Food: America's Best French Restaurant

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Most at home in his kitchen, Soltner starts work between 8 and 9 in the morning, checking on the ingredients delivered by suppliers. "It is pointless for me to go to market. Everything is too far apart in New York and, anyway, I would be a small purchaser, and so not get first choice. But my wholesalers are important purchasers and I am important to them, so I get the best of the best. If not, I call them fast -- like this," he said, phoning his fish wholesaler of 25 years to complain about a batch of less than fresh scallops. Soltner is a demanding chef, but he takes good care of his employees, paying top wages and taking an interest in them. Though competitors try to woo them away, Lutece has practically no turnover. Still there are intermittent problems and complaints from both customers and critics. "Critics aren't always wrong," Soltner says, adding quickly, "but they aren't always right either. The staff feels pressure from our reputation, with some customers coming to prove we do not deserve it. At times, the traffic is a little too heavy and, of course, when we get a good review it can go to a captain's head."

Even the most dedicated chef who has fun in his kitchen needs some recreation and for Andre Soltner that means skiing. When Saturday dinner ends, he and Simone, who welcomes guests and monitors the Lutece dining room, drive 2 1/2 hours to their home at Hunter Mountain, north of New York City. Simone is content to tend to her plants, and he skis. "I have a weekend dog too," he says. "He is a Labrador retriever and belongs to an American family all week, but on Sunday he comes to see me. If I am not there, he comes to the ski area and runs up the mountain to find me. That's because I cook French soup for him. Sammy knows good French cooking when he tastes it."

Would Soltner ever want to do anything else? "What would I do if I sold Lutece?" he asks almost rhetorically. "I would love to have a little Alsatian restaurant where I do the cooking of my childhood, but really it would be silly. If I am going to have a restaurant, it might as well be Lutece. But maybe someday I would love to work with young people."

What Simone would do is clear. "I would go to theater and eat in restaurants and fix up my house. I would live," she says. Neither she nor her husband nor any member of the Lutece staff has ever had a meal in the restaurant's dining room. "Our families come, but it is not right for us to wait on each other," Andre and his captains agree.

For vacations during August, Soltner may do cooking demonstrations on a cruise ship, taking his wife and mother along, or they visit Alsace and Simone's native Normandy. There she catches up on what she calls "real" apple cider and dishes her sister-in-law prepares with rabbit and lamb. Do the Soltners ever argue about the relative superiority of their regional kitchens? "That was settled long ago. We decided that the best food is Alsatian," says the husband. Soltner is "bien attache," say relatives, well attached to family, food, and language. "He has never lost this sense of his roots," brother-in-law Pierre notes.

"Andre has never changed, you see," his mother says. "He is still simply a boy of Alsace."