Restaurant Numero 7 in Fez, designed by the creative director of the Jardin Majorelle in Marrakesh, has reopened as a showcase for a rotating cast of international chefs. Photo: The New York Times
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* ‘Food is the fastest way to understand a culture, & cooking puts you into immediate contact with where you are.’ *
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The chef Jerome Waag of Chez Panisse is creating daily three-course menus at Restaurant Numero 7 until June 23. Photo: The New York Times
The New York Times, by Alexander Lobrano (June 16, 2014) — Deep in the hive-like medina (old city) of Fez, Morocco, one of the world’s most beautiful restaurants has just reopened as a venue for an intriguing new visiting-chef-in-residence project that casts the kitchen as an incubator for both cultural exchange and culinary innovation. Restaurant Numero 7 is owned by Stephen di Renza, a former fashion director for Neiman Marcus and Bergdorf Goodman who divides his time between Fez and Marrakesh, where he is the creative director for the Jardin Majorelle, Yves Saint Laurent’s old lair.
Di Renza, who has lived in Morocco full time since 2007, originally designed the striking restaurant — which features black-and-white tile work, a black marble water wall and an installation of hand-blown glass bubbles — to complement his adjacent hotel, Riad 9. But he had to close it when its founding chef, Bruno Ussel, decided to return to France last year. Sometime later, Di Renza found himself in conversation with Tara Stevens, an English food writer who divides her time between Fez and Barcelona, and Jerome Waag, a chef at Chez Panisse in Berkeley, Calif., about what to do with the restaurant.
Together they came up with a chef-in-residence program based on the discovery of Moroccan produce and the Moroccan palate, a concept they dubbed “Beldi market cuisine,” beldi being a Moroccan Arabic term used to denote something indigenous, traditional or locally produced. Each visiting chef will be invited to create a daily menu based on seasonal produce sourced from Fez’s central market or nearby farmers. After a fire at Chez Panisse cleared a space in the French-born Waag’s schedule, he agreed to go first. He’ll be creating daily three-course menus until June 23, when the restaurant closes for Ramadan and the rest of the summer; taking over on Sept. 1 will be Analiese Gregory, who has been cooking at Quay in Sydney and Mugaritz in Spain. Waag’s most exciting discovery in Morocco, he says, has been the country’s “amped-up produce. It’s so dense and intense, so I’ve had to rethink the way I use an herb like mint — it’s so potent here.”
[Continue Reading at The New York Times…]
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