623887 Sun May 31 04:07:12 -0700 2009 1 27 General Chowhounding Topics 0 4729358 Is any chef anywhere still practising true haute cuisine in the (essentially 19th/early 20th century) tradition of Careme and Escoffier? I had a fantastic meal in 1996 at the Connaught Hotel in London. My starter still sticks in my mind - a wonderful concoction of vegetables set in aspic over a white vegetable mousse made to look like a still-life painting of flowers, with the centerpiece a "sunflower" which was a soft-boiled egg yolk. My wife had a pigeon chartreuse - a boned baby pigeon in aspic with tiny vegetables. The Head Chef then was Michel Bourdain, favourite chef of the late Queen Mother - he retired a few years ago and the whole place was redesigned, including the menu, when Gordon Ramsay's protegee, Angela Hartnett, took over. I can't think of anyone in the States/Canada or Europe who still cooks like that. I know it's enormously expensive these days in labor and ingredients - it must have taken someone hours to put my dish together, it's got to be made in advance, and if it isn't sold, it goes out in the trash. Maybe there's some classically trained guy in his 80s still battling away against power cuts and ingredient shortages in a former French colony somewhere? Sun May 31 04:07:13 -0700 2009 324454 PieddeCochon 1 4731349 There is a very interesting French sit on the internet: mmm.free.fr which lists 24 places under the heading Grande Cuisine. Places like Taillevant, Laserre, Le Cinq, Les Elysees du Vernet, Auberge de l'Ille. I have not been to any of these, but there are folks on the France board who have. Sun May 31 20:15:30 -0700 2009 4729358 10156 Steve