Another take, from back East

UNTIL a few weeks ago, I thought we were long past the contrived concoctions and bizarre combinations that epitomized the worst of the nouvelle cuisine movement of the 1970s and ‘80s.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not a traditionalist. I like unusual combinations on my plate. I’m also in complete agreement with the basic principles of nouvelle cuisine -- fresher products, lighter sauces, less cooking time, an emphasis on true flavor, on the natural essence of things.

But in the hands of some chefs who saw themselves as, say, Salvador Dali, rather than Rembrandt, nouvelle cuisine often led to a stomach-churning plethora of such dishes as turbot in raspberry sauce, Chilean sea bass with a pineapple-horseradish beurre blanc and, of course, kiwi everywhere, with everything.

The successor to nouvelle cuisine -- what came to be called fusion cuisine but was often more confusion cuisine -- had its unfortunate excesses too.

But for the most part, I thought we had returned to sanity in the kitchen. Until my recent dinner in New York -- at Lutece of all places.

Lutece is one of the legendary restaurants in America. Opened by Andre Surmain and chef Andre Soltner in 1961 and run by Soltner from 1972 until he sold it to the Ark restaurant chain in 1994, it was long seen as the epitome of classical French cuisine in the United States.

And now it’s serving warm foie gras in chocolate sauce.

No, that’s not a misprint. Warm foie gras in chocolate sauce. That was what the menu listed as -- and our waiter touted as -- the restaurant’s (shudder) “signature dish.”

Soltner, now retired, still lives above the restaurant. I’m fairly sure the sound I heard at that last dinner must have been him banging his head on the floor and sobbing.

A sweet sauce can complement foie gras in a most extraordinary fashion, of course. But in my experience, the sweetness also must have a bit of tartness to cut the richness of the foie gras. That’s why rhubarb and apples work so well with it.

I also can remember a foie gras served with a sauce of pralines and raspberry vinegar that Alain Passard made at Arpege in Paris -- and Alfred Portale’s foie gras with a grilled mango salad and balsamic vinegar at Gotham Bar and Grill.

But foie gras and chocolate sauce? When I mentioned it to my food-savvy 13-year-old son, he thought I was kidding.

“Did it have whipped cream and nuts too?” he asked.

No. And a good thing. The foie gras actually made the chocolate taste acrid. As for the effect of the chocolate on the foie gras, well, suffice it to say that I’ve never had much sympathy for the moral zealots of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, but if ever any animals were in need of ethical treatment, it would be the poor ducks that were slaughtered so that chef David Feau could give their livers a Hershey bath.

OK, so Feau doesn’t use Hershey’s chocolate. He uses Valrhona. He blends it -- about 50/50, he says -- with a traditional Bordelaise sauce.

He also adds a bit of wholespice, nutmeg and black peppercorns.

But what possessed him to combine foie gras and chocolate in the first place?

“I got the idea,” he told me, “because in France, we sometimes add a bit of chocolate to a sauce served with wild game to give it a bit of ripeness. So I created this dish while cooking for friends in France.”

I assume they’re now his ex-friends.

Feau, 31, is from Le Mans, a town in the western Loire Valley best known for its annual 24-hour automobile race. That’s a race in which endurance is almost as important as speed.

I felt the same way trying to eat Feau’s foie gras in chocolate sauce.

David Shaw can be reached at david.shaw@latimes.com.