NY Philharmonic Musical Suppers AN HOMAGE TO THE LEGEND OF LUTECE

André Soltner, founder and chef of the legendary New York restaurant Lutèce, will create a special edition of New York Philharmonic Musical Suppers, Friday, January 7, 2011.

Mr Soltner will oversee a menu of classic Alsatian dishes from Lutèce, one of the most revered restaurants of mid-20th century New York, mythologized in the hit television series Mad Men. The post-concert supper will be hosted by food writer and critic Mimi Sheraton, who will lead a lively conversation about the relationship between great food and great music with Mr. Soltner and Music Director Alan Gilbert. The supper will be prepared by Restaurant Associates and will be served at Arpeggio Food & Wine in Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center.

"As much as innovation is to be prized by both composers and chefs, the best of the new always reflects the roots of the classic," said Mimi Sheraton. "It seems fitting, therefore, for the great innovator Alan Gilbert, and the New York Philharmonic, to celebrate the culinary traditions of Lutèce, the legendary, much-missed restaurant where André Soltner held forth as chef-patrone. Based on the Alsatian food of his childhood and enriched by classic French culinary training, he prepared delectable dishes that were both traditional and contemporary. The evening's concert -a dialogue between the classical and the contemporary -is the perfect precursor to the evening's menu."

Joining the supper will be Philharmonic President and Executive Director Zarin Mehta and guest artists of the evening's concert. Mr. Gilbert will conduct Mozart's Symphony No. 40, Mahler's Kindertotenlieder featuring baritone Thomas Hampson, and the New York Premiere of Thomas Adès's In Seven Days (Concerto for Piano with Moving Image) with Mr. Ades at the piano and featuring images by video artist Tal Rosner.Mr. Soltner's selection of Lutèce classics for the evening is as follows:

Amuse Bouche
Tartelette à l'Oignon à l'Alsacienne (Alsatian onion tart)
Jalousie de Crabe et d'Epinards (Crabmeat and spinach pastry)
First Course
Potage au Potiron avec Croutons (Pumpkin soup with croutons)
Main course
Joues de Veau Braisées au Pinot Noir (Veal cheeks braised in red wine)
Spätzeles Printaniére (Noodle dumplings with mixed vegetables)
Dessert
Bavarois aux Poires, Sauce Chocolat Amer (Pear Bavarian Cream with bitter
chocolate sauce)

Tickets are $225 per person in addition to a concert ticket. For information, call (212) 875-5656 or visit nyphil.org/musicalsuppers.

Chef André Soltner, dean of classic studies at The French Culinary Institute in New  York, was the chef/owner of Lutèce for 34 years, elevating fine French cuisine to a high  art. His restaurant was a New York City four-star institution, considered the paragon of  classic French cuisine; its closing was announced on the front page of The New York  Times. He was born in Alsace, and started his apprenticeship at the age of 15, at Hôtel du Parc in Mulhouse. By the age of 27 he had become chef of the fashionable Parisian restaurant Chez Hansi. He arrived in the United States in 1961 to open Lutèce, where he regularly hosted luminaries such as the Kennedys, Richard Nixon, Katharine Hepburn, John Lennon, and Roy Lichtenstein. For 23 consecutive years, from 1971 to 1994, Lutèce, under his leadership, held five stars in the Mobil Guide and the four-star top rating of The New York Times. In 1995 Mr. Soltner joined the teaching faculty of The French Culinary Institute. He divides his time at the school between teaching hands-on cooking techniques and career counseling advanced students, and also regularly demonstrates classic menus in The French Culinary Institute's International Culinary Theater.

Mr. Soltner has received dozens of distinctions, including the French government's prestigious Officier du Mérite National and Chevalier dans l'Ordre de la Légion d'Honneur. Other recognitions include the James Beard Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award; Grande Médaille d'Or from the Académie Culinaire de France; Grand Prix d'Honneur du Salon Culinaire; Lauréat du Concours du Meilleur Ouvrier of France; Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres; Chevalier du Mérite Agricole; and the Médaille d'Or, Exposition Culinaire d'Arpajon. He is a member of several culinary
organizations including the American Institute of Wine & Food, for which he and his wife, Simone, in 1996, established the André and Simone Soltner Food Education Scholarship to assist applicants seeking a culinary career. He is a member of the Vatel Club of New York. He is a member of and previously served for more than 20 years as Délegué Général of the Maîtres Cuisiniers de France (Master Chefs of France). He also is a trustee of the Société Culinaire Philanthropique.

Host Mimi Sheraton joined The New York Times in December 1975 as a food reporter, became the restaurant critic in summer 1976, and stayed until 1984. Subsequently, she wrote freelance for Time, Vanity Fair, Condé-Nast Traveler, and New Woman. She has also written for Vogue, Eros, Avant-Garde, and Food & Wine. Currently she writes freelance food and travel articles for The New York Times and The New Yorker, among other publications, and she won a James Beard Foundation journalism award for an article in Vanity Fair on the Four Seasons's 40th anniversary. She is the author of 15 books, including The German Cookbook (Random House, still in print since 1965) and The Whole World Loves Chicken Soup (Warner Books), which won both the International
Association of Culinary Professionals (IACP) and James Beard awards. Her latest book is a memoir, Eating My Words: An Appetite for Life (William Morrow), now in paperback.Ms. Sheraton was raised in Brooklyn in a food-oriented family and studied marketing and journalism at New York University. She wrote home-furnishings copy for an advertising agency, and later for Good Housekeeping magazine, studying at the New York School of Interior Design. For about eight years she was a home-furnishings editor at Seventeen and then managing editor of House Beautiful's supplement division. Gradually, she began to write about food and to consult during planning stages for the Four Seasons restaurant before turning to food writing. She has studied with cooks and chefs in Denmark, Cambodia, Lebanon, and Turkey; at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris; and at The China Institute in New York City. She was a restaurant critic first for Cue, then for The Village Voice, and she freelanced on food and travel for many magazines such as Mademoiselle and Town & Country. For five years she was a contributor to the original New York Magazine and had her first major story published there, "I Tasted Everything in Bloomingdale's Food Department," reporting on 1,196 products. In October 2009 Ms. Sheraton accompanied the New York Philharmonic to Hanoi, Vietnam, during its Asian Horizons tour for an article about finding "the perfect pho" for Smithsonian magazine.