (Château Haut-Brion), and Gina Gallo (Gallo Family Vineyards), while culinary recipients have been Lidia Bastianich, Daniel Boulud and Charlie Trotter.

From left to right: Mireille and Edward Guiliano, Christine and Michael Aaron, Aldo Smith and Linda DaVila, Barbara and John Shafer, Miguel Torres, Harley MacKenzie and Richard Elia

Happy 5th Birthday Two Buck Chuck

Fred Franzia

Since we’re celebrating birthdays in “Wine Scene,” it’s time to say the same to Fred Franzia’s Two Buck Chuck, the Charles Shaw wine he made famous by selling through the Trader Joe’s chain. According to Franzia, he has had “inquires from 127 countries wanting to introduce Charles Shaw brand to their customers.” In the U.S., prices vary from region to region, but the wine stills sells from $2 to $3. “So far,” continues Franzia, “we have sold over 300,000,000 bottles of Charles Shaw and we’re still going strong.” Two Buck was made even more famous when wine critic Frank Prial -- a “value wine” advocate -- of The New York Times recommended the wine, giving high marks to this easily quaffable vino. Franzia has always seen himself as the king of value wines (under $10). Two Buck Chuck also made the “Best of The Best Must Buys” (under $10) in two varietals at this magazine’s blind tasting last spring. Franzia is still trying to convince a national restaurant chain to take up his offer of having a $10 bottle of wine for their patrons. “Wine is still too expensive in restaurants; even Miller Beer is complaining that restaurants charge too much for their beer,” he laments. “They don’t get it,” says Franzia: “the U.S. is about to replace France as the world’s largest wine drinking nation. It took us 70 years since Prohibition to reach one bottle per month or 2.4 gallons per year. Our goal is to raise consumption to 12 bottles per month.” Ordering wine in restaurants is a given these days, and having an easily affordable and approachable wine at lunch or dinner needs to be encouraged. Whatever, Franzia’s latest venture is three-fold: glass, the environment, and a public park. He wants to create a glass container plant on his property between Devlin Road and Highway 29 in the Napa County airport industrial area. It will be the first new glass plant since the 1960s. The usually disputative Franzia is cooperating fully with Napa authorities on this venture, which is expected to bring the Napa County tax base an extra $2 million. The plant itself will cost in “excess of $200 million and create 350 high paying jobs with an annual payroll of $35 million dollars.” “It’s more than just the plant,” continues Franzia, “the real bonus is that our proposed glass plant will eliminate 62,000 truckloads or approximately 375,000 diesel-driving hours per year within the San Francisco Bay Area Basin. This reduces emissions over 32,000 tons per year. Also, we’re going to create a park and arboretum buffer of about eight acres, which will include a variety of trees, shrubs, and plants, which will be available to the public for educational tours.” Franzia has always had an animosity for foreign wine imports. “I haven’t changed my mind about that,” he says. “Today, some wine bottles are now being imported to us from China. We do not want to be putting our wine in bottles made in China. We need every advantage to compete and succeed in the global marketplace with bottles made here.”

Harvard Business School Women’s Association

Peter and Melissa Donohoe with Wade Welch, underwriters of HBSWA event (Photos: Meri Bond Photography)

QRW in conjunction with the law offices of Welch and Donohoe, LLC, a major firm in Boston (www.welchdonohoe.com) underwrote a fundraising for HBSWA. Underwriter Wade Welch is legal counsel for QRW. Richard Elia, QRW publisher, conducted, offering wines from his own collection, followed by a raffle of the unopened wines for the evening. More than 60 women, all smartly attired, all executive-world thin, and all wine savvy were on hand to taste some major varietals from Champagne (1996 Henriot) to Pinot Noir (2002 Freeman) to Cabernet Sauvignon (2001 Caymus Napa Valley) to Red Blends (2003 Girard “Artistry”). “Doing a tasting for women is easy and enjoyable,” said Elia, who is also a college English professor, “especially with this MBA group, who were largely from Harvard, with a few Wharton and Stanford women. They listened, took notes, and, more important, concentrated on what they were drinking. Women have a better grasp of wine flavors and aroma nuances than most men. They were enlightening me. The IQ in the room must have been near genius level, yet many of the women were asking questions, making comparisons, checking on vintages and varietals. They still wanted to learn. I love that. Best of all, they were enjoying themselves.”

Welch & Donohoe, LLP, Attorneys at Law, 655 Summer Street, Suite 203, Boston, Massachusetts 02210, phone: 671-428-0222, fax: 617-428-0285; email: wwelch@welchdonohoe.com