If he hadn’t been a wastrel first, Jean-Georges Vongerichten may have never become a chef. Vongerichten grew up in a suburb of Strasbourg. His bedroom was located above the family kitchen, so he woke up every day to the smells of the pork-and-cabbage lunches that his grandmother and mother prepared for the employees of the family’s coal company. As the eldest son, he was expected to take over the business, but engineering trade school proved to be a bust—he was kicked out after a year. “I had no idea what I wanted to do,” he says of this period. “Pretty much all I learned was how to drink and smoke!”
That changed when he was sixteen. His parents invited him for a meal at Auberge de l’Ill, then a three-star Michelin restaurant. The service and classic dishes transfixed him, and much to his father’s surprise, for the first time Vongerichten was interested in something. When chef Paul Haeberlin approached the table to see how things were going, the elder Vongerichten asked if he could find a job for his “useless son.” The three-year apprenticeship at the legendary restaurant was the beginning of Vongerichten’s illustrious cooking career. “It just happened,” he says.
After learning his trade at Auberge d’Ill, Vongerichten did his military service on an antisubmarine destroyer as the captain’s personal cook. They were based in Brest, but traveled from port to port from England to Morocco. “I had to shop in each city so I really got a flavor for the local markets,” he recalls. His travels continued as he worked his way up the restaurant business, learning from such masters as Louis Outhier, one of the founders of nouvelle cuisine, and Paul Bocuse. Thanks to Outhier, he became a consultant with a hotel group, and opened restaurants in Thailand, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Japan. He studied each country’s cuisine, and began to evolve his own style that mixed East and West.
Outhier then sent him another mission, this time to the Drake Hotel in New York, and Vongerichten found his niche. He put the lessons he had learned in Asia to good use and transformed his cuisine, cutting out heavy sauces and replacing them with vegetable broths, introducing lemongrass, ginger, and other exotic ingredients that New Yorkers were unaccustomed to finding outside of Chinatown. He drew an influential clientele, including one Phil Suarez, a media tycoon. One day Suarez handed over his business card. “If you ever strike out on your own, give me a call,” he told Vongerichten.
Vongerichten remembered that card when he walked past a restaurant with a “to rent” sign and learned it was available if he paid a month’s rent the following day. He dropped Suarez a line, and a day later, check in hand, became his own boss. He named his new restaurant with his childhood nickname, JoJo.
JoJo was just the first in a string of restaurants that Vongerichten and Suarez opened together. Next came Vong, a Thai/French fusion restaurant, followed by dozens of others, including the flagship Jean-Georges, and outposts as far away as South America and Asia. As Vongerichten says, “Opening a new restaurant is easier than changing the menu in an old one.”
CURRENT HOMETOWN: New York City
RESTAURANT THAT MADE HIS NAME: Restaurant Lafayette in the Drake Hotel
SIGNATURE STYLE: Seasonal French-American nouvelle cuisine
BEST KNOWN FOR: His flagship Jean-Georges and many other restaurants; numerous James Beard Awards; his cookbooks; and a memoir, JGV: A Life in 12 Recipes
FRIDGE: Viking
A self-confessed health freak who boxes every morning, Vongerichten has an industrial chic Viking refrigerator that contains mostly produce and is very neatly organized. There’s also a lot of water, chilled bottles of beer, and charcuterie. He has them on hand for evenings when friends come over to hang at his immaculate Greenwich Village pad with its white minimalist kitchen and views of the Hudson River. “Where I grew up, it was black everywhere,” he recalls. “We’d be playing on mountains of coal in the backyard and we were always filthy. I’ve come a long way from the coal pits of Alsace. Not bad for a simple cook and high school dropout!”
- FIJI BOTTLED WATER—“I knew the guy who started the company way back before they became well known. I agreed to stock his product, and he began to send me three or four boxes a week. So I always have tons and give it away to friends and family!”
- CROWN MAPLE SYRUP, from the Hudson Valley—“I always have maple syrup for plain yogurt or pancakes on the weekend.”
- FEVER-TREE TONIC, for gin and tonics at aperitif time
- BUTTERMILK, for making pancakes
- SPANISH OLIVES, for snacks and entertaining
- JUICES, FROM ABC—“I drink one before or after the gym.”
- CHIA PUDDING
- MIRABELLE JAM—“My favorite flavor.”
- SALTED BUTTER
- ALMOND BUTTER
- PEARS
- PEANUT BUTTER—“I eat it by the spoon!”
- SAKE—“I like to drink it straight up.”
- PERONI BEER
- CHARCUTERIE
- FRENCH SAUCISSON SEC