Top Chefs Team Up in Winning Style

When they weren’t whipping up dishes, they were cracking jokes, sipping bubbly, mingling with guests.

For the chefs participating in the premiere benefit for the California Culinary Team, it was as much play as work at the Robert Mondavi Wine & Food Center in Costa Mesa.

“Cooking with your heart is fun,” said Michel Richard, owner of Citrus restaurant in Los Angeles, a haunt of the celebrity set. “It’s not work, it’s passion!”

Joining culinary forces on Friday with chef Pascal Olhats (owner of Pascal restaurant in Newport Beach), Christian Rassinoux (executive chef of the Ritz-Carlton in Dana Point) and Jean-Pierre Lemanissier (executive chef at the Givenchy Hotel & Spa in Palm Springs), Richard helped prepare a six-course feast for more than 100 people, raising about $20,000 for the California Culinary Team.

The 10-member team will compete in the quadrennial Culinary Olympics this fall in Berlin, where chefs representing 30 nations will vie for gold medals.

“Proceeds from tonight’s benefit will pay our team’s expenses,” said Brad Toles (executive chef at Hollywood Park Casino & Race Track), team manager and president.

A welcome change on the rubber-chicken circuit, the $150-per-person event showcased signature dishes of Richard, Olhats, Rassinoux and Lemanissier. Desserts were prepared by two members of the California Culinary Team, Darrin Aoyama and Norma Arellano (who also created the table centerpieces--dark-chocolate cutouts of a chef holding a platter of spun-sugar fruit).

Taking a break before dinner, the chefs talked about life over a hot stove.

Richard, whose Washington restaurant, Citronelle, is frequented by the likes of First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton and Secretary of State Warren Christopher, said, “When you are young, you have a choice: become a fast-food cook, which is pretty boring and disgusting, or become a gastronomic chef.

“The latter is better because you only buy fresh ingredients. It is wonderful to cook well, with the best things in the world.”

Richard prepared the gala’s first course, his signature “thousand-layer” smoked salmon terrine with cauliflower salad and caviar sauce. “If you don’t like it, don’t say anything,” he whispered. “If you do, tell your friends.”

Olhats’ Fanny Bay oysters in leek veloute was served up for the second course. He was delighted to be hanging out with fellow chefs, he said. “I have to run a business, but when we get together, I can forget that. I remember it’s really about cooking--family and friends around the table, sharing, talking.”

The secret to preparing his dish is “finesse,” he said. “You don’t want the soup to be too rich or too heavy. You don’t want the seafood to take over the vegetables or the other way around. It’s all in the balance.”

Rassinoux oversaw the preparation of the salad course, an endive bouquet with turnip ravioli and chardonnay vinaigrette.

“I get to relax a little,” he said. “But the lettuce bouquets take all day to prepare. It’s simple, but a lot of work.”

For Rassinoux, whose grandfather had two Paris restaurants, cooking is art. “Preparing a plate is a form of art you don’t hang on the wall,” he said. “It is something you eat with your eyes. It is a passion. It comes from inside.”

And while he loves cooking for the celebrities who frequent the Ritz-Carlton--Whitney Houston and Barbra Streisand, for starters--he doesn’t pay much attention.

“I am too busy in the kitchen,” he said, “but I know Miss Streisand loves our teas. She comes wearing a big hat.”

Rassinoux has forged friendships with chefs around the world. “When I go to Los Angeles, New York, Europe, Asia, anywhere, I have friends. And they cook the best in their kitchen at the moment.”

Culinary team member Roger Gamboa, a chef at Hollywood Park, prepared the feast’s intermezzo course (“the palate cleanser before the main course,” explained Toles).

Served in a delicate stem glass, it featured a medley of tiny melon balls floating in Grand Marnier syrup.

At the Culinary Olympics, Gamboa will oversee the preparation of a seafood platter for eight people and appetizers for six. “We will feature California fare using European techniques,” said Gamboa, 24.

Is he hoping for a gold medal? “I am young and a gold medal would be great,” he said. “But I’m going mostly for the experience, the opportunity to say I’ve been there.”

There will be teams from several states, he explained. “Brad Toles started the California team four years ago.” Toles oversees the selection of team members.

It was up to Lemanissier to prepare the main course, roast Guinea hen with curried fresh fruit and coconut rice.

No problem. A chef whose artistic dishes have graced dining rooms around the world--the Connaught in London, La Tour D’Argent in Paris and Tokyo and the Paul Bocuse restaurant in Lyon, France--Lemanissier was confident.

But careful. His concerns: “You don’t want the rice mushy. You don’t want the hen dry. One has to be very particular.”