Catfish Cafe Catching On in the Kremlin

Bryant Gumbel has called from the “Today” show in New York to make reservations. Visiting American businessmen plan to eat here every lunch and dinner. And, right at the moment, a member of Nancy Reagan’s summit staff is here in person begging for a table.

“But we’re booked solid for tonight,” whines Louisiana Cajun/Creole chef John Folse, who nevertheless writes down the reservation. Then he shrugs.

“When the First Lady’s staff asks to eat, we make room,” he explains later. “Just like any good American restaurant.”

Whether it’s good remains to be seen. But one thing is certain--it isn’t just any American restaurant. It’s the Soviet Spago.

This week, the dimly lit, drably decorated eatery became the first American restaurant to do business in Moscow, though for only a 10-day run. With the fourth Reagan-Gorbachev summit meeting about to start, first-day business was booming Thursday at the just-transformed Mercury Restaurant in the Mezhdunarodnaya International Hotel.

Judging from Folse’s rapidly filling reservations book, it should remain the see-and-be-seen hot spot for U.S. and Soviet VIPs throughout the summit.

True, neither President Reagan nor Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev is expected to drop by. But at an invitation-only opening night party Wednesday, America’s Kremlin watchers--along with Soviet cosmonauts and other dignitaries--scarfed down stuffed catfish and crawfish etouffe .

Not everyone, however, has been immediately charmed. Several U.S. diplomats stationed in Moscow complained that the restaurant was a “cockamamie idea” in the midst of a serious international event.

“It’s just another example of the Soviets exploiting the Americans,” groused one veteran U. S. official. “There’s no economic benefit involved, beyond the free publicity of being able to go back home and say, ‘I served the Soviets.’ ”

Another noted that the average Soviet citizen can’t eat in the Mercury because it demands payment in hard currency instead of Soviet rubles.

“So it has virtually no impact on the population at large,” he said. “That certainly to me is not cultural exchange.”

Chef Folse isn’t shy about admitting that he wanted some personal publicity. After all, about 4,000 journalists are expected to arrive in Moscow by Sunday for the summit. And he did bring along a PR man.

“I would be crazy to deny it,” he says.

Then again, anyone who would walk around Red Square dressed as he is--in a crisply starched toque, a French designer chef’s jacket embroidered with the logo of his flagship Louisiana restaurant, a pair of pinstriped pants and a diamond-crusted gold Rolex watch--isn’t shy, period.

Perhaps a big ego is exactly what was needed to create the Kremlin Cajun Cookoff, as it’s been nicknamed here. Not to mention 18 months of toil, trouble and telexes; two tons of fresh catfish; the influence of the Louisiana congressional delegation and the intercession of the Communists’ favorite capitalist, Dr. Armand Hammer.

Oh, and don’t forget the California wines, bottled especially for Folse at Mountain View Vineyards outside San Jose.

It all started when Folse, the chef/owner of four Louisiana restaurants including his flagship Lafitte’s Landing outside New Orleans, decided he was sick of serving catfish in a small pond. He wanted to serve it internationally.

“I noticed about three years ago that people could recite the names of the greatest chefs of France in a snap of a finger. But no American chefs had really made it on the international marketplace.”

In 1985, he brought his Cajun cooking to the Hong Kong Hilton for two weeks; now, he’s there every October. In 1986, he spiced up palates in Japan and China as well.

So 1987, he decided, would be the year he served the Soviet Union. Shortly after the first of the year, when the Moscow summit was still just a rumor, he wrote to the Aragvi Restaurant, one of the city’s most popular, offering his services. The reply was a terse nyet.

Then, as luck would have it, a Soviet exhibition--part of regular U.S.-Soviet cultural exchanges--passed through New Orleans. Folse invited the entire Soviet entourage of 65 to his restaurant, arranging for limousines to squire them the 40 miles west to Donaldsville, La., along with a state police escort. He picked up the tab.

One thing led to another, and over yet another round of Cajun martinis with vodka, Bill Davis, a senior U.S. Information Agency official and veteran of the 1959 Nixon-Khrushchev Kitchen Debate, suggested that Folse ought to initiate some “table diplomacy.”

By the spring, the restaurateur had enlisted the help of Occidental Petroleum Chairman Hammer. Proposed to the Soviets was a culinary exchange that would send Folse to Moscow and a Soviet chef to Cajun country.

By the end of April, a deal was made. Folse was told that during the Moscow summit he could take over the Mercury and turn it into a typical Cajun/Creole cafe complete with his own chefs and a Cajun band of fiddlers and accordionists. The location was perfect: The U.S. briefing room and press center are in the same modern hotel/office complex.

“It just floored us,” Folse recalls.

Among the conditions the Soviets demanded was that Folse also serve “typical American hamburgers” (he signed up a Louisiana burger joint called Fast Tracks to do the job) and that he bring over all his staff and foodstuffs at his own expense. In return, the Soviets would keep every dime the cafe took in.

It was the kind of deal that most restaurateurs would instantly refuse, but not Folse.

“People said it couldn’t be done,” Folse said. “But I knew all the problems already.”

With just four weeks to plan, he stayed clear of U. S. authorities “because we didn’t want to involve anyone who could slow us up.” He raised $150,000 for expenses from sponsors ranging from the catfish industry to Cajun seasoning companies. He flew in 30 staffers, including four chefs and two maitre d’s, and enlisted the Louisiana Seafood Promotion Board to round up seven tons of fresh shrimp, oysters and crab meat. The boxes of catfish alone stacked up 12 feet high, 10 feet wide, two rows deep.

The Soviets unsnarled the usual red tape, and “here I am,” Folse exulted, “an American chef serving American cuisine (halfway) around the world.”

So far, at least, the Soviets have given the chef every indication that they are pleased. Folse was informed this week that he has been hired to design a new food and beverage complex for the SovinCentre development project featuring American cuisine.

Mike Mehlhoff, a project manager with Weyerhaeuser from Tacoma, Wash., was the first paying patron at lunch, and Folse estimates that 65% of his business will come from visiting American businessmen.

American officials also have adopted the place. Doug Fisher, a member of Nancy Reagan’s advance team, appealed to Folse in person Thursday to reserve a table for eight. And the U.S. TV networks, which have brought hundreds of staffers to cover the summit, have already made the Mercury their unofficial meeting place at night. ABC, for instance, has reserved a standing table for dinner and Folse has created a special room for journalists needing to eat and run.

When NBC’s Gumbel heard about the enterprise this month, he grabbed the phone and booked meals at the Mercury for three of the five days he’ll be in Moscow, says Folse. “He said he would have reserved the other two days,” Folse says with a laugh, “but he was already committed.”