Stephen Lyle's calling is to make food that people love to eat every day rather than focus the diner's attention on the cerebrations of the chef. His contemporary American cuisine unites Mediterranean and French bistro cooking with Mexican and Asian elements. Featuring seasonal vegetable salads, pasta and grilled steak and fish, Village satisfies modern yet basic American tastes.
Lyle was born in Paris of American parents. He spent his early childhood on New York's Upper East Side until his family moved back to France, to a farm in Provence, when he was nine. Lyle did not attend school after third grade, and the farm was isolated. To occupy himself, he began cooking. "My mom cooked lunch and the kids were on their own for breakfast and dinner," says Lyle, and by the time he was a teenager [younger?]
he was regularly making dinner for his four younger siblings. "We had a lot of fried bread and jam, which I love. And I cooked my way through the chapter on desserts in *The Joy of Cooking.*"
In 1977, at 17, he apprenticed with the talented Gerard Ferri at La Couletta, near Monte Carlo. Nouvelle cuisine was revolutionizing French cooking, and Lyle spent two years learning that approach from the young chef/owner; the restaurant received one Michelin
star.
Lyle then trained in the classic style at the Ecole Hotelière in Nice, and went to the three-star Oustaou de Baumanieres in the south of France, before being drawn back to New York in 19XX [???]. There, he wrote to a family acquaintance, Julia Child, for advice; she counseled him to work in a French restaurant. Over the next three years he worked with Masataka Kobayashi at Le Plaisir and with Leslie Revsin at Restaurant Leslie on Cornelia Street. [why only that address??]
In 1984, Lyle was recruited to be the opening chef at Quatorze, where he received critical raves, including two stars from the New York Times. He began by cooking bistro classics and developed his signature style, which* *Times critic Bryan Miller called "ingenuous," and which became widely influential.
He went on to revive the Odeon, the Tribeca culinary pioneer.
"Much cooking today has no feeling for the history or origin of each dish," says Lyle. "Certain ingredients have affinities. There's a reason certain things are classics. French cooking gives you that background — in sauces, in seasoning. I've kept some of the values of nouvelle cuisine. I like things light and cooked correctly, but with less fussiness and mannerism in the presentation. One of my major influences was Leslie Revsin, and from her I learned to cook with an organic sense of style."
"I don't want food that does a backflip on the plate," he says. "There's a place for that, but if a customer comes back frequently, he wants something that speaks to a deeper and more primal place in the human palate. Lamb with garlic and thyme — no amount of passion fruit puree will ever equal that."
Village, now seven years old, is "the expression of everything that's important to me," says Lyle. "Working at the Odeon taught me many wonderful things, but most of all I learned that people go to restaurants not just to get a great meal pleasantly served in attractive surroundings, but to have a gratifying social experience with friends and family
or even alone. Neighborhood restaurants are the new village squares, and one of the only opportunities for communal experience we have today. Ideally, this means being recognized by name, but I want every customer to feel genuinely welcome and comfortable. This is what Village strives* *for." < less
United States of America
Subscribe
