LUNES, new from Raynaud Porcelain

Speaking of creative tabletop and culinary entertainment, Raynaud Porcelain and Devine Corp. are introducing LUNES a new tableware range that represents a combination of chef, designer, and porcelain maker. Three star Michelin chef Anne Sophie Pic, along with designers Catherine and Bruno Lefebvre have teamed to bring this new dinnerware collection to appeal to all the gastronomic pleasures.

With a range consisting of approximately 50 items, LUNES is a gentle, feminine shape with curves and hollows to allow for tasting forks and spoons that Chef likes to use in her menus. There are 22 plates sizes, soufflé bowls and teapots that invite guests to help themselves. Cloches, also unique in form, make each dish a visual and aromatic surprise.

Tea service in LUNES retains the same simle elegance as the dinner service. Anne-Sophie Pic, a petite, softly spoken and revered chef who has headed the kitchen at La Maison Pic in the south-eastern French town of Valence for more than a decade - is only the fourth woman to win the top award. According to the U.K. newspaper The Guardian, Pic is "a specialist in fish, her signature dishes include sea bass caught in coastal waters and steamed over wakame kelp, served with gillardeau oyster bonbons, cucumber chutney and vodka and lemon butter sauce. But although she came late to haute cuisine, the chef, who prefers to mix textures and flavours rather than radically alter ingredients, comes from a gastronomic dynasty." Both her grandfather and father were also three star Michelin chefs in their time.

The combination of chef and designer here has produced a shape that only a porcelain producer of Raynaud's reputation for quality could execute. Taking two years to complete, Raynaud drew upon its legacy since the 19th century as one of the world's premier producers to achieve the proper balance between art and practicality for LUNES.

You can see LUNES at the Devine Corp. booth # 6351 at next week's NRA Show in Chicago. You can also go to www.Raynaud.fr or www.devinecorp.net to learn more about LUNES.

Yesterday Thomas Keller received the French Legion of Honor at his New York restaurant Per Se. Keller told the Feast he was nominated by Daniel Boulud, Alice Waters, Jacques Pepin, and Robert Parker, and that he found out about it via a letter from French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

Paul Bocuse presented the award, and chef Eric Ripert, restaurateur Drew Neiporant, and Food & Wine editor Dana Cowin all attended the ceremony. Congratulations, chef! Or should we call you Chevalier now?

The full press release. >>> Thomas Keller – France Légion d'honneur Ceremony & Reception at Per Se

On Tuesday, March 29th, Chef Keller was recognized by the France Légion d'honneur and was named Chevalier for his work in promoting French cuisine in America. He, along with Julia Child and Alice Waters, are the only Americans in the food field to be granted this distinction.

Legendary French chef Paul Bocuse presented Chef Keller with the official medal during a ceremony and reception at Per Se. France Ambassador François Delattre opened the ceremony, which was complete with words from close friends/industry leaders Daniel Boulud and Alain Ducasse along with Joseph Keller (brother).

Event attendees included Chef Keller's friends and family, along with industry notables such as Tim Kutz, Magda Michaud, Eric Ripert, Jacques Pepin, Drew Neiporant, Jerome Bocuse, Susan Ungaro and Dana Cowin as well as actress Dana Delany, actor Kyle McGlaghlin and Brad Lewis (Film Producer, Ratatouille (Pixar), Antz (DreamWorks), etc) to name a few.

The event opened with a champagne reception, complete with passed canapés by Per Se Chef de Cuisine Eli Kaimeh and closed with a selection of dessert canapés by Pastry Chef Elwyn Boyles.

Maison France, hosted by The French Trade Commission, UBIFRANCE, exhibited at the Felissimo Design House June 22-24. The event was an exclusive press and trade only showcase featuring a selection of home furnishings from France. The purpose of the showcase was to establish new luxury designers in the US market and to introduce their newest collections. There were also many longstanding designers, such as Raynaud & Ercuis who participated and showcased their latest designs. There were over thirty brands featured representing furniture, lighting, textiles, architectural materials, tableware and decorative accessories. Featured in the exhibit were Raynaud's patterns Salamanque, Gala, Caviar, Makassar, and Attraction; and Ercuis's Alto, Insolent, Peter, Equilibre, Brantome, Vieux Paris, Galet, Steamer and Paris.

Source: The New York Times May 28, 2009

ROOMS In the Gilded World of Per Se's Kitchen By ALAN FEUER

In the kitchen of Per Se, the wallet-busting restaurant on Columbus Circle, there is a sign of blue tiles reading "Sense of Urgency" on the wall. That -- the urgency -- arrived a little early last month when, at 6:15 one evening, there were already eight tickets -- seven tasting menus and an à la carte snapper -- stacked up on the rail.

The pleasant hush of the cocktail hour was over, and three calottes de boeuf grillée were sputtering like split wicks in a pan. Platters clanked; saucepans sizzled; the harried garde manger was fidgeting with his peach palms. The servers at the marble-countered "pass" -- there to receive the finished dishes -- shifted from one foot to the other like gamblers waiting anxiously at the track.

Then another dupe came in, and David Breeden, the head chef for the evening, called the ticket loud enough for everyone to hear. "Order for two -- one tasting, one veg!" he shouted like a captain of artillery. "One and one!" the kitchen shouted back.

You would think that in a lingering recession, the real urgency at Per Se would come from money matters, from the natural inclination of budget-conscious eaters to set aside their Visas for the moment and sate themselves on $13 Kung Pao chicken dinners instead of on a menu whose base cost is $275 a head.

But in fact, the kitchen -- 5,000 steel-and-tile square feet of it -- is a lesson in the little-known field of gastro-economics: When it comes to fine dining in New York, the fiscal situation is often irrelevant. Elites will always and forever be elites.

"People are still going out to eat," said Jonathan Benno, the chef de cuisine. While Per Se has endured a 10 percent drop in reservations and has started offering a less expensive à la carte Salon Menu in the lounge, Chef Benno said that this provided the chance "for the concierge at the Mandarin to call up Mr. and Mrs. Smith from Chicago and quickly slip them in."

His kitchen, which is brighter than a beach house (and only slightly smaller than the dining room itself), has something akin to a gold vault or the Queen of England's bedroom, existing in an atmosphere above such trivial indignities as battered stock portfolios and recessionary slumps. Even as the rest of the planet scrapes together money for the rent check, there seems no end to the bountiful provisions that stream in through its doors: 30 two-pound pompanos from Florida; a box of fresh langoustines from Scotland; 20 whole rabbits from Vermont.

The space itself is endlessly divided, with separate sub-kitchens devoted to pastries, ice cream, bread, fish, spices, produce, animal and vegetable stocks and the rendering of freshly butchered meat. The main -- or cooking -- kitchen is an inhumanly immaculate expanse of burner rings and countertops where, according to tradition, the stations move clockwise from canapé to entremetier. Above it all, there is a video screen with a real-time uplink to Per Se's sister restaurant, the French Laundry in Yountville, Calif., four time zones and 3,000 miles away.

By 8 o'clock, the dupes were 20 deep, and Mr. Breeden called successive orders with a scowl. There was $5,500 on the rail, and out there, in the untouched world, somebody was paying for it all.

Per Se serves its world class dishes on Raynaud's Hommage Collection, pictured above. Please click here to view this collection.