Jean-Louis Palladin, 55; Passionate Chef Modernized French Cooking in U.S.

Jean-Louis Palladin, the consummate chef’s chef who modernized and enhanced French cooking in America and influenced a generation of foodies with innovative combinations of the freshest ingredients at his restaurant, Jean-Louis at the Watergate, has died. He was 55.

Palladin died Sunday in McLean, Va., of lung cancer, a family spokeswoman said. The chef, a heavy smoker, was diagnosed with the disease late last year.

A veritable knight of the kitchen, as the French meaning of his surname might imply, Palladin was born and bred a French chef. The youngest chef in France to earn two Michelin stars, he came to America to turn French cuisine on its ear.

Palladin was aghast when he arrived in Washington, D.C., in 1979 to find most ingredients “fresh frozen,” and later told The Times: “I had to buy fish from Paris, and I didn’t want to do that because this country can have the best product in the world.”

It was Palladin’s daring experimentation with American ingredients and his willingness to relax the formal table settings and service of traditional French restaurants that led other chefs to follow his lead.

“The challenge of cooking in America,” he said in 1987, “is to discover the newest and best products from the different states: baby eels and lamprey from Maine, fresh snails from Oregon, blowfish from the Carolinas, and California oysters, and then to learn how to integrate them into your cuisine.”

Chefs who learned at his elbow noted that Palladin carefully examined any new ingredient that piqued his curiosity--he sliced it, tasted it uncooked, applied seasonings, cooked it different ways and only then created some marvelous dish from it.

By example, he coaxed American chefs into seeking out and demanding the freshest ingredients--wild mushrooms, organically grown tomatoes, scallops gathered from the ocean floor by divers, the perfect ham from two states away.

He openly and freely taught any who would learn, spotting and encouraging talent. Among those Palladin mentored were chefs Eric Ripert of Le Bernardin, Daniel Boulud of Daniel, Christian Delouvrier of Lespinasse, all in New York; and Sylvain Portay now at the Ritz-Carlton in San Francisco, as well as Drew Nieporent, who owns Rubicon in San Francisco and Tribeca Grill among other restaurants in New York.

Palladin seemed to cook for the joy of it. Unlike many of his better-known contemporaries, he never turned himself into a money-making machine by churning out books or cooking with photogenic gestures for the television camera.

When his cookbook “Cooking With the Seasons” was published in 1990, a Times reviewer described it as perhaps “the most beautiful cookbook you can buy.”

“For the home cook,” the reviewer continued, “the Palladin book functions mostly as an art book--an impressive, large and pricey show of good taste. This is a book that doesn’t even pretend that the person who buys it will be able to re-create the food in it. . . . But to professional chefs, Palladin’s conception of color and space on the plate, his aesthetics of food, may serve as inspiration.”

Eschewing the chef’s toque as a nuisance that got knocked off when he ducked under the hood of his stove, the lanky Palladin was easily recognized with his frizzled bird’s nest of dark brown hair, thick mustache and oversize glasses. He was the life of the party on the charitable dinner scene but personally focused and a tough taskmaster.

“Standing center stage in the open kitchen, he works with the concentration of a surgeon,” wrote Times restaurant critic S. Irene Virbila, observing Palladin in his Las Vegas Napa Restaurant three years ago. “Watching Palladin perform, I can’t help but think of a gentle, bespectacled lion who has been drafted, in midlife, to the circus.”

Traveled the Country to Cook

At Napa, Virbila approved of Palladin’s efforts, writing: “The soup, a celery root puree poured over that shivery [foie gras] custard and ripe pear nuggets, is astonishing. . . . We marvel at the crepinette of lamb and wild mushrooms. We’re enraptured with the trio of pear desserts.”

Palladin frequently took his pots and pans and special ingredients on the road, either to raise funds for charity or to entertain special clients and their guests.

Born in Condom, in southwestern France, Palladin worked in restaurants briefly in Paris and Monaco before attending culinary school in Toulouse. Back in Condom, he worked in an Italian restaurant until the highly impressed owner helped him create his own restaurant in a converted monastery. The result was La Table des Cordeliers.

By 1974, when he was 28, Palladin was awarded two Michelin stars.

Five years later, backers lured him to Washington to open Jean-Louis at the Watergate in the capital’s famed Watergate Hotel. The small, elegant restaurant became the “in” place for politicians, socialites and celebrities.

Enormously successful at Jean-Louis, the namesake chef became bored well before it closed in 1996. He tried a few other less successful ventures.

In early 1997 he opened Napa Restaurant at Las Vegas’ Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino as the consulting chef, eager to showcase his particular melding of California and French cuisine. Unlike other chefs, who were beginning to flock to the gambling mecca as the city refined its gustatory taste, Palladin even moved there for a time.

But he had long dreamed of having a restaurant in New York City, and in 1999 lent his name to Palladin in the boutique Time Hotel just off Times Square. Despite his frequent presence as consulting chef, the restaurant never attracted the clientele he had enjoyed in Washington, and closed last year.

Palladin, who advised those he mentored that cooking demanded sacrifice and total dedication, including putting any wife second to the kitchen, was divorced from Regine Palladin of McLean, Va. He is survived by a son, Olivier; a daughter, Verveine; and a sister, Monique Palladin of Paris.