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Mauritian Chef Dominique Macquet brings tropical flavors to the American table

After decades of travel and culinary experimentation that has taken him along the spice route in Asia to the kitchen at the White House in Washington, D.C., chef Dominique Macquet has finally returned to his tropical roots.

But the 41-year-old Mauritian chef has not gone back to his mother's kitchen in Curepipe. Instead, he has found his culinary home in another of the world's spicy melting pots: New Orleans, Louisiana.

It is here that Dominique has discovered a kinship between the Creole cooking of Lousiana - the tasty seafood gumbos, shrimp etouffee and spicy "dirty" rice - and the cooking of his youth in Mauritius that was infused by Creole, Indian, French and Asian flavors.

And it is here that Dominique has set down personal and cooking roots, making New Orleans the base from which he nudges the American palette in a new direction: creating food that reflects the tropical flavors that he enjoyed during his journeys through Southeast Asia and the Caribbean, and that he grew up with in Mauritius.

Dominique was trained in classic French techniques and methods, but his spice trail leads back to Mauritius, where he ate many Asian stirfries and Indian curries, and his mother, Marie-Josee, taught him the sectrets of the island's herbs and spices.

At Dominique's namesake restaurant at the historic Maison Dupuy Hotel in New Orlean's French Quarter, the menu is infused with tastes of the tropics and inspired by the hometown flavors from Mauritius.

For starters, Dominique marries a seared foie gras with pain d'epices - "like we have in Mauritius," and his gingered fish bouillon is done Mauritian-style over rice. The pompano fish - native to the Gulf of Mexico - is prepared with fricasee of rock shrimp, hearts of palm and lobster-lemon oil. "I love that fish because it reminds me of the Vacoas fish in Mauritius." The salt on the table is Fleur de Sel from Tamarin. A branch of orchids in a vase on the table adds to the tropical feel, and the restaurant décor is bright and sunny. As a symbol of how he bridges the two cultures - American and Mauritian, Dominique wears miniature flags of Mauritius and the United States on the lapel of his white chef's jacket.

At the moment, Dominique appears to be at the top of his game in the American culinary scene.

He has just published his second cookbook and was invited to a Washington, D.C. book fair last month to promote it.

Despite the slump in the restaurant business since Huricane Katrina devastated New Orleans in 2005, his restaurant is doing well and he added a small bistro and bar to serve casual food. He also just opened a second restaurant in a Marriott hotel outside New Orleans that was rebuilt after the hurricane.

Dominique has received numerous culinary awards in recognition of his innovative cuisine, and he cooked for President Bush at the White House on two occasions - in 2002 and 2007.

The champagne served in his restaurant is made especially for him in France and carries his name.

Dominique is getting ready to launch a new business in partnership with a company in Chicago to sell Mauritian food products in the United States.

And perhaps the crowing achievement has been the birth of his first child, Nadya, earlier this month. The joke is that, like her Dad, Nadya has already proven herself to be a very good eater.

The son of Marie-Josee and Gaetan Macquet of Curepipe, Dominique cut his culinary teeth at an early age. His mother's cooking filled the house with the exotic smells of Mauritius' multi-ethnic foods. Outside there was a small kitchen for baking. It was there that Marie-Josee prepared bread and croissants for sale at Prisunic, and gadjacks and cakes for special occasions. The Macquets and their two other sons, Olivier and Jerome, still live in Mauritius.

Dominique says that his mother has had the biggest influence on his cooking, and he dedicated his cookbooks to her: "Dominique's Fresh Flavors" published in 2000, and Tropical Latitudes published this year.

"She taught me first about the wonderful aromas and flavors of the tropical kitchen," Dominique wrote. "Creating these recipes has been as much about remembering her cooking on our melting pot island of Mauritius as about creating something new in the melting pot of New Orleans."

The cookbooks are filled with recipes adapted from his mother's kitchen. The "Pineapple Confiture," for example, is direct from his youth. "At school, we would swap sandwiches for the taste of different confitures. I can remember that all my classmates wanted to swap with me, because my mother made the best pineapple confiture."

Marie-Josee continues to collect spices like turmeric, saffron, masala and curry in Mauritius and sends them to Dominique in New Orleans.

Dominique's love of cooking started young, and he dreamed early on of having a career in hotels or cooking. At age 16, he left Mauritius for South Africa, where he did military service and apprenticed in a Japanese restaurant in a Durban hotel. Next he was off to London, where he honed his classical cooking skills in a French brasserie in Notting Hill Gate.

"This job pointed me to my next adventure - working on a 150-foot cruise ship sailing to the Caribbean and French Polynesia." He returned to South Africa and worked in a French restaurant at the Cape Sun Hotel. It was there that he had the honor of helping cook the first meal that Nelson Mandela ate after being released from prison.

He then went on an 8-month odyssey to discover Thailand and Vietnam, returned to England (to be near his favored Manchester City soccer team), and sailed off again, going around the world as a chef on Cunard's QE II cruise ship.

During a stop in Los Angeles, Dominique got a taste of life and cooking in California and he decided to move there, taking jobs in several different hotel and restaurant kitchens. His cooking at LaValencia Restaurant in La Jolla led to a job offer in New Orleans. He was happy with the move. "I discovered that the people of New Orleans were more serious about food that the people in Beverly Hills."

At the Bistro at the Hotel Maison de Ville in the French Quarter, he began to experiment with tropical flavors. The Turks and Caicos Islands in the Caribbean, for example, influenced his recipes for baby conch ceviche served with papaya relish and tamarind grapeseed oil.

Dominique's dream of having his own restaurant came true in 1997, when he received an offer to put his name on the restaurant inside the Maison Dupuy Hotel in the French Quarter. His innovative cooking won him accolades and Esquire Magazine named him one of the top 20 best new restaurants.

With the hotel owners as his financial backers, Dominique was free to fashion the restaurant in his image and in his name. "You must constantly reinvent yourself in this business -it's difficult," Dominique said in an interview at his restaurant. "My partners at the hotel take care of the financial side, and I worry about what's on the plate. I have to come up with new dishes."

Without the financial support of the hotel, Dominique said his business could not have survived the economic losses caused by the hurricane in 2005. His restaurant was flooded and was closed for seven months. Along with his staff, Dominique moved to Houston, Texas, where the hotel owners had another property. He returned to New Orleans in February 2006 to renovate his restaurant and reinvent its cuisine with a tropical theme.

"If I didn't have the hotel behind me, I probably wouldn't have returned to New Orleans. I would have stayed in Houston," he said, adding that restaurants in New Orleans are still struggling and business will probably be slow for at least another two years until the local economy recovers.

He said that only 60-70 percent of the pre-hurricane population has returned to New Orleans, as many residents have resettled in other parts of Louisiana, or have moved out of the state to find jobs.

"Prices are very high now, rents are high and houses are more expensive. We have New York prices in the South," Dominique said. "And it's harder to get cooks. We're having to go as far away as Argentina and Indonesia to find cooks."

Dominique has made a culinary and personal commitment to New Orleans, and he wants to be an active contributor to the city's recovery. He currently lives in the city and will eventually move to a nearby suburb to raise his family. His wife, Yulia, who was born in Russia, also worked in the hotel industry in New Orleans and working toward a PhD.

"I love this city," he said with a smile. "It's the longest I've stayed in one place, except for my 16 years in Mauritius. I now call it home."

Mauritian products to make their way to American market

Beginning early next year, sea salt, fruit jams and paste candies, honey and vanilla from Mauritius will be available for sale on the American market.

Working in partnership with Chef Dominique Macquet, Sun-Rich International, an online gourmet food retailer based in Chicago, is currently working with several Mauritian companies to bring these products to the United States.

Sun-Rich will sell the items through its website (www.sun-richgourmet.com) and in specialty stores in the Chicago area. Dominique will develop recipes using the products, and he will attend food fairs and appear on televised cooking shows to demonstrate his dishes, according to Donna Jacobs of Sun-Rich.

The jams, made by Labourdonnais, will be sold under the Sun-Rich name, in line of products called "Sweet Serenade," with a Product of Mauritius credit on the labels. The salt, which Dominique currently uses in his New Orleans restaurant and sells in limited quantities in the United States under a partnership with Andre Koenig at Sesol, will carry Dominique's signature on the label. Sales are expected to start in January.

Sun-Rich may also eventually import Phoenix beer, smoked marlin, sugar-cane rum and spices, said Jacobs, who visited Mauritius in September.

"What we like about Mauritian products is their purity - they aren't loaded with additives or preservatives. They are natural products and the flavors are very different from what we find here," she said. "Americans are looking for new things and due to the popularity of televised cooking shows, more people are experimenting with their cooking."

Dominque, who left Mauritius at age 16 to start his culinary career, said he's very excited to introduce Mauritian products to Americans who are unfamiliar with the tastes and flavors of his native island.

"This is my way of giving back, of showing appreciation for my roots by embracing the incredible advances that th country has done since I was living there," Dominique said of his involvement in the project. "I'd like to eventually see Mauritian products sold widely here. In many supermarkets, you'll find a Moroccan section or an Asian section. So why not have a section that showcases the flavors of Mauritius?"

He said that not every food from Mauritius will please the American palatte, but "we can adapt it and educate Americans on how to use it and prepare it."

Sun-rich is a new online gourmet retailer that travels around the world to select unique products. They deal only with companies that "endorse fair labor laws and compassionate programs for their workers." Currently they specialize in specialty coffees and teas.

The company selects a charity in each country where they buy products. In Mauritius, they plan to to donate a percentage of their profits from the sale of Mauritian products to SOS Children's Village, which cares for orphaned and abandoned children in Rose Hill.

Meanwhile, faced with a labor shortage in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Dominique said he is seeking restaurant workers who would come to the United States on a one-year, J1 work visa, begining in May 2008.

Several workers from India and Indonesia currently work in his restaurants, and Dominique said he'd like to also offer this opportunity to Mauritians. The visa program is for experienced cooks and chefs who want to learn and have a professional experience in the United States. If interested, contact Dominique at: dominique@maisondupuy.com

a m e r i c a n   s c e n e

WEEK-END --- dimanche 9 décembre 2007