Chef Claude Troisgros
The Man Behind the Blue Door

(Also read Chef Claude's Creations)

Troisgros is the chef/owner of the acclaimed Claude Troisgros in Rio de Janeiro and consulting chef at the Blue Door restaurant in Miami Beach. "In cities like Miami or New York, people are far more familiar with all kinds of food – French, Thai, Chinese, Brazilian – and are inclined to try something new. In French cuisine, you will find the finest technique in the world, but the French have narrow minds when it comes to food, and refuse to do anything but French cuisine," he continues. "The best chefs in the world are Americans – and why not? They go to France to learn," he adds with a touch of irony. Claude does complain, however, that American creativity sometimes goes too far. He is most comfortable following the lead of his celebrated French culinary ancestors who refused to be trapped by tradition.

The Troisgros family has provided France with some of its most creative, adventurous and famous masters of French cuisine. Claude's grandfather, Jean-Baptiste, created a furor in gastronomic circles when he first paired fish with red wine four decades ago. His father, Pierre, and his late uncle, Jean, turned their family's modest restaurant in Roanne into the celebrated three-star Michelin restaurant, Troisgros.

The Troisgros brothers and their close friend and fellow

chef, Paul Bocuse, revolutionized French cooking in the 1960s as champions of nouvelle cuisine, a style of cooking that set the tone in restaurants the world over for more than a decade.

Sixty-eight-year-old Pierre is still cooking today, while yet another son, Michel, is adding new energy to the third-generation restaurant and hotel. Pierre's daughter, Anne Marie, is carrying on the tradition at Yves Gravelier in Bordeaux.

To publicly acknowledge the Troisgros family for putting their town on the culinary map, the city council painted Roanne's train station salmon pink and green in honor of Troisgros' signature dish – sautéed salmon fillet served with sorrel cream sauce.

Born into this family's unique kitchen, Claude was making beurre blanc sauce when other children were playing with blocks. At age 16, he apprenticed with Bocuse. From there, he took positions in some of the best kitchens in Europe, including Taillevent in Paris, The Connaught in London and Tantris in Munich. In 1979, when he was still in his early 20s and again back in Roanne, his father walked into the kitchen one day and asked, "Does anyone want to go to Rio?" Claude jumped at the opportunity, eager to work for famed Pastry Chef Gaston Lenôtre at his Rio de Janeiro restaurant Pré Catelan.

"When I first started working in Brazil, the European chefs were importing everything, most of it frozen and very expensive," he recalls. "I wondered why. There were wonderful Brazilian products in the market, so I began to work with the fresh, native produce, and I developed a style of tropical French cooking that became my signature." He intended to stay in Brazil for an adventuresome two-year stint, but he became captivated by the country's tropical flavors and climate and has remained there for almost 20 years.

He soon opened a small restaurant in Rio called Roanne, located across the street from an open-air market. "It was an opportunity to experiment with Brazil's tropical fruits, vegetables, quality beef and exceptional seafood," he fondly remembers. Word of his imaginative flavor combinations and pristine presentations spread rapidly, and eventually led to the opening of Rio's lively and elegant Claude Troisgros restaurant. It immediately attracted the attention of the city's trendsetters and power brokers, while earning accolades from ecstatic critics. Today, the restaurant remains one of Rio's premier dining establishments.

A third Troisgros restaurant, Terramater, specializing in traditional Brazilian cooking, soon followed, while yet another Roanne opened in São Paulo.

In 1994, Claude's desire for a new challenge, coupled with the economic instability of the Brazilian economy, led him, along with his Brazilian wife, Marlene, and two children, to Manhattan to open C.T., his renowned restaurant that wowed New Yorkers with intriguing flavor combinations and French finesse. "I never wanted to be strictly French or totally tropical, but rather French with tropical touches," he explains.

The surest proof of the essentially French nature of his cooking is how well his food can be paired with wine. "America is a country that produces wine, and a country that produces wine in general makes the greatest cuisine," he says. "Of course, I'm a Burgundian, so my personal taste is for the chardonnay and pinot noir grapes, although some of the spicy flavors in my food go well with Alsatian wines like Gewürztraminer."

With the sale of C.T. in 1996, he returned to Brazil. Having barely unpacked his bags, he was lured north yet again, this time landing in Miami Beach at the ultra-hip Delano Hotel's Blue Door.

A sensation from the moment it opened in 1995, the restaurant has finally entered the culinary fast lane with the arrival of Troisgros, who has been dazzling Miamians with his consummate skill and daring cuisine.

The menu reflects the tropical serenity and cutting-edge style of hotelier Ian Schrager's Delano. In the hands of French designer Philippe Starck, the decor – gauzy, white billowing curtains, oversized eclectic furniture and soaring ceilings supported by massive columns – is itself ethereal.

Together with Executive Chef Luke Rinaman of China Grill Management, Claude blends the disciplines of French technique with the enticing flavors of Brazil, the Caribbean and South Florida. Because many of South Florida's native products are also found in Brazil, designing a menu for the Blue Door felt like a natural progression to him.

He draws from Brazil's major regions, each of which has a different history and geography upon which its methods and ingredients of cooking is based. Common to each area is the use of high-quality, extremely fresh ingredients – a signature of the Brazilian kitchen. "Brazilian food is not just heavy stews like feijoada and mariscada," Claude explains. "On the east side of the country, you have the most African influence, lots of coconut, coriander and palm. The north and the Amazon are more tropical with more fruits, vegetables and fish. I incorporate all of these ingredients into my cooking, but at the heart, it's still French cuisine."

At first glance, the menu at the Blue Door – spiked with unusual creations such as Loup Cajou, a pan-seared fillet of Chilean sea bass with cashews, garlic, lime and sautéed fresh hearts of palm in a brown butter sauce, or Thon-Thon, a black-and-blue tuna encrusted with sesame seeds atop translucent slices of daikon marinated in lime juice, ginger and sesame oil – might appear to fall in with trendy cuisine. But every dish is clearly conceived, and nothing is combined on impulse or left to chance. Presentations are artful, but not flashy. Color comes from the natural ingredients found in the tropics.

A heavenly example of his style of French/Brazilian fusion is a signature dish known as the Big Raviole, a luscious mousseline of taro root encased in a jumbo raviole and swimming in a silken sauce of cream and white truffle oil. Following in the family tradition, Claude doesn't shy away from butter or cream when it is necessary to a dish.

(It has been reported that his Uncle Jean, who toured the United States in the 1970s, spoke only two English phrases: "I love you" and "More butter, please.")

Chef Troisgros addresses both seafood and meat with the same degree of finesse. Boeuf au Manioc (fillet of beef dipped in ground yuca flour), crusty on the outside and beautifully tender and rare on the inside, is presented on a yuca biscuit and served in a Cabernet sauce. The dish speaks eloquently to the confluence of Brazilian flavors and French technique.

His food, he says, pays homage to his grandfather, who always insisted that "cooking should be a harmony of the treasures of the earth."

Food Editor Carole Kotkin is a Miami-based writer, cooking instructor and consultant. She recently co-authored Mmmiami – Tempting Tropical Tastes for Home Cooks Everywhere. Wine News BuyLine Panelist Fred Tasker writes a weekly syndicated wine column for The Miami Herald.