Daniel Boulud - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Daniel Boulud
Daniel Boulud (born March 25, 1955 in Saint-Pierre de Chandieu

Lyon

Lyon , is a city in east-central France in the Rhône-Alpes region, situated between Paris and Marseille. Lyon is located at from Paris, from Marseille, from Geneva, from Turin, and from Barcelona. The residents of the city are called Lyonnais....

, France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

) is a French

French cuisine

French cuisine is a style of food preparation originating from France that has developed from centuries of social change. In the Middle Ages, Guillaume Tirel , a court chef, authored Le Viandier, one of the earliest recipe collections of Medieval France...

chef

Chef

A chef is a person who cooks professionally for other people. Although over time the term has come to describe any person who cooks for a living, traditionally it refers to a highly skilled professional who is proficient in all aspects of food preparation.-Etymology:The word "chef" is borrowed ...

and restaurateur

Restaurateur

A restaurateur is a person who opens and runs restaurants professionally. Although over time the term has come to describe any person who owns a restaurant, traditionally it refers to a highly skilled professional who is proficient in all aspects of the restaurant business.-Etymology:The word...

with restaurants in New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

, Palm Beach

Palm Beach, Florida

The Town of Palm Beach is an incorporated town in Palm Beach County, Florida, United States. The Intracoastal Waterway separates it from the neighboring cities of West Palm Beach and Lake Worth...

, Miami, Montreal

Montreal

Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...

, Beijing

Beijing

Beijing , also known as Peking , is the capital of the People's Republic of China and one of the most populous cities in the world, with a population of 19,612,368 as of 2010. The city is the country's political, cultural, and educational center, and home to the headquarters for most of China's...

, and Singapore

Singapore

Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...

. He is best known for Daniel, his eponymous, Michelin 3-star restaurant in New York City.

While raised on a farm outside of Lyon and trained by renowned French chefs, Boulud made his reputation in New York, first as a chef and most recently a restaurateur. His management company, The Dinex Group, currently includes six restaurants and Feast & Fêtes Catering. His restaurants include Daniel, Café Boulud, DB Bistro Moderne, Bar Boulud, and DBGB Kitchen & Bar in New York City. He has also created Café Boulud in Palm Beach and the Michelin-star Daniel Boulud Brasserie in Las Vegas (since closed)

Culinary background

At fifteen, Boulud earned his first professional recognition: He was a finalist in France's competition for Best Culinary Apprentice. Boulud worked in France with Roger Vergé, Georges Blanc and Michel Guérard and later in Copenhagen

Copenhagen

Copenhagen is the capital and largest city of Denmark, with an urban population of 1,199,224 and a metropolitan population of 1,930,260 . With the completion of the transnational Øresund Bridge in 2000, Copenhagen has become the centre of the increasingly integrating Øresund Region...

before becoming the private chef to the European Commission

European Commission

The European Commission is the executive body of the European Union. The body is responsible for proposing legislation, implementing decisions, upholding the Union's treaties and the general day-to-day running of the Union....

in Washington, D.C.

Washington, D.C.

Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....

.

Moving to New York City

New York City

, Boulud opened the Polo Lounge at The Westbury Hotel then Le Régence at the Hotel Plaza Athenée. From 1986 to 1992, he was Executive Chef at Le Cirque
Le Cirque
Le Cirque is a French restaurant in Manhattan owned and operated by Sirio Maccioni. It first opened at the Mayfair Hotel in 1974. It closed and reopened as Le Cirque 2000 at the Palace Hotel in 1997. The latest installation of Le Cirque opened in 2006 in the Bloomberg Tower building at One Beacon...

. During his tenure, the restaurant became one of the most highly rated in the country.

His restaurants

Boulud set out on his own and opened his restaurant Daniel, in 1993, in Manhattan's Upper East Side. Daniel relocated the restaurant to a new home in 1998: a Venetian renaissance-inspired setting at Park Avenue and 65th Street—premises, in fact, that had once housed Le Cirque. The original Daniel was re-launched as the Café Boulud.

He opened a more casual restaurant in the theater district of Manhattan in 2001: db Bistro Moderne, and in 2003 a second Café Boulud in Palm Beach, Florida. Daniel Boulud Brasserie opened in 2005 inside the Wynn Las Vegas

Wynn Las Vegas

Wynn Las Vegas is a resort and casino located on the Las Vegas Strip in Paradise, Nevada. The US $2.7 billion resort is named after casino developer Steve Wynn and is the flagship property of Wynn Resorts Limited. The resort covers . It is located on Las Vegas Boulevard and Sands Avenue Wynn Las...

.

In 2004, Boulud crafted the menus for the brand-new Queen Mary 2.

In January 2008, the Chef opened Bar Boulud, a French bistro located across from Lincoln Center in New York City.

He opened Maison Boulud à Pékin in Beijing China in July 2008.

In December 2008, after the departure of founding chef Rob Feenie

Rob Feenie

Robert Feenie is a Canadian chef based in Vancouver, British Columbia.-Culinary career:His interest in cooking began during a high school exchange program in Europe. He attended Dubrulle Culinary Institute...

and minority owner, Boulud reopened Vancouver

Vancouver

Vancouver is a coastal seaport city on the mainland of British Columbia, Canada. It is the hub of Greater Vancouver, which, with over 2.3 million residents, is the third most populous metropolitan area in the country,...

restaurants Lumière

Lumière

-Characters:*Lumière , one of the two main characters of the 2002 anime series Kiddy Grade*Lumiere, a character in the Disney version of Beauty and the Beast-Places:*Lumière, a restaurant in Vancouver, Canada...

and Feenie's

Feenie's

Feenie's was a bistro on West Broadway in the Kitsilano neighbourhood of Vancouver, Canada. It was the casual-dining sister-restaurant to Lumière, which was located next-door. Feenie's was founded by celebrity chef Rob Feenie, the first Canadian to win on Iron Chef America...

(renaming the latter "db Bistro Moderne", making it the sister restaurant to db Bistro Moderne in Manhattan) as Chef, Consulting Chef and Co-partner. Boulud and his partners closed those two restaurants on March 13, 2011. He opened DBGB Kitchen & Bar, a Pan-European brasserie, in New York City in 2009.

In June 2009, Boulud stated that he wanted to open his next venture to be in London and that he is currently looking into several options for it.

Daniel Boulud Brasserie closed on July 4, 2010. Wynn chose not to renew the contract between Boulud & The Resort (see Wynn Las Vegas

Wynn Las Vegas

for more). It is rumored that Boulud is looking for another location to open in Las Vegas, possibly in the space that used to be occupied by Charlie Trotter

Charlie Trotter

Charlie Trotter is a chef and restaurateur.-Biography:A graduate of New Trier High School, Trotter started cooking professionally in 1982 after earning a degree in political science from the University of Wisconsin–Madison. For the next 5 years, he worked and studied in Chicago, San Francisco at...

at The Palazzo

The Palazzo

The Palazzo is a luxury hotel and casino resort situated between Wynn and The Venetian on the Las Vegas Strip in Paradise, Nevada, a suburb of Las Vegas. It is the tallest completed building in Nevada...

.

In February 2011, Boulud opened a db Bistro Moderne at Marina Bay Sands in Singapore

Singapore

.

In April 2011, it was announced that Maison Boulud in Ritz-Carlton Montreal

Ritz-Carlton Montreal

The Ritz-Carlton Montréal is a 229 room luxury hotel situated at 1228 Sherbrooke Street West in Montréal, Quebec. This Montreal property is not part of the widely-known Ritz-Carlton hotel chain. It has forty-eight suites including a "Royal Suite" and a "Presidential Suite"...

would open, a business that Boulud's Dinex Group has been contracted to run.

Awards

Not long after opening, restaurant Daniel was rated one of the top ten restaurants in the world by the International Herald Tribune
International Herald Tribune
The International Herald Tribune is a widely read English language international newspaper. It combines the resources of its own correspondents with those of The New York Times and is printed at 38 sites throughout the world, for sale in more than 160 countries and territories...

. He was named Chef of the Year by Bon Appétit

Bon Appétit

Bon Appétit describes itself as "a food and entertaining magazine" and is published monthly. Named after the French phrase for "Enjoy your meal", it was started by M. Frank Jones in Kansas City in 1956...

, and Daniel received Gourmet
Gourmet (magazine)
Gourmet magazine was a monthly publication of Condé Nast and the first U.S. magazine devoted to food and wine. Founded by Earle R. MacAusland and first published in 1941, Gourmet also covered "good living" on a wider scale....

's Top Table Award, a four-star rating from the New York Times, Wine Spectator

Wine Spectator

Wine Spectator is a lifestyle magazine that focuses on wine and wine culture. It publishes 15 issues per year with content that includes news, articles, profiles, and general entertainment pieces...

's Grand Award, and New York City's top ratings for cuisine, service and decor in the Zagat Survey.

Boulud received the James Beard

James Beard

James Andrew Beard was an American chef and food writer. The central figure in the story of the establishment of a gourmet American food identity, Beard was an eccentric personality who brought French cooking to the American middle and upper classes in the 1950s...

Award for Best Chef of New York City in 1992 while Executive Chef at Le Cirque. The James Beard Foundation would again recognize Chef Daniel Boulud with “Outstanding Chef of the Year” in 1994 and “Outstanding Restaurateur” in 2006 for restaurant Daniel. In April 2007 he received the Culinary Humanitarian Award at the United Nations from the Adopt-a-Mine Field Foundation. The President of France made Boulud a Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur

Légion d'honneur

The Legion of Honour, or in full the National Order of the Legion of Honour is a French order established by Napoleon Bonaparte, First Consul of the Consulat which succeeded to the First Republic, on 19 May 1802...

in March 2006 in recognition for his contribution to the advancement of French culture.

Daniel, his flagship New York City namesake, was awarded three Michelin stars in the 2010 Michelin, the book's highest rating. In addition, Daniel's New York restaurant was awarded 19 points out of 20 on the famous restaurant rating system invented by fellow Frenchman André Gayot of GAYOT.com.

TV

Boulud also hosts "After Hours with Daniel" a behind-closed-doors look at the late night dinners, by chefs and for chefs. The high definition TV series reveals where chefs go to unwind after a night behind the stove and uncovers the far out foods they crave and cook for each other. Boulud recently completed filming the third season of the show, which features restaurants in the New Orleans and Miami culinary scene. The first season was filmed in New York City restaurants and the second, on the West Coast, in Los Angeles restaurants.

Chef Boulud has been a featured chef on Great Chefs

Great Chefs

Great Chefs is a franchise of cooking shows and cookbooks that began with thirteen half hour programs produced for the American Public Broadcasting Service entitled Great Chefs of New Orleans...

television.

Boulud was also featured in the second season finale of the Canadian television program Anna & Kristina's Grocery Bag
Anna & Kristina's Grocery Bag
Anna & Kristina's Grocery Bag is a Canadian television series that airs on the W Network in Canada, as well as 13 other countries around the world...

, where his cookbook "Chef Daniel Boulud: Cooking in New York City" was being tested. Boulud appeared as the guest judge along with chefs from his restaurants located in Vancouver: Stephane Istel, executive chef at DB Bistro Moderne & Dale MacKay, executive chef at Lumière

Lumière (restaurant)

Lumière was a restaurant on West Broadway in the Kitsilano neighbourhood of Vancouver, Canada. It was founded by Rob Feenie, who up until 2007 was the executive chef. Feenie, who was a minority owner, left the restaurant after a falling-out with his business partners. After Feenie's departure,...

. Boulud's cookbook received the "A & K Stamp of Approval" at the end of the episode.

Community involvement

Daniel Boulud works to support several charities focusing his efforts on hunger relief and culinary education. He has been an active member of the board of directors of Citymeals-on-Wheels, a non-profit organization that provides home-delivered, nutritious meals to frail, homebound elderly in New York City, since 2003 and hosts an annual gala for the charity each spring. On April 13, 2008, Daniel Boulud hosted an intimate Sunday supper to mark the 10th anniversary of Savoring Citymeals—an annual gourmet event he has hosted since 1998.

The Daniel Boulud Scholarship Endowment Fund was established by the chef’s business partner, Joel Smilow, in 2005. The fund serves to provide continuing education enabling promising young American cooks to pursue professional culinary studies in France.

In 2008 Paul Bocuse

Paul Bocuse

Paul Bocuse is a French chef based in Lyon who is famous for the high quality of his restaurants and his innovative approaches to cuisine...

asked Boulud to establish a structure for the selection of the Bocuse d'Or

Bocuse d'Or

The Bocuse d'Or is a biennial world chef championship. Named for the chef Paul Bocuse, the event takes place during two days near the end of January in Lyon, France at the SIRHA International Hotel, Catering and Food Trade Exhibition, and is one of the world's most prestigious cooking...

Team USA, who along with Thomas Keller

Thomas Keller

Thomas Keller is an American chef, restaurateur, and cookbook writer. He and his landmark Napa Valley restaurant, The French Laundry in Yountville, California, have won multiple awards from the James Beard Foundation, notably the Best California Chef in 1996, and the Best Chef in America in 1997...

and Jérôme Bocuse

Jérôme Bocuse

Jérôme Bocuse is a French chef who is on the board of directors of the Bocuse d'Or USA Foundation asvice-president, and son of Paul Bocuse. Along with chefs Thomas Keller and Daniel Boulud, Jérôme Bocuse is responsible for raising support and awareness for the U.S...

form the Board of Directors of the Bocuse d'Or USA

Bocuse d'Or USA

The Bocuse d'Or USA is a biennial chef championship, where the winner is selected to represent the U.S. in the international Bocuse d'Or competition...

Foundation. The first Bocuse d'Or USA competition was held in September 2008.

Legal Issues and settlement

According to a 2007 article in the New York Times Dining Section, Daniel Boulud was sued by current and former workers for discriminatory labor practices at his namesake restaurant in Manhattan. The workers alleged that Mr. Boulud denied them promotions at his restaurant Daniel because of their race and ethnicity and retaliated against some who complained about it. The federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filed suit and there was an investigation by the Civil Rights Bureau of the New York state Attorney General’s office. Mr. Boulud settled with the workers, seven current and former employees of Latin American and Bangladeshi descent, for $80,000 and agreed to set up standards and procedures for promotions to be overseen by the EEOC & the state attorney general’s office.

Books

Cooking with Daniel Boulud (1993)
Daniel Boulud’s Café Boulud Cookbook (1999)
Daniel Boulud Cooking in New York City (2002)
Daniel’s Dish, Entertaining at Home with a Four Star Chef (2003)
Letters to a Young Chef
Art of Mentoring
The Art of Mentoring series was a series of books published by Basic Books from 2001 to 2008, beginning with Alan Dershowitz's Letters to a Young Lawyer and Christopher Hitchens' Letters to a Young Contrarian. The books were all titled in the form "Letters to a Young ____", in the spirit of Rainer...

(2003)
Braise: a Journey Through International Cuisine (2006)

In 2001, Boulud allowed author Leslie Brenner near unlimited access to Daniel the result was the 2002 book The Fourth Star: Dispatches from Inside Daniel Boulud's Celebrated New York Restaurant which gives some insight into the workings of the chef and how he operates.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.