On Chapel Street, in New Haven, Connecticut, opposite the Old Campus: from the time of glaciation, cultivated by the Quinnipiac; in 1614, charted by a Dutch explorer; in 1638, colonized by the Puritans; throughout the American Revolution, home of the signer, Roger Sherman, his second wife Rebecca Prescott-Sherman, their fifteen children, and the family store; in 1860, industrialist Gaius Fenn Warner's Italianate villa, by Henry Austin; in 1880, Marshal Peter R. Carll's Opera House; in 1884, the Republican League; in 1887, the Hyperion; in 1903, the Union League addition, by Richard Williams; in 1926, the Roger Sherman Theater; beginning in 1976, a tradition of French fine dining, that continues today. While the Roger Sherman house is no longer standing, it holds up all right.
"'This garage is the inside of my brain,' said Mundy Hepburn, gliding his arm through the air. Standing in the bed of a Chevy pickup, his frame backlighted by one of his neon sculptures, 'The Wave,' he described with reverence the 'mystical beauty' of neon."
"'There is no place just like this place anywhere near this place. For this must be The Place.' So said the sign on 'Whitey's restaurant' years ago. The sign is still there but now Whitey's is called The Place. It looks like a private outdoor party or a friendly country fair, convivial and joyous, relaxed, lots of fun, but it isn't private. It is a roadside restaurant, or rather an outdoor roast restaurant."
"On a sailing of the luxurious M/S Regatta, the star chef croons in a karaoke contest, plucks wild bay laurel from a roadside bush, eats flaky Greek pastry and teaches spectacular recipes inspired by his Italian shore excursions."
"Jeremy talks with his first Chef Jean Michel Gammariello, who built a career working in three Michelin-starred restaurants in France, he is both manager and sommelier of the Union League Cafe in New Haven, CT. For this conversation, Gammariello talks about cooking (and hanging out) with his good friend Jacques Pepin, moving from the kitchen into the world of wine, and reflects on the larger world of chefs and food."
"French chef Jacques Pépin went to the site of the Winter Olympic games looking for a different kind of gold: champagne, eruvere and raclette."
"A little Jean-Michel, Jacques, Robin, Jean-Pierre. The meal, it is delicious. But at this point, it doesn’t matter. Robin, another out-of-place American woman who fell headfirst into a French enclave, said it herself: 'You’re only as successful as the people working around you.'"
"I first recall being introduced to Jacques Pépin in late 1992. He came for dinner at the elegant Robert Henry’s restaurant in New Haven, where I was maître d’. Robert Henry’s was from a bygone era, owned by the matriarch Jo McKenzie; a white glove establishment with porcelain-dome service and very haute French cuisine that… Continue reading The creative genius of Jacques Pépin, by Robert Rabine