What a night! On Monday evening, I prepared an eight-course feast for the Zagat vintage dinner series. (Here I am with Tim Zagat.)
To create a uniquely personal menu that evoked France’s rich gastronomic history, I traced my culinary lineage. My mentor, chef Louis Outhier, with whom I worked after training with master chefs Paul Haeberlin and Paul Bocuse, was one of chef Fernand Point’s protégés. Many consider Point the father of nouvelle cuisine, and last night’s dishes were inspired by those he served at his temple of haute cuisine, La Pyramide. I was thrilled to be cooking dishes I haven’t done in years, the kind of buttery creations not found in many restaurants nowadays.
Although I’m often in the kitchen developing new dishes and teaching my chefs, I don’t run the dinner service anymore. For this dinner, it had to be me. My chefs are incredibly talented, but they’re young guys who’ve never done this stuff before. Cooking en croute? That belonged to my generation and those who came before me. We started light, with caviar and crème fraiche over a Meyer lemon gelee. Outhier and I share a passion for caviar, a luxury that Point embraced. 
Point also loved truffles and foie gras, so I combined the two with a visual trick. Coating a round of foie gras terrine with a port glaze, this black truffle surprise looks like a truffle, but tastes like foie gras. As indulgent as caviar and foie gras was my first-of-the-season asparagus and morels.
Point also loved truffles and foie gras, so I combined the two with a visual trick. Coating a round of foie gras terrine with a port glaze, this black truffle surprise looks like a truffle, but tastes like foie gras. As indulgent as caviar and foie gras was my first-of-the-season asparagus and morels. 
Point was renowned for his loup de mer en croute, a whole fish baked in puff pastry, and I recreated it last night with sauce choron, a béarnaise blended with tomatoes.
From there, I moved into the heart of nouvelle cuisine, which is defined by simple, lighter preparations that bring out the full flavors of fresh ingredients. I served lobster a la nage with a champagne sauce, julinenned vegetables, and chervil.
Point’s truffled Bresse chicken firmly established him as culinary genius. I recreated that iconic dish, and paired it with classic creamed spinach.
Perhaps the best part of the night was our caravan of cakes. 
My pastry chefs Johhny Iuzzini and 
Eric Hubert returned to their classical French training and created tarte tatin, Paris brest praline, savarin au rhum, gateau opera café, charlotte Cecile, pastis noisette, and many, many more, including my favorite, mille feuille aux fruits rouge.
In this tribute to my mentor, I was able to pass on what I learned from Outhier to my chefs,
Mark L’apico, Greg Brainin, my son Cedric, and the rest of the team. Teaching and inspiring the next generation of chefs is the one thing in the kitchen that will never go out of style.
Perhaps most surprising is the popularity of falcons. Throughout the city, guys with falcons perched on their arms (covered with laced metal gloves, of course) stroll casually down the street. Sometimes, there were so many of them, I felt like I was on the movie set of The Birds. It was fascinating to learn about the history of falconry in the Arab world, and just cool to see the birds everywhere.
On my last trip here, two and half years ago, the neighborhood surrounding the W was barren. Now, there are over a dozen high rises lining the street. Doha is growing so fast, it seems like a new building pops up every five minutes.
We’re in one of the many luxury hotels here, but I think we bring something new to the scene. The dining room at Spice Market is just one example of that.
Although my dishes are quite modern, I keep the white tablecloth service old-school. Most of my cooks and waitstaff come from India, Bangladesh, and Southeast Asia, and they offer a very natural, gracious style of service.
Of course, we also try to work with local ingredients as much as possible. At the fish market, I found great shrimp, rock lobster, and hamour, which closely resembles grouper.
To find the best source of meat, I went to few different markets to check out the lamb, goat, and chicken. (We’re using lamb in place of pork in our dishes, and it tastes great in Spice Market’s satay and vindaloo.)
In Qatar’s culinary culture, most restaurants offer many dishes, so we expanded our Spice Market menu to include a section of meze. Training my chefs to do all these new dishes meant I spent most of my time in the kitchen, but I did get out to see Doha’s beautiful Museum of Islamic Art.
This was actually a quiet opening of the restaurants. Once we have everything running perfectly, we’ll throw a grand opening in May orJune. That being said, this was a pretty spectacular opening. On Sunday night, someone from the emir’s palace called and asked us to deliver thirty-five dishes from both restaurants. The next night, the emir himself, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, showed up in the dining room. In his long white robes, he was incredibly striking and elegant.
While I was there, four of the five wealthiest Qatarians dined with us as well. From my experience, that segment of our clientele usually requires extra hospitality on our part, but they were also amazingly hospitable, kind, and friendly to me and my staff. It was a joy cooking for them—and everyone else who came to our restaurants—and I can’t wait to return.
