Parisian Chef David Toutain: 'That's My Life,' Part 2

This is the second installment in a three-part interview with chef David Toutain. You can find the first installment here and the third installment here.

The Daily Meal: What did you take away from your time at L'Arpege with Alain Passard?
Chef David Toutain: My time at L'Arpege was very important for me. I was 21 when I was a chef in that kitchen and what was amazing was he gave me the opportunity, like he did to many other chefs, to experience his genius. What he instilled in me was when you work with a product don't think like a person but think as if you were the product. Think about what is inside it, the flavor, the texture, the fiber. So now when I see a carrot I don't see it as such anymore, I am thinking about its flavor, its texture, what is a good pairing for it, and how I can use all these elements. Actually now this process comes naturally to me.

If we cook beef and I see a gelatin and the fibers after cooking, I immediately think about what we can do with these. You need to open your eyes to these things and think along those lines. That is how we work in this kitchen. Then there are other things I learned, for example the light in the restaurant, how the kitchen and the restaurant is organized, and all these things affect our work.

Does the atmosphere, the ambiance, or the decor set a tone for the ensuing meal for a guest as they walk in the door?
It is very important that a guest feels relaxed and it's very important to me that people are happy and feel comfortable once seated at the table to enjoy their experience. When you are at the table for two or three hours you need to feel that way.

Is creativity inherent or can it be learned, developed, or taught?
People ask me sometimes "How did you think of that? How did you think of pairing cauliflower and white chocolate together?" I think each chef has that dictionary in their brain about texture and flavor. Sometimes when I think of a dish I am first thinking of a season, its products, and the association between them. When I made the white chocolate, cauliflower, and coconut I had eaten something with white chocolate and coconut, I think it was a cake at Christmastime. So I thought wow this is so comforting and what can I do with it in the restaurant that is not too complicated and feels just as comforting. What is one more product I can use besides these two. I thought the link between the two is that they are both white. I needed something white and special in a vegetable. I made a list of all the white vegetables and it came to me that it was the right season for cauliflower in the markets. I thought what is the link between all three besides color and I thought of the sweetness in these.

I drew a cup and starting thinking of putting elements like texture, sweetness in it to get a balanced dish. It is a very tactile process and begins this way with everything I do. The amazing thing was it worked perfectly the first time we tried out this recipe.

Any experiments that haven't worked out?
I tried cockles with red pepper and pistachio and I kept working on this recipe for two weeks and in the end I stopped because I realized that it wasn't going to work. I thought there was something I was missing in the flavor and it was not coming together.

When you develop recipes, do you work on your own or do you work as a team, like how at Mugaritz there is a separate R&D team working on products?
Every kitchen is different and here we are working as cooks and without a specific team to work on a recipe. What is different from when I was in Agape for example we served twenty five dishes per guest and now I serve less, just sixteen so that leaves us a little time on the side to work on new dishes and recipes. When I opened this restaurant I decided that I will do fewer dishes so I would have time to organize new recipes.

Do you develop these spontaneously, as a scheduled task, based on what comes in a delivery or at the market?
It depends, though I am a little bit more organized and don't just cook off of what comes in the morning. I need time to think and process as to how I can work on it. I have very good connections with my purveyors who are all small purveyors and usually let me know if they will have duck in two weeks, or squab or a certain vegetable or fish.

Then I start thinking ahead sometimes though if we need a certain amount of fish we find in the morning that it's not available then I have a list of what to get instead. We know the base of the fish we want here and we work around that. This morning we didn't get the crabs we wanted, so we made salmon instead. [pullquote:right]

So it was an on-spot decision?
No, we organize in such a way that we can ask if instead of that product do they have the next choice on our list and so on. We usually have three options just in case. When we work with small producers like our small fishermen, it is only human for such things to happen. What is good in our menus is that nothing is detailed so we can play within it a little bit.

Normally we do a trout with crispy potato around it and this morning the trout was not very good so we don't have it on the menu all day today. This is like what would happen at Mugaritz. If we had only ten portions of something then that was it. This is how we organize ourselves and work here and before we print the menus every day we know exactly how many portions or quantity we have.

With so many great restaurants in Paris, is there competition between them to acquire the best products?
No, we are fortunate to have access to enough good products for everyone. It is not a competition but sometimes there can be a problem since we have almost the same purveyors. So in one month everyone wants trout for example and it is on everyone's menu. So we speak to each other about making sure the guest does not end up with similar dishes at different restaurants.

Is there a camaraderie or community between the young chefs in Paris?
It is amazing because I have good friends who are chefs but we all do totally different food. My chef friends at restaurants like Akrame, Septime, Saturne, Meurice, and Chateubriand all make different food. Every restaurant in Paris is different and that makes it interesting for guests visiting or local people dining out.

It is wonderful to be a diner in Paris now because there is amazing food available at all price points and the chefs who worked at two or three-starred Michelin restaurants have gone on to open smaller and simpler restaurants serving wonderful food.

Aren't many of these restaurants more casual?
I wouldn't say casual but they are definitely more unique and with more personality.

This is the second installment in a three-part interview with chef David Toutain. You can find the first installment here and the third installment here.