There are many places in France where you can eat well and a few where you can eat superlatively. The Hôtel de la Côte-d'Or. in Saulieu, however, has almost the character of a national shrine. Here, French cuisine is regarded as a cherished art, an essential element of the national patrimony, every bit as sacred and as important as the Mont-Saint-Michel, the château of Chenonceaux, or the cathedral of Chartres.
When Alexandre Dumaine and his wife Jeanne bought the Hôtel de la Côre-d'Or in 1930, traffic was not what it is today, nor did many travelers think of stopping off at Saulieu. Since the coming of the Dumaines, however, the town has become a center of pilgrimage for Frenchmen and non-Frenchmen who want to partake of the glory of la cuisine française.
Furthermore, like the mountain coming to Mohammed, the suppliers of all France now descend upon this quiet corner of Burgundy. The Côte-d'Or's market is the entire country. The chickens come from Brcsse. The sole comes from Boulogne The lobsters and shellfish come from Roscoff in Brittany. The butter conies from the DeuxSevres where the cows graze on the salt marshes. The suppliers know that if the Côte-d'Or buys their merchandise. it is the best recommendation they can have.
Cooking is like music in that, once composed, it requires great interpreters to keep it alive. Alexandre Dumaine probably the greatest interpreter of Carême, Vatel. Prosper Montagué, and Escoffier in our generation. There is nothing that belongs to the cooking tradition of his country that he cannot realize—and with exquisite finesse. He has never limited himself to his specialties but, upon request, is willing to draw from the entire classic repertory. Dishes that became but reading recipes in old books have been brought back to existence.
This great gastronomic shrine at Saulieu has recently weathered a state of transition. Never, however, was a succession more wisely prepared for or more smoothly executed. It is for this reason that I choose to speak of the Hotel de la Côte-d'Or, its past and its present.
If there is one dominant principle at work in the kitchens of the Côte-d'Or, it is the idea that a sauce should be made supple and rendered light. All the fat needed at the beginning of the cooking process is removed before the end. It takes time—slow cooking, dunging of casseroles, frequent use of strainers and cheesecloths—until every heavy panicle has been spirited away. After five or six hours of such pampering, the sauce is but a suggestion. There is really almost nothing there but a taste. To arrive at what is hoped will be little more than a volatile perfume, twenty quarts of sauce may be reduced to a quart and a half. This lavish concentration is the triumph of the theory that less is more, and it applies to almost everything that is good in life.
Obviously, to appreciate a great restaurant like the Côte-d'Or you should not speed in for lunch or for dinner, stuff yourself on half a dozen specialties, and then move on. If I were a visitor to France and did not have the chance to come to the Côte-d'Or very often, I would arrange to stay for about three days.
The restaurant is part of a hotel of twenty-six rooms. They are plain, clean rooms—simple, but comfortable. as are the rest of the surroundings of the unostentatious Côte-d'Or. The entrance, for example, is a combination lobby, sitting room, writing room, and bar.
If you have been expecting “atmosphere,” you'll think you have strayed into the wrong place. There is another atmosphere, though, created by a welcome tendered equally to an ex-crowned head, a movie star, an internationally known industrial designer, or a very young American father who arrives carrying his baby in a plastic bassinet on his arm. It is all very en famille.
One evening in the dining room I saw a large man, well dressed in a blue suit and black-and-white shoes. He was eating alone and giving thoughtful attention to the food. After the meal, I watched him walk outside past the Bentleys, the Alfa-Romeos, the Peugeots, and climb up into the high seat of the cab of an enormous truck. That this gourmet truck driver was receiving the same attention as everyone else is one reason I have always loved the Côte-d'Or.
Salvador Dali once announced a visit months ahead. “I shall be coming in the spring.” he wrote. “I am Spanish and I want to eat what my king ate in the spring season.”
Mr. Dali was served a cold saddle of hare accompanied by gooseberry jelly, which, according to the files, had been a great hit with Alfonse XIII.
A savant gourmet once ordered suprême of salmon trout en papillote to be served among other dishes for his birthday lunch for twenty persons. The menu had been plotted like a battle Operation weeks in advance.
At 7 A.M., the morning of the birthday, the salmon trout were fished out of the cold waters of Lake Annecy some 286 kilometers away. A truck was waiting to hurry them to the Côte-d'Or. The driver stopped twice en route to telephone in his road progress. At 11:30, he pulled up smartly in Saulieu and the kitchen brigade rook over.
“Much of the talent of a cook lies in his sense of precise timing, “M. Dumaine explained to me on my first visit, a three-day Christmas holiday. As a guest at the Côte-d'Or, you too have the responsibility of absolute punctuality. If you are not prepared to meet it. better not come. You will spoil the dish and break everybody's heart.
On this memorable first occasion, we were asked at the end of luncheon what time we would like to have dinner. We fixed the hour for 8:15 and chose a comparatively simple dish that I happen to love: les oeufs toupinel. For this dish baked potatoes are scooped from their shells, coarsely mashed with butter, and returned to the shells with a julienne of ham and truffles. A hollow is left in the center for a poached egg which is covered with Mornay sauce. The potatoes are quickly returned to the oven to be gratinéed. To be perfect, the yolks of those eggs have to be runny.
As I said, nobody is allowed to upset the show at the Côted'Or by being late. At 8:09 the chambermaid knocked at the door.
“Six minutes to table,” she warned.
At 8:14 the telephone rang. Only a fool would have wasted time answering. I flew down the hall. The telephone could be heard pealing its last as I slid into my chair at 8:15 sharp.
“Magnifique,” exclaimed M. Dumaine, and he let out a great sigh of relief. The yolks were in just the right state of runniness.
Over the years we became good friends and had a chance to talk during the easeful moments at the end of a long day when all the clients had eaten beyond their dreams.
“You know, the better something is the less of it you should serve,” he once said. “When you go to a party or a reception at someone's house, you are handed a glass once you are inside the door. Why? Make the crowd wait ten or fifteen minutes. Everybody will be thinking, ‘What are they going to give us?’ The suspense grows. You shouldn't cut the pleasure of your guests by showing your opulence.
“Just before people become restless, you serve them something special—a very old Sherry or Port or Château d'Yquem—in a very pretty glass. Just half a glass. Everybody will be respectful. What a marvel. They will sip slowly because they will be afraid they won't get any more. Then you give them a second tear's worth. The service should inspire respect. You don't quench your thirst on a marc 1880 or Hospices de Beaunc. You must have the art of caressing on your tongue. That is when gastronomy is beautiful.”
I also learned then that M. Dumaine does not believe in mystique or in secrets. To him the history of French cuisine is an open book, and he will share his knowledge with anybody.
When Dumaine recently announced his intention to retire from the Côte-d'Or, offers were hardly lacking, and many a businessman offered to pay dearly for this reputation of gold.
One can sell an original score of Beethoven and a violin of Stradivarius, but what does it mean if the buyer is not a Vladimir Horowitz or a David Oistrakh? By the same token, Dumaine knew that without a kindred soul presiding over the stoves, his house, which had entertained the great of this world, could quickly disappear into dusty memory even if the walls remained.
In a gesture equivalent to the Olympic runner passing his torch to another runner who will race with the flame, Dumaine set about to select his heir, for he himself has no children.
He wanted to find a young man. A man of forty-five, he felt, would be already too old, too set in his ways. His successor would have to be an artisan, skilled and equipped to succeed with the most formidable recipes, and experienced in every phase of cuisine from charcuterie to pâtisserie. Furthermore, he must have such a love for his métier that no effort would be too great. To be a chef according to such standards is to be an artist. One will make a name but the chances of making much money are nonexistent. Even in France, to find a man capable and willing to accept the challenge is not easy.
Dumaine discovered his dauphin—a young Burgundian named François Minot—through Monsieur Pierre Mouquet. the president of the Club des Cent. The highest approval Minot could have received was the recommendation of the president of this group.
The Club des Cent is a powerful organization of gourmets. Its one hundred members possess the finest and most exigent amateur palates in France. Each man is a master of food and wine and each of them can professionally prepare a menu, as well as enjoy the results. In addition to arranging a few extraordinary banquets each year, the Club, every November, sends representatives to the États Généaux de la Gastronomic at Dijon, where sauces and vintages arc examined like affairs of state. The delegate to the November, 1962, meeting was Pierre Mouquet, a man parsimonious when it comes to praise. No one could be more aware than he of the difficulties of an official dinner for one hundred people, and this dinner was flawless. His taste buds on the alert. Mouquet inquired as to who was responsible.
It was the son of the owner of the Hôtel du Parc in Dijon. Mouquet Hashed word to Dumaine that twenty eight-year-old Francois Minot was a colt to watch. Two days later, Dumaine was in Dijon. The older man, outstanding in his field, and [he younger man, already with twelve years of experience behind him, talked cuisine.
Minor had been bred to the tradition. Behind him was a five-generation heritage of cooks and chefs. In 1830, his great-great-grandmother had run a Dijon inn. From 1900 to 1912, his maternal grandfather had been pastry cook and specialist in cold buffet tables for the Czar of Russia.
Between Minot and Dumaine there was an immediate and real communication. The language was the same. Both regarded their hard profession as a great structure built by a handful of geniuses and refined by three centuries of talent. While the basic principles of French cooking once mastered remain the same, as in music, it is up to each instrumentalist to produce the tonalities, to draw forth the nuances, to reach higher and higher for the elusive note of perfection.
Dumaine spent hours in the kitchens of the Hôtel du Parc, observing the knowledgeability and the authority of Minor. He liked his dissatisfaction. When a dish came out well, Minot was all for trying it another way the next time. Furthermore, he had the prodigality of great chefs who never think of price when it is a question of primary ingredients.
Here, undoubtedly, was his spiritual heir. He then made his astounding offer. He, Alexandre Dumaine, recognized as the king of all chefs in France, would cede his realm to a young man, practically unknown in upper gastronomic circles. He would sell him the Côte-d'Or, and for a price below the bedazzlements proposed by the business tycoons.
Once, at the age of sixteen, Minor had been brought to the Côte-d'Or by his parents for a meal, as a part of his education. Since then, Dumaine had represented le bon Dieu, to be admired, respected, revered. Minot, awestruck by an emotion akin to lightning, felt dizzy and automatically refused outright. Not that he was a timid character. His previous career had already revealed his resourcefulness. At sixteen, he had begun his apprenticeship in restaurants of Paris and of the provinces. On his free days, he would go as a customer to other restaurants. If he came upon a dish that pleased him and whose preparation escaped him, he would later appear at the kitchen inquiring if they needed an extra hand for a week, or two, or three. When he had mastered the secrets of the dish, he moved on.
During his military service he had the temerity to say right out to his superior officers that there was something stupid in a system that wasted a brilliant cook on the duties of a simple soldier. Apparently he bludgeoned the right doors with his indignation, for he ended up as principal chef to General Coigny, commander in chief of French troops in Morocco. Minor's military career was no waste of time.
But Dumaine was more intimidating to him than the French high command. Sure of himself where the pots and casseroles were concerned, he was also perturbed at the thought of Dumaine's clientele. (Later, Minot was to discover a clientele that was exigent but not difficult. “Even the most famous come in here smiling and with great simplicity. They write or telephone in advance and sometimes they order in advance. It is a dream.”)
Despite Minot's vertigo, the discussions went on. Mme Jeanne Dumaine, the most gracious hostess in the entire hotel world, suggested that the Minots come over to Saulieu for a while.
Newspapers in Paris were full of the story. Dumaine was abdicating. For France, this was an event of national importance. In the spring of 1963 when the clients, full of trepidation, arrived, what did they find? Mme Dumaine was behind the desk as always, but at her side was young Mme Minot. The adored Alexandre Dumaine, in his white apron and high white toque, was in the kitchen as always, Except now Francois Minot was with him. Dumaine introduced Minot with a speech to his staff in the kitchen. Everyone cried because the personnel at the Côte-d'Or are like one family. Alexandre reassured them that there would be no change, and so it turned out. The atmosphere has retained its old serenity and confidence, and the food is as superlative as ever.
Jeanne and Alexandre Dumaine know that you don't just abandon a house like the Côte-d'Or. The transfer was arranged without brusquerie. The first season they remained as consultants. From now on, they are always available to the Minors for advice.
There will be people who go to the Côte-d'Or now and in the future who will scoffingly say. “Ah, but if you had only known it in the days of Dumaine.” But I am convinced that thirty years from now the same sort of people will be sighing, “Ah, if you had only known it in the days of Minot.”