Marcel Vigneron’s New Pop-Up Dinner Party Series Adds An Intimate Touch To Fine Dining
Culinary enthusiasts love experiencing the hottest chefs and most coveted restaurant reservations. There's a star appeal to those food personalities we see on television or on billboards for their roster of restaurants. This sometimes makes celebrity chefs and their cuisine feel out of reach and less approachable.
But food, and sharing a meal, is at its core such an intimate, personal experience, and one celebrity chef is trying to reintroduce that element to fine dining, one dinner at a time. In early November, celebrity chef Marcel Vigneron teamed up with his wife, Lauren Rae Levy, and Rob Pausmith of Pausmith Group, to create the first in a series of pop-up dinner experiences known as Chef & The Mrs.
The event, which had its first installment in Malibu, where the chef and his family is based, was held as a farm-style dinner under the stars experience at Malibu Fig Ranch and was invitation-only.
"Lauren and I have wanted to do something like this for the community for some time now," said Vigneron in an email interview. "Two summers ago, she and I threw a brunch at a local farm and tons of people have wanted us to bring it back since."
That laid the groundwork for the evolution of the concept, and their partnership with Rob Pausmith. "The demand has been there for some time. Tickets sold at a steady pace, and we never made the event public. We carefully took our time curating who we wanted to have and personally spoke to invited guests so they understood our desire to bring something special to the community," said Vigneron.
While the chef was originally thinking of an Italian theme for this menu, he then decided to go with some of his most classic dishes. "I just wanted to play some of the greatest hits and give the people what they want. This menu consists of some of my favorite dishes to eat, and utilizes some of the incredible seasonal produce available at Malibu Fig Ranch," said Vigneron, of a menu that included passed apps like King Salmon Crudo Lettuce Wraps with little gem, passion fruit dressing, avocado, yuzu koshu, pomegranate, and puffed amaranth. "This dish was similar to a ceviche lettuce wrap and inspired by my most recent visit to Peru and the passion fruit from my very own backyard," he said, as well as a Roasted Miso Hamakua Mushroom Bruschetta with crispy onion, puffed wild rice, miso, sesame. "This was a a variation of something I dreamt up on my most recent trip to Hawaii and knew that I had to bring it back to Malibu in a new form," said Vigneron. The thoughtful passed apps were also accompanied by wines from Banfi Italian reserves and signature cocktails by Aspen Vodka, chosen specifically because their sustainability matched the Malibu theme.
The meal portion started with an antipasti that was essentially an Italian Market Chopped Salad, "This is one of my all-time favorite salads. I always need to start the meal off with a salad and if you are going to have salad, this is the one. The bitterness of the chicory's is perfectly offset by a touch of honey in the vinaigrette, and the creamy unctuous feta that was tossed into the salad and topped with all of the crunchy salty savory goodies!" said Vigneron, which was followed by a truffle risotto and then a choice of roasted sea bass, black angus ribeye, or a vegetarian honeynut squash. The sides included spicy broccoli and Vigneron's famous Tuscan potatoes. "My famous crispy potatoes were a must for this event and the aji amarillo is another little nod to Peru and inspired by the famous Papa a la Huancaína," he said.
The next Chef & The Mrs. dinner is scheduled for mid-December. "Our focus is currently on Malibu, but we know we will take this concept on the road to select cities we have ties to, and internationally when the timing is right," said Lauren Rae Levy in an email interview.
