The Four Hour Lunch

Last Friday I was lucky enough to be invited to have lunch at Philippe Rochat, Switzerland best restaurant and twice named as best restaurant in the world by Gault Millau, the leading French restaurant guide. Although I work only 10 minutes away from the restaurants, I had never been invited at the chef table. I just get to peek at the kitchens every time I go buy them a truffle. But this time we were eating with a friend of the chef-owner. Let me share with you this extraordinary four-hour lunch.

The chef table where regulars get to have a drink with Rochat before the meal DON'T MISS MY 360° PANORAMA! Chef Rochat is standing up in white apron, heated up before the battle but exchanging pleasantries with us, the guests. On the table, three Swiss gentlemen. One of them is my father. On the back wall the clock says it's 11h45 sharp. As you turn the panorama to the right you discover the kitchen, with a TV monitor showing the reception area. This is the first 360/180 panorama I publish and in the future I hope to make more and better panoramas.

We were sipping of champagne as other people came to sit at the table. I absconded to visit the kitchen. This is a rare honor and Mr Rochat only narrowly allowed me to take the pictures. All the cooks were silent, working purposefully in deep concentration. Stock pots were quietly simmering on the stoves. The large square you see is set on top of burners and is ultra hot. A cook was carving scallops while another cook cut little pockets in pork slices. like in all efficient restaurant kitchens, you get the impression that one false move and you'll get a pan on your head. The cooks discover with interest who they are cooking for - a world apart behind the kitchen wall.

Making the potato purée - Hard work, whisking butter, milk and cream in the sieved potatoes directly on the hot stove.

I see this gentleman, Franck Giovannini, almost everyday on TV in a beautiful short promotional film where you see him side-by-side with a Swiss watchmaker both making delicate preparations. Watches and truffles. I believe he is the second in command and usually sports the blue-red-wide collar showing him as Meilleur ouvrier de France, a high distinction for French chefs. He also won third place in the Bocuse d'or last year. Here he is peeling what looks like a good two pounds of black truffles.

We move back to the dining hall. What shall we eat? Let the chef decide. I manage to convince my host to order duck rather than pig's foot and off we go for an amazing succession of starters. The trademark Rochat dish rests on a strong contrast between a sweet or blandish produce resting on an flavorsome, intensely tart juice. Duck foie gras on a tart quince jelly. Sole in a carrot and orange juice reduction emulsified with butter - my favorite. Then some fancy sea shells on a lemon - lemon oil jus. This divine contrast was intermixed with local cardoons in the most gorgeous black truffle juice and caviar macaroons as an interlude. The only dish I didn't like was the lobster flesh in a salty violet artichoke jus. But again, I usually choke on them so don't let this detract from trying it. This is such a brilliant binary composition I wonder why young chef spend their time fooling around the plate with a thousand and one ingredients. If you know what you want to achieve, let's go for it and be done. A sharp contrast is a strong backbone for any dish.

My friend Mr Villeneuve brings in the three-persons duck. He has carved over 20,000 ducks at Rochat's. He is such an exceptional maître d' that he was recently awarded l'Ordre National du Mérite medal by the French President, a rare honor bestowed on a Frenchman living and working in Switzerland.

While Mr Villeneuve is carving, his assistant starts to garnish our plates with the vegetables.

Villeneuve cuts extremely thin duck breast slices with a long knife.

There we are. The most marvellous rosy duck in bigarade sauce with a few hand-carved vegetables. Bigarade are very sour oranges grown in Nice. Rochat changes his menu four times a year but he always has two different roasted birds in a tart sauce. The only thing that changes is the type of bird and the sort of sauce. The Tour d'Argent might have a better view, but Rochat's ducks are definitely superior. No question there.

Duck is a tricky bird. If you want to keep the breast rosy - the only proper cooking - then the legs will be rare. French chefs start by serving the breast, then return the duck to the kitchen for further roasting. Here is my second helping - a duck leg deboned in the kitchen with two more dollops of potato purée.

«A meal without cheese is not a meal», an old French professor always tells me. Well, the very best place to taste cheese in any cheesemaking country is a gastronomic restaurants. Chefs make a point to offer the best local cheeses served at perfect maturity. I usually don't take the cheese to keep the calorie bill down, but the gentleman we were having lunch with is an important man in the Swiss cheese industry. I just had to. «Close your eyes and think of Switzerland», I told myself.

Let's keep this simple - fresh goat cheese with olive oil, sea salt and pepper. Then a slice from the Roquefort guillotine to go with Rochat's marvellous dried fruit bread.

A bit of perfectly aged Vacherin Mont d'Or...

My father's choice, by order of pungency. You start with the tamest cheeses and finish with the most fiery so that you get to feel the formers.

An extraordinary dessert of Sicilian tangerine custard in a hazelnut biscuit I saw the pastry chef prepare moments before. Simple perfection.

Chef Rochat is very considerate in that he always, always come and talk to every last table in the restaurant after his service. You may come there only once in your life and he will come and greet you and, as long as you speak French, he will answer any questions you ask him. Some chefs only greet the regulars, others never enter the dining room. But Rochat is a decent man. Some nights you can see he is really exhausted and tense from the long hours, but he still makes a point of coming to greet the clients. He doesn't clown around to be petted by clients. He comes only because he knows the guests are just thrilled to meet him. This is the right thing to do and makes very good business sense. And he was kind enough to pose for a picture with my dad and his friend (I asked for the picture).

One for the road? We are well into our fourth hour as this plate of delicacies arrive, one per guest. The nougat is the best I've ever had. The whole meal was light - difficult to believe that after 12 courses I didn't feel heavy in the least. «What's for dinner?» I asked. Please consider that this was an exceptional meal in every respect. I don't eat like this very often, maybe once a year, and I never to 4 hour business lunches. But hey, lunch at Rochat with my dad is just an offer I can't refuse.

Restaurant Philippe Rochat
www.philippe-rochat.ch
Crissier (just outside Lausanne)
Switzerland

Rochat is nothing like these stiff-upper-lipped British restaurants that demand jacket and tie and a reservation two years in advance. You can get in any week day for lunch if you call the day before. You can come as you are. You can be a communist or a wickan, nobody will judge you as long as you're not vegetarian. The staff is extremely courteous and their job is to make you feel welcome and at ease. And tell them FXcuisine sent you, maybe I'll get a free duck for Christmas!