Novel approach to the local food. Rene Ames

It has finally come to this: somebody has had the good sense to apply the concepts and techniques of haute cuisine to the local food and comes up with a refreshingly novel approach. And he has even labeled it himself: Nouvelle Cuisine Turque.

 

No, he is not co-opting nouvelle cuisine in its confused connotation. He is well-aware that the most influential culinary movement after WWII has seen such a wide swath of interpretations - some sublime, others ridiculous – that the term now elicits some derision when it crops up in conversations.  The cuisine’s early proponent Paul Bocuse has lately been going around joking, “nouvelle cuisine usually means not enough on your plate and too much on your bill.”

With Nouvelle Cuisine Turque (emphasis on Turque/Turkish), Ali Ronay, the 31-year-old new Chef de Cuisine at Cintemani, Ritz-Carlton’s lobby restaurant with a view, seems on to something that has gotten me and my foodie friends excited for future possibilities.

 

For one thing, if there’s anybody to recast the richness and disparate aspects of Turkish Cuisine and elevate it to haute level, it would have to be a Turk knowledgeable and conversant with the native culinary peculiarities.

 

Ali has been spending considerable time learning first-hand various Turkish cooking styles and classifications which he incorporates when he transforms them into an overall genre along the tenets of haute cuisine.  

 

These are: the use of the freshest seasonal or regional ingredients of the highest quality; application of simple or shortened methods and modern technology to cooking; and employing taste-seducing elegance in presentation.

 

Ali learned these tenets to heart when he bee-lined to a 19th century chateau turned into L’Institute Paul Bocuse Ecole Des Arts Culinaires et de L’Hotellerie in Lyon (France) right after receiving a Tourism and Hotel Administration degree from Ankara Gazi University.

 

At the Paul Bocuse the motto is to “develop your technique and set your inner creativity free”. It ranks as one of the best, if not the best, culinary schools, attracting plaudits for the intensive traditional and innovative training the students are made to undergo. And they have its namesake and co-President to look up to. Bocuse - yes, that jokester - is considered an originator of nouvelle cuisine as we know it and as one of the finest chefs of the 20th Century, with three Michelin stars to his toque.  It’s not for nothing that the school was opened in 1990 “at the request of the French Ministry of Culture to defend the French tradition of Culinary Arts and Hospitality”  (http://editions.campusfrance.org).

 

Ali finished the school’s basic and advanced courses, after which he hightailed across the Atlantic to apply his newly-honed kitchen skills in Washington DC, in places like Cities restaurant (2002-04), Restaurant & Spy and Left-bank Wired Bistro Lounge. He decided to move back closer to home when he signed up to be the Excelsior Hotel’s Executive Sous-Chef in Baku, Azerbaijan. Later he moved up as an Executive Chef in that city’s Sultan Inn Boutique Hotel.

 

About six months ago in May 2009, he became the Chef de Cuisine of Ritz-Carlton’s Cintemani, after two brief but prestigious hotel gigs here in his native country (Sofa Hotel in Nisantasi was one of them).

 

PR Manager Lara Otru charmingly outlined Ali’s challenge in Cintemani: he is expected to transform Ritz-Carlton’s fine dining restaurant into a gourmet destination for hotel guests and the city’s known number of epicures. These are folks who seek only the most refined and exceptional in what they put in their mouths. Sounds very daunting, doesn’t it? Not to someone up-to-the-job in expertise and creativity.

 

To better prepare him for the task, Ritz-Carlton has sent Ali to various kitchens of some of Europe’s most revered chefs, like Sergi Arola (two Michelin stars) and Paco Perez (one Michelin star). The latter gave him hands-on opportunities in his two world-renowned eateries, Enoteca and Marimar in Costa Brava. He also trained in Hotel Arts Barcelona that has gained a Michelin star to its name and at the Aqua restaurant of Ritz-Carlton Wolfsburg (Germany) run by three-star Michelin chef Sven Elverfeld.

 

Now home, with all that Michelin exposure, he’s ready. To achieve the hotel’s lofty goals, Ali has decided to completely revamp the old Cintemani menu that relied heavily on unexciting world cuisine. And in its place, starting this October, he is trying out an idea that’s been raring to try since culinary school: letting Turkish cuisine evolve into the veritable realm of the “cuisine minceur” (thin), where Turkish taste is still very much evident but the food is stripped of superfluity to make it healthy.

 

As long as Bocuse’s funny take on such a cuisine’s meagerness and extreme expense is not meted out, I’m sure Istanbul is poised to welcome it.

 

 

A sure sign that Ali Ronay has not fallen prey to the jarring missteps of nouvelle cuisine is the well-edited selection he presented in preview of the incoming autumn degustation menu*. Where a less confident chef would resort to quantity to drive home the fact of his talent and kitchen dexterity, Ali opted for singularity. All five signature dishes that would soon find their way onto the restaurant’s a la carte menu were refined renditions of familiar tastes.

 

Like an artist, he made us look at local food from a serendipitous angle and it was a delight to spot ingredients we have innumerably consumed in everyday recipes seen in different contexts. The key for him is reinvention of what can be locally or regionally sourced. Now this would make a locavore sing in high notes.

 

For example, the “Olive Trio” (green olives tapenade, marinated Bodrum olives, kalamata sporification) would have been a usual light mezze but when offered as amuse bouche along with the creamy kefir and a caipirinha of smoked paprika air and tomato served in shot glasses, they moved up several notches from the ordinary.

 

Next, came “Corum Kargi Tulum”, a mild goat cheese tart with wild mushrooms accompanied with lightly-dressed arugula, a dish so poetic in its simplicity.

 

The Canakkale red mullet was executed in a very interesting way: the fish skin was shaved and cooked separately to later be placed on top of the fillet as a textured garnish along with almond slivers and an aromatic herb salad.

 

The dinner’s piece de resistance had an unusual pair of sauces: celery puree and juniper jus. They were great accompaniment to the tender and moist Tekirdag rack of lamb, the skin of which was likewise recomposed in the serving. It came with just the right amount of sweetbreads and vegetables on the side.

 

For dessert, Ali’s further nod to this country’s culinary versatility was the use of rose water in a pudding that was frozen and broken into smithereens, scattered over raspberry sorbet garnished with fresh raspberries – a witty dig at molecular gastronomy.

 

Uncannily matching most of the meal was Turkey’s Sarafin Chardonnay 2007 as did Sarafin Merlot 2007 the lamb.

 

*Free-standing degustation menu 95TL excluding beverages.

 

 

If all goes well, the menu in Cintemani would probably be the only one in any restaurant hereabouts to be changed seasonally - as in four times a year. Ali Ronay is adamant about using only the freshest available local ingredients that would afford him the chance to whip up creative food on a regular basis. This means that those who take their eating seriously should schedule a periodic call or visit to the restaurant.

 

2009 Autumn Menu is available daily in these price ranges:

Salads 30-40TL

Main courses 50-70TL

Desserts 20-30TL

 

Cintemani Restaurant

The Ritz-Carlton

Suzer Plaza, Elmadag, 34367 Sisli

(0212) 334 4444

www.ritzcarlton.com

Open 6-11pm