Named the 2007 World Champion Cheese Affineur "Refiner" and honored as a Master Craftsman of France, Rodolphe Le Meunier now brings his passion and cheeses to Bouley restaurants.
Rodolphe Le Meunier at Bouley Bakery
In order to send his cheeses to David Bouley, Le Meunier had to first master the transportation cycle to ensure the cheeses spend the least time in transit possible.
He also needed to make certain that once the cheeses arrived at Bouley Market, they would be stored in optimum conditions to breathe and evolve naturally. Bouley built a specially designed cheese cellar for this purpose. The cellar itself has a viewing window that allow patrons to observe the cheeses, and the room is climate controlled--set to the exact temperature, humidity, and ventilation levels needed to create the perfect environment for the cheeses. To complete the cycle, Le Meunier has developed a training program to teach Bouley's staff how to care for, cut, and present the cheeses.
Rodolphe Le Meunier at Bouley Restaurant
Le Meunier has also provided a coup de coeur selection of five cheeses to be presented on a tasting plate at Bouley Restaurant. The seasonal assortment will change every few months, and Le Meunier will also conduct exclusive tastings, such as a trilogy of aged Comté d'Alpages including a 2008 aged 18 months, a 2007 aged 30 months, and a third from 2006 aged 40 months. They will be paired with a vin jaune, a regional white wine from France's Jura region.
Rodolphe Le Meunier at Bouley Test Kitchen There will also be cheese events at the Test Kitchen, where guests can taste all of Le Meunier's cheese selections and learn how to incorporate them into recipes.
Le Meunier has hand-selected these 15 cheeses that will be available at Bouley Market:
Comté d'Alpages AOC 18 Months
Cow--Jura
One hundred percent
Montéliarde cow's milk and free of additives, the Comté is aged for a minimum of 120 days. It has a nutty, slightly salty, yet sweet taste.
Morbier AOC
Cow--Jura
This smooth and sliceable cow's-milk cheese is still made according to tradition, with a fine dusting of ash between two layers.
Fourme d'Ambert AOC
Cow--Auvergne
A semihard blue cheese that is aged for a month during which time it is injected with sweet Vouvray moelleux wine, which also makes an excellent pairing.
Timanoix
Cow--Morbihan
A washed-rind cheese produced at a monastery in southern Brittany, it's rinsed in a walnut brandy and has a nutty note.
Tomme de Savoie
Cow--Savoie
Made from raw milk exclusively from cows in Savoie and Haute-Savoie, this traditional tomme is rich with distinctive herbal aromas that vary by producer.
Fouchtra de Vache
Cow--Auvergne
Similar to the Saint-Nectaire, this raw-milk cheese is aged for six months and has a brushed, clean crust. Volcanic terroir imparts distinctive flavor.
Puits d'Astier
Sheep--Auvergne
Aged on straw, this sheep's milk cheese has a delicate paste and a natural rind. Distinctive for the hole in its center, it's named is derived from the French word for well.
Galette d'Astier
Goat--Auvergne
Smooth and melty on the palate, the 10-week aging process allows for salty and pleasantly acidic notes that leave a delicate aftertaste of goat's milk.
Mimolette Vieille
Cow--Lille
Also referred to as the Boule de Lille, it resembles a cantaloupe at first glance. Naturally colored with annatto, the aged version, vieille, is chewy with a nuttyflavored crust.
Fumaison AOC
Sheep--Cantal
A raw sheep's-milk cheese that resembles a sausage, and is smoke-cured in much the same way.
Ossau-Iraty AOC
Sheep--Pyrénées
A firm, classic Basque cheese that has been made in the same tradition for centuries. It has an earthy quality similar to Sardinian pecorino, and is revered as one of the region's finest.
Petit Munster
Cow--Alsace
A 1,000-year-old recipe, this miniature round of washedrind cheese is luscious on the palate with sweeter notes of hay.
Tomme aux Piments d'Espelettes
Sheep--Basque Country
A firm sheep's-milk cheese that is coated in a light dusting of the Basque paprika, piment d'espelette, which imparts a toasty spiciness that enhances the cheeses own nutty, sweet flavor.
Tomme du Vieux Saulnois
Cow--Alsace
A semisoft, washed-rind cow's-milk cheese, it is rinsed with wine as it matures, which helps it to develop fruity notes with hints of mushrooms, grass, and butter.
Ossau-Iraty AOC
Sheep--Basque Country
A light, balanced Pyrénées sheep's cheese with fruit and nutty notes, it's considerably delicate for a mountainous-region cheese and has a thin, tart crust
The welcoming aroma of the fresh-picked apples that perfectly align the racks of the vestibule at Bouley restaurant has inspired the creation of a fragrant, apple-infused signature cocktail.
Martini
2 oz Smirnoff vodka
2 oz green-apple purée (or Ravifruit, found in specialty food stores)
1 splash vermouth
1/2 shot of simple syrup
Combine and shake well. Strain into frozen martini glass, and garnish with an apple chip. Enjoy!
Simple Syrup
1 cup water
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup lemon juice
In a small saucepan, bring water and sugar to boil. Simmer until sugar is dissolved, about 3 minutes. Remove from heat and let cool completely. Add lemon juice.
Apple Chip
Slice one green apple very thin using a mandoline. Soak slices for 5 minutes in simple syrup mixture. Remove, and lay flat on a nonstick baking mat. Cook for 1 hour at 190ºF. Remove and let cool.
Ingredients
1 leek, sliced in half and then thinly sliced
3 garlic cloves, finely diced
2 lbs yellow Yukon potatoes, sliced on a mandoline to 1/8 inch
6 oz good Italian dried prunes, flattened slightly for layering
2 cups half-and-half
2 oz chopped parsley
1/2 tsp nutmeg, ground salt and freshly ground black pepper
Method:
Sauté sliced leek lightly in olive oil. Add chopped garlic and reserve.
Lightly oil a baking dish with sides that are at least 3 inches high.
Add a teaspoon of the leek and garlic mixture to the baking dish, and layer the potatoes until 1/2-inch thick.
Add a layer of prunes, and more of the leek and garlic mixture. Continue layering until all have been used up.
Mix half-and-half with parsley, nutmeg, salt, and pepper. Pour over the top of the potato gratin and bake at 325ºF degrees for about 45 minutes or until soft.
Ingredients
1 can good-quality coconut milk
3 oz mushroom water (recipe below)
1 tsp grated lime zest
1 tsp fresh ginger juice
2 oz chopped tarragon
2 oz wild mushrooms (recipe below)
4-6 oz arugula or bibb lettuce (per person)
parmesan cheese, sliced into fine sheets
1 tsp chive oil
Wild Mushrooms
6 oz shitake mushrooms, stems removed
6 oz hon shimeji mushrooms, washed and dried
6 oz porcini mushrooms, stems peeled
olive oil
garlic
bay leaf
Mushroom Water
3 lbs white button mushrooms
2 gallons water
For the Wild Mushrooms:Place all mushrooms in a saucepan with the garlic and the bay leaf, and pour in enough olive oil to cover the mushrooms. Cook on medium heat and bring to boil. Boil for 1 minute, then reduce heat and simmer for 2 minutes. Allow oil to cool before removing mushrooms with a slotted spoon, and reserve. This is a great way to preserve the flavor and texture of wild mushrooms, and they will last between a week and a week and a half or more. They can be reheated or eaten cold.
Mushroom Water:
Wash mushrooms well and add to a large saucepot with water. On low heat, simmer down until reduced by 95 percent, until you have a fragrant black truffle aroma. Pour into ice-cube trays and freeze for future use.
Boil coconut milk down by half. Add mushroom water, lime zest, ginger, and tarragon. Whisk together. Heat up mushrooms in this sauce. Meanwhile, prepare lettuce bed on a large plate. Spread warm mushrooms on top. Add fine sheets of parmesan. Drizzle with chive oil.
In homage to the mojito, the Grand Marnier Smash is a classic cocktail updated with Grand Marnier as the base ingredient. Easy and delicious, Grand Marnier is muddled with mint and lemon to create a refreshing drink designed to please imbibers everywhere.
8 leaves fresh mint
4 wedges of fresh lemon
1.5 oz Grand Marnier
1 sprig mint
Muddle mint leaves and lemon wedges in a tall mixing glass. Add Grand Marnier and ice, and shake vigorously. Strain liquid over fresh ice in a rocks glass, and garnish with a fresh mint sprig.
 "I have never bought meat that has not come from the butcher," Paul Vaccari reflects. "My dad even used to send me care packages when I was in college!" But then he's a third-generation owner of Piccinini Brothers, considered one of the great old-guard meat purveyors of New York City, so meat is his currency.
Back in the 1920s, his grandfather Guido opened the original store, just a block away from where Piccinini Brothers now stands in Hell's Kitchen. From the very beginning, their ambition was to supply the city's restaurants with the best quality meats, and they have never faltered. Intrigued by the creative side of the business, Paul was always eager to collaborate on new projects with chefs, and in particular David Bouley. "David was very instrumental in helping us with the way we now age our meats. We adapted a lot of our agingroom specifications according to his needs."
Paul Vaccari and David Bouley share the same passion for quality and are working together to source more local farm--raised animals, selecting lamb, rabbit, and poultry from farms in New York State, as well as pigs and goats from New Jersey. In the end, it is the result of what is on the diner's plate that makes this butcher-and-chef relationship so beneficial.
Diminutive in stature but formidable in her knowledge and place in the world of wines
from small French estates, Becky Wasserman-Hone is full of juxtapositions.
 Born and educated in New York City, Becky Wasserman-Hone migrated 40 years ago from the United States to the tiny village of Bouilland, France, when the wine world was still "innocent" and Volnays cost seven francs a bottle--the equivalent of one euro--for a premier cru. Becky got her start by selling François Frères oak barrels to the California wine industry, but later rolled out her last barrel for a career representing individual domains principally from Burgundy, plus grower champagnes, the Beaujolais, the southern Rhône, and the Languedoc Roussillon. Her company, SARL Le Serbet/Selection Becky Wasserman, is almost entirely staffed by women. Her team selects and exports wines from small estates whose reputations are based on sound viticulture practices, and respect for their specific terroirs.
 The company motto, "We cannot sell what we do not drink," is not mere marketing. Wines are reviewed in the office, accompanied by lunch cooked by Russell Hone, Becky's husband, and are often judged by their current and future compatibility with food. "The destiny of most wines is not to stand alone but to accompany food at some point in their lives," says Becky.
Becky met David many years ago, when Dominique Simon was the sommelier with a reputation of which to be somewhat fearful, as he did not suffer fools gladly. She remembers her first visit to Bouley, opening the front door to be welcomed by the extraordinary scent of hundreds of apples. This was her introduction to a cuisine that treats the raw materials of culinary art with respect, and that does not seek to glorify the chef to the detriment of his ingredients. This respect is the fundamental belief of the best Burgundian estates: that the personality of the terroir must shine through; the winemaker is but an interpreter.
There are thousands of domains bottling their wines today, and the quality can vary tremendously. How does one work through this maze? This is where someone like Becky comes in. From day one, she has been committed to finding wines that clearly evoke the vineyards from which they were produced; no one has been as dedicated as she to the essence of what terroir represents. If the back of a bottle says "Selection Becky Wasserman," you can be assured of experiencing a wine made with great passion and respect for its place of origin.
Becky has been decorated by the French government for services rendered to Burgundy; she is a Chevalier de L'Ordre du Merite Agricole. She attributes her palate to myopia, and insists that poor vision enhances the senses of smell and taste. She says that selling Burgundies requires "the zeal of a missionary, the stubbornness of a mule, a large sense of humor, and the ability to change clothes in a telephone booth."
Her admiration for David Bouley's cuisine continues to grow, and her recent tasting note compared his food to a wine from Chambolle-Musigny: "intensity with lightness."
Continue reading Terroir Crusader.
 Chef Bouley invites you to his Test Kitchen to experience a 6-course menu and wine pairing featuring the wines of Hermann J. Wiemer. The menu will be composed using seasonal ingredients from local farms and purveyors. Wiemer's winemaker Fredrick Merwarth will also be in attendance to lead the pairing. The event will start at 6:30pm with a reception featuring passed canapés and Wiemer's Hand Riddled Methode Champenoise Blanc de Blanc.
Tickets are $250 per person, inclusive of tax and service. Space is limited and RSVP's are required by calling 212.964.2525.
Date: Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Time: 6:30 reception; 7:15 dinner
Address: 88 West Broadway, 5th Floor (near chambers street)
About the Bouley Test Kitchen:
The Test Kitchen is a research facility designed to operate as a freestanding experimental test and demonstration kitchen. Since it will not be in a direct service capacity, it will not be restricted by and subject to the demands of a restaurant's service needs and operations. The intent is to provide a fully-equipped state-of-the-art environment dedicated to creating, developing, and extending advanced approaches to food product selection, preparation, and presentation. This will provide a site in which to test and refine and demonstrate cooking techniques and recipes, with special attention to the nutritional components, both to analyze and enhance this aspect of the cuisine. When not in use internally, we open up the Test Kitchen as an event space to host social and private events.
About Hermann J. Wiemer Winery:
 Hermann J. Wiemer's winery is located in the heart of the finger lakes on Seneca Lake's west bank. The winery produces approximately 12,000 cases each year and was designed in 1982 by an award winning team of Cornell architects. Milder winters than the surrounding area and warm summers similar to the Mosel Valley in Germany make their microclimate suitable for growing Riesling grapes and other cool climate varietals. Hermann J. Wiemer pioneered Riesling wines in the Finger Lakes and is known as the premier winemaker in the region. The estate grown wines are established from traditions of excellence and have made a nationwide reputation for creating exceptionally lush, crisp and well-balanced wines. Hermann J. Wiemer Vineyard is founded on the philosophy of quality and hand-crafted wines, recognized as the finest in their categories. At work inside, winemaker Fred Merwarth works daily with Hermann to exact the very best from their vinifera grapes. Their processes pay homage to the ancient winemaking tradition of Hermann's ancestry while engaging the best of current practices.
Brush Stroke is slated to open on the northeast corner of West Broadway and Reade Street. It will occupy the first and second floors as well as the basement of a landmark building that formerly housed a paint company. A different concept is planned for each floor. The first floor will be a cozy space serving more freehand or improvisational kappoh-style Japanese food. The second floor will offer a quieter, formal setting and an unadulterated Japanese kaiseki experience. And the basement will be a laid-back lounge serving items like kushiyaki, or Japanese-style skewered grills, and other various finger foods.
Chef Mikami visits a mushroom farm with grower Kenji Iida in Izu, Shizuoka
Kaiseki cuisine is derived from the Japanese tea ceremony and has developed into a formal sequence of 10 to 15 courses representing the seasons or stories behind the seasons. In contrast, kappoh is a restaurant style in which the main--and most exciting--dining space is at the counter bar, directly facing the chefs. In the basement, Bouley is contriving new combinations, like kushiyaki with French or Bouley sauces.
For the new restaurant, Bouley's organization will draw on the skills of executive chef Tadao Mikami, 59, and sous-chef Isao Yamada, 33, of Upstairs at Bouley, who have long impressed Bouley himself, and great chefs from the world, like Spanish chef Ferran Adrià of El Bulli. Tsuji will also send Professor of Japanese Cuisine Masakatsu Takemoto, 36, and Assistant Professor Hiroki Murashima, 34, to contribute their expertise. Mikami says he imagines Brush Stroke in musical terms: "The basement is rock, the first floor is jazz, and the second floor is classical."
At first it was Chinese. Not Japanese. When Yoshiki Tsuji, 43, now the president of Japan's largest culinary school, was still working at an investment firm in New York, he suddenly got a call from David Bouley, 54, who had just opened a restaurant under his own name. "I'm going to Japan, and I just remembered that your family runs a cooking school," said Bouley. "Would it be possible for me to learn to cook Chinese at your school?"
Tsuji had dined at Bouley several times. Its innovative, young French chef, then still in his thirties, had begun to capture the media's attention, and it looked as if he would single-handedly reinvent the whole restaurant scene in New York. But the two had never met in person. Tsuji was still in his mid-twenties, one of the quieter of the restaurant's many patrons. But just before that phone call, they had been introduced to each other at a party. And Bouley remembered.
The Tsuji Culinary School was founded in Abeno, Osaka, in 1960 by Yoshiki's father, the late culinary giant, educator, and encyclopedist Shizuo Tsuji; it has since expanded to eight schools and institutes in Japan and France. When David Bouley visited Osaka for the first time, Yoshiki gave him a tour of the prominent Japanese restaurants in Osaka and Kyoto. That was when Bouley began to be fascinated by the serene taste of authentic Japanese cuisine, which was worlds apart from the sushi and Japanese fare to be found in New York in the late 1980s.
This was also the beginning of a long friendship between Tsuji and Bouley, and the first step toward Brush Stroke, a Japanese restaurant the two are now planning to open in Tribeca, Manhattan. Yet all of this happened long before the boom in Japanese cuisine hit New York and the rest of the world. >
Brush Stroke, David Bouley's new Japanese restaurant in Tribeca, will be a place where cultures converge. This is true not just in the kitchen, but deep within the stones and timbers of the 1860 Italianate building which will be the restaurant's home. For nearly 150 years, the five-story building at the corner of West Broadway and Reade Street has been accumulating rich layers of history from countries all over Europe, and from right here in New York City. 
The building started life in a vibrant pre-Civil War Manhattan of railroads, canals, and clipper ships. Its arched windows, bracketed cornices, and cast-iron columns spoke the language of Italian architecture with an unmistakably American accent. Its walls were faced in the distinctive greenish cream-colored sandstone of New Brunswick, Canada. But its cast iron would have been strictly local, from one of the many foundries in Manhattan and Brooklyn. Early photographs show the building standing prominently on a wide, unpaved expanse of West Broadway, busy with horse-drawn traffic. The street scene was dotted with businesses as varied as carpenters, wholesale druggists, and a manufacturer of "Steam Refined Candy and Sugar Plums Cor."
By the time of the First World War, photos show fine etched-glass entry doors and a sweeping canopy sheltering Vogric's Café. Its Slovenian owner advertised the Knickerbocker beers and ales brewed in Manhattan by Colonel Jacob Ruppert, the colorful German-American entrepreneur and New York Yankees owner in the days of Babe Ruth. After lunch and a glance at Vogric's private Wall Street ticker tape, one could go upstairs to find shoes at Topper & Berger, and gas lamps at the White Light Company another flight up.
Photographs from the 1940s show the castiron and etched glass on the ground floor replaced by a two-story storefront of cast concrete. Vogric's had given way to a modest lunch counter with a Coca-Cola sign, and to another ground-floor tenant with stylish Art Moderne-style windows and neon signage. But the original Italianate windows, cornice, and New Brunswick stone were still intact above the second floor.
Things were again looking up for Tribeca by 1970, when the Delphi Restaurant began serving Greek food to the artists who had moved into the neighborhood, and to an increasing number of visitors attracted by Tribeca's shops, galleries, and architecture. The Delphi added arches and a glass-enclosed sidewalk café, but once again left the original features intact above.
As the building undergoes its transformation to Brush Stroke, yet another layer is about to be added to the cultural mix at West Broadway and Reade Street: superb and subtle Japanese cuisine unlike any that's appeared in New York before. Look up, and you'll see two distinctive signs--apparently quite old ones--painted on the weathered New Brunswick stone. Look more closely, and the story takes on a different dimension.
What exactly do these two signs mean? "Brush up Business with Paint Paste Paper and Push," says one; but there is no clue that any of these things, especially the "Push," were ever sold in the building. And the signs don't appear in any of the historic photos, even those from the 1940s. The painted signs represent something subtle, intriguing, even mysterious. Were they painted over before the photos were taken and now exposed again? Are they artworks from a much more recent time? The second sign is a beautifully weathered image of a hand holding a paint brush, almost Japanese in its delicate interplay of colors and its sense of passing time. Might this have anything to do with David's choice of the name for his new Japanese restaurant? Interesting thought.
These are Rodolphe's selections for the perfect cheese 'plateau' for the fall:
Les Comtés d'Alpages : cow's milk
Made with summer milk, it has fruity and lengthy tastes on the palate.
 Sainte Maure de Touraine : goat's milk
A creamy cheese with delicate hints of hazelnut.
Bleu de Laqueuille : cow's milk
A blue cheese with woody fall flavors.
Tome Fermière des Pyrenées : goat's milk
A sweet taste of mountain pastures and a melting texture like foie gras.
Brin d'Amour : sheep's milk
Soft, herbaceous and floral, its mild earthy flavor becomes sharper with age.
Les Coulommiers : cow's milk
A 'little Brie' with delicate flavors of sweet almonds.
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