Saturday, November 15, 2008

My Compliments to the Chef

So you’re at Twist on a Saturday night. You order a vanilla cocktail, and it arrives with a rim of cinnamon and actual vanilla bean pieces floating on top. You take a sip and think “Wow, that’s strong!” It’s delicious too, and as you sit enjoying your drink you glance over to the bar and see Chef Jean-Robert de Cavel himself chatting with a member of the wait staff. Do you:

Mind your own business and finish your extraordinarily potent cocktail

-or-

Set down your drink, march across the room, intrude on his conversation and introduce yourself?

Choose wisely, friends.


You shake his hand, say a few words about how much you enjoy his restaurants, and find yourself thinking, “What the hell am I doing?” And then, and this part is key, your mind grapples for some relevant question to ask and you hear yourself asking him if his restaurant group is splitting up.

“Oh, you know, I can’t really talk about that.” He politely sidesteps the question in his thick accent.

Now you are sure that you’ve run out of things to say. You babble something again about how wonderful his food is and scurry back to the comfort of your overstuffed chair and a really, really good drink.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Brave lady. He's a very nice guy, isn't he? You'll find him often at Twist-- he seems to run over there to escape Pigall's! I guess we all need to relax.

liberal foodie said...

haha

nicely done