Roland Passot

Infobox Chef
name = Rolnad Passot

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caption = Passot at a staff appreciation dinner
birthdate =
birthplace = Villefranche-sur-Saône, France| deathdate =
deathplace =
style = French
education =
ratings = Michelin stars Rating|1|3
San Francisco Chronicle Rating|4|4
Mobil Guide Rating|4|5 [cite news|url=http://www.hotel-online.com/News/PR2001_1st/Jan01_MobilStars.html|publisher=ExxonMobil Travel Publications|title=42 North America Lodgings and Restaurants Achieve the Coveted 2001 Mobil Travel Guide Five-Star Rating|date=2001]
restaurants = La Folie, Left Bank
television =
prevrests =
awards = James Beard Award
website =

French-born chef Roland Passot, owner of the La Folie and the more casual chain brasseries, Left Bank, was named one of "the eight wonders of Bay Area dining" by San Francisco Chronicle lead critic Michael Bauer.cite news|title=The eight wonders of Bay Area dining|author=Michael Bauer|publisher=San Francisco Chronicle|date=2008-08-06|url=http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/sfgate/detail?blogid=26&entry_id=28823]

Early life and career

Passot was born in 1955 in Villefranche-sur-Saône, in France's Rhône-Alpes.cite web|publisher=Challenge Dairy|title=In the Spotlight: Roland Passot, La Folie|url=http://www.challengedairy.com/spotlight/index.php?cid=15] He is a classically trained French chef, having attended cooking school in Lyon while beginning as an assistant, at age fourteen, in the city's Léon de Lyon restaurant under Chef Paul Lacombe, and then Pierre Orsi Restaurant.cite news|publisher=Food and Beverage World|date=Spring, 2002|url=http://www.fbworld.com/Mag_spring_2002/roland%20passot/balance/balance.html|title=Chef Roland Passot] After Passot rose to the rank of assistant sous-chef at Léon de Lyon, Jean Banchet (who Passot considers his most important influence) recruited him in 1979 to work at Le Francais in Wheeling, Illinois (near Chicago, Illinois | Chicago), then sent him in 1981 to open the French Room at the Adolphus Hotel in Dallas, Texas.cite news|url=http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=view_from_the_bay/food_wine&id=6067107|publisher=ABC 7 News|title=Infuse your meal with tea|date=2008-04-08] In between, he opened Le Castel in San Francisco. [cite news|url=http://www.paloaltoonline.com/weekly/morgue/monthly/1995_Mar_29.CHC.html|publisher=Palo Alto Online|author=Julie Ratner |title=Haute cuisine for a higher cause|date=1995-03-29]

Restaurants

Passot opened La Folie on Polk Street in 1988, with his wife Jamie and brother Georges. A small brasserie in the Polk Gulch section of the Russian Hill neighborhood of San Francisco, it opened at a cost of $45,000 with no outside investors.cite news|url=http://www.thefoodpaper.com/interviews/rolandpassot.html|publisher=The Food Paper|title=Roland Passot:Pots, Peppers and a Passion for Fashion|author=Susan Dyer Reynolds] His wife conceived the name, which means "craziness" or "folly" in French, referring to the difficulty of opening a new establishment in San Francisco's competitive restaurant scene. Still a family business, his brother serves as sommelier, and his wife as General Manager.cite news|url=http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m3190/is_20_32/ai_50062512/pg_1?tag=artBody;col1|title=La Folie|publisher=Nation's Restaurant News|date=1998-05-18|author=Alan Liddle]

Instantly successful, La Folie steadily gained in reputation and refinement until by 2000 it was one of only several restaurants in the San Francisco Bay Area, California, to earn a "four star" review from the San Francisco Chronicle, from the city's most recognized food critic.cite news|publisher=San Francisco Chronicle|author=Michael Bauer|url=http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2000/11/26/PK114228.DTL|title=The Creme De la Creme:Four-star restaurants in the Bay Area are more casual but still first-rate|date=2000-11-26] It still had that distinction as of 2008. Avoiding "fusion" influences, the establishment is a conventional contemporary French restaurant, with classic French use of stocks and sauces but lighter than traditional French and with attention to local ingredients.

Despite the restaurant's renown it was not significantly profitable due to small size, low number of "turns", and high ingredient and operation cost (with 24 employees for 60-70 seats, and 2 1/2 to 3 hour reservation slots at an average "tab" of $75 per guest, it grossed only $1.7 million in 1998).cite news|url=http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m3190/is_n17_v28/ai_15354379|title=Passot, Levine join forces to open Left Bank venture|publisher=Nation's Restaurant News|author=Alan Liddle|date=1994-04-25] In 1994, with partner Ed Levine, a Stanford Business School graduate who had been CFO of the Il Fornaio chain, Passot opened the much larger (220 seat) Left Bank restaurant in Larkspur, California, as a more casual, and commercial, alternative to La Folie.Cite news|publisher=Palo Alto Online|url=http://www.paloaltoonline.com/weekly/morgue/restaurants/1998_Sep_4.EAT04.html|title=Restaurant Review: rant in Menlo Park|author=Laura Reiley|date=1998-09-04] The second Left Bank opened in Palo Alto, California in 1998, and later locations opened in San mateo, Pleasant Hill, and San Jose. The restaurants serve a style of home-style cooking Passot calls "Cuisine Grand-mere". In 2007 the Left Bank restaurant group opened Tanglewood, an upscale American restaurant, in San Jose's Santana Row.

Influence and awards

In 1991 Passot was inducted into the Maitres Cuisiniers de France. [cite web|url=http://www.mcf-usa.com/chefs/roland-passot.html|title=Roland Passot|publisher=Maitres Cuisiniers de France] His restaurant won the Zagat Survey awards for "Best Food" and "Best Nouvelle French restaurant" in 1998, and "Best French restaurant" in San Francisco, in 2002. He also earned a James Beard Award as "best rising star chef" of 1980, and other "best" designations and awards from USA Today, Food & Wine Magazine, Gourmet magazine, Gault Millau, and SF Weekly.cite news|title=Roland Passot Chef Profile|publisher=Cooks Eat Share|url=http://www.cookeatshare.com/chefs/roland-passot-168] In 2001 the French Government awarded him the "Chevalier dans l’Ordre du Mèrite Agricole".

A local caviar producer, Tsar Nicoulai, has named a product after him. [cite news|date=2007-11-04|title=Now Flavoring:Roe v. Wasabi|author=Melissa Feldman|publisher=New York times|url=http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/04/style/tmagazine/04tcaviar.html?pagewanted=print]

Passot has a reputation for hiring and mentoring young academy-trained chefs. A number of successful restaurant chefs credit Passot as a mentor, or as inspiration, including Jeffrey Russell, Executive Chef at The Grand America Hotel in Salt Lake City, [cite news|url=http://www.visitsaltlake.com/media/view_release.php?id=20|title=Utah’s Great Chef Migration|date=2007-01-06|publisher=Visit Salt Lake] Trey Foshee of George’s at the Cove in La Jolla, California, [cite web|publisher=Challenge Dairy|url=http://www.challengedairy.com/spotlight/index.php?cid=35|title=In the Spotlight: Trey Foshee, Executive Chef/Partner at George’s at the Cove, La Jolla, California] and Michael Kramer, formerly of McCrady’s Restaurant in Charleston, South Carolina and (as of 2008) of Voice Restaurant in Houston, Texas [cite news|url=http://www.hotelinteractive.com/article.aspx?articleid=10050|publisher=Hotel Interactive|title=Houston's Hotel ICON Debut's VOICE Restaurant|date=2008-03-04]

Personal life

Passot met his wife, Jamie, when she was working at the Four Seasons Resort in Irving, Texas. Known for being gregarious and social, Passot is a frequent participant in cooking shows and demonstrations, charity events, and television appearances. After gaining weight from the stress of managing his restaurants, he lost 60 pounds by eliminating alcohol, sugar, and starches from his diet. [cite news|url=http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/chronicle/archive/2002/01/02/FD144026.DTL|publisher=San Francisco Chronicle|title=Balancing act:Chefs and restaurateurs share secrets for battling the bulge|autor=Kim Severson|date=2002-01-02]

References

Exterior links

* [http://www.lafolie.com/ lafolie.com] - official La Folie site
* [http://www.leftbank.com leftbank.com] - official Left Bank site
* [http://www.tanglewood.com tanglewood.com] - official Tanglewood site