Sunday, February 28, 1999
Comisars lure legendary Maisonette chef
Haidon has recipe for Bistro's woes
BY CHUCK MARTIN
The Cincinnati Enquirer
After a half century of eating some of the finest food on the continent, we are dangerously close to taking the Maisonette for granted. Last month, the downtown institution won a Mobil five-star rating for the 35th consecutive year - longer than any restaurant.
Ho-hum. Another year, another five stars.
We also may fail to recognize the chef perhaps most responsible for the Maisonette's tremendous success, the man who quietly retired from the kitchen five years ago after nearly 30 years of service: the notoriously shy and reserved Georges Haidon.
I talk to his friends. I leave phone messages. And Mr. Haidon agrees to meet me for lunch at China Gourmet in Hyde Park. There he sits, wearing a spiffy green houndstooth jacket and neatly trimmed salt-and-pepper mustache. The Belgium native looks immensely relaxed and at least a decade younger than his 67 years.
“Ah, you have to work this afternoon?” he playfully asks, as I decline a glass of wine.
Without a word, an appetizer of stir-fried shrimp arrives. And naturally, I allow him to order the entree — steamed sea bass delicately flavored with ginger.
“Do you like fresh fish?” he inquires. “This is wonderful.”
Even his eyes smile. His charm is calming, considering I'm so awed by his accomplishments.
As Maisonette executive chef, Mr. Haidon won five Mobil stars every year from 1972 to 1994. He helped earn the same prestigious rating for five years prior to that as executive sous chef.
“Keeping the five stars for 27 years was not exactly a given,” he says, not realizing the understatement.
Promising to travel and spend time with his family, Mr. Haidon retired from the Maisonette and was replaced by Jean-Robert de Cavel.
Five years and 25 stars later, the hot gossip rippling through Cincinnati restaurants is that Mr. Haidon is coming back to work for the Comisars — the family that owns the Maisonette.
@subhed:Putting things on track
@rbody:
It's true, Mr. Haidon confirms. He is consulting at the Comisar-owned Bistro Gigi in Mariemont “one to three hours a day, just about every day.”
Nat Comisar, managing partner of the restaurant group, explains that he approached Mr. Haidon last fall about the consulting job, after becoming concerned about the quality of food at the bistro, which opened in 1997.
“Georges was so associated with the Maisonette,” Mr. Comisar says, “that people would complain to him about it (the food at Bistro Gigi). And I think he was getting tired of it.”
Mr. Haidon agreed to check in on the cooks for no pay (although now he say he is “negotiating” a fee). Soon, he helped develop a new menu for Bistro Gigi, which was introduced in December.
“I'm just trying to put things back on track,” he says, sounding like a field commander.
But don't get him wrong. He is not ready to pull on his white jacket full-time. Only dabbling satisfies his craving.
“I've adapted very well to retirement,” he says.
In fact, Mr. Haidon began helping out at the Queen City Club restaurant in 1996, and admits it “felt good” to be in the kitchen again.
“But to be honest, I will not say that I really missed it (cooking).”
His German-born wife, Anne-Marie, surely misses the cooking even less. It was she who complained the most about the time he spent away from home while working long hours at the Maisonette.
The Haidons, who live in Anderson Township, now have plenty of time to garden, walk their miniature dachshunds, Tanya and Gigi (no relation to the bistro), and dote on two god-children.
He is a little surprised when I tell him I'm surprised he stayed in Cincinnati after retirement.
“This has really become our home,” he says. “Cincinnati and the surrounding hillsides remind us of nice cities in Europe.”
Born in Liege, Belgium, Mr. Haidon began apprenticing in restaurant kitchens at age 18 and worked in Brussels, Zaire and New York before moving to Cincinnati.
@subhed:Famous temper
@rbody:
Mr. Haidon admits time away from the restaurant has mellowed him, which should be encouraging to those who felt the chef's famous, fiery temper.
While pulling a stint in the kitchen years ago, Mr. Comisar remembers slicing off the tip of his finger while cutting leeks.
“Georges blew up not because I cut off my finger,” Mr. Comisar says, “but because I had ruined the vegetables.”
Dean Fearing, who is executive chef of the Mansion on Turtle Creek in Dallas, came to work for Mr. Haidon in 1978 as a brash, 23 year-old Culinary Institute of America graduate. He tells a story of being allowed to make the Maisonette's famous lobster bisque for the first time.
“Chef Haidon came by as I was straining the bisque and saw (uncooked) roux in the strainer,” Mr. Fearing says. “I thought he was going to kill me. He started speaking French loudly, then he started throwing things. But you know from then on, there was never a bit of roux in my bisque.”
In 1997, Mr. Fearing won the first Mobil five-star rating at his Dallas restaurant.
“I wouldn't be here today without Georges Haidon,” he says.
Molly Poynter Maundrell was the first woman to work on the Maisonette range line for Mr. Haidon in 1982, but says she received no preferential treatment.
“I saw his temper,” says Ms. Maundrell, now culinary arts director at Green Acres Foundation in Indian Hill, “but he did those things to keep the restaurant and its food at its highest standards.”
“I learned so much from him. He would push you beyond what you thought you could do to build your confidence and self-esteem. It's a gift.”
If anything, Mr. Haidon admits to missing the camaraderie of Ms. Maundrell and other talented, passionate cooks.
But not enough to give up the extra time with his wife, oyster-eating excursions to San Francisco and even these leisurely lunches at his favorite Chinese restaurant.
“To work full-time again, it would take a very good offer,” he says, smiling broadly, face flushed from a second glass of wine.
We finish lunch and shake hands. Then, one of the greatest chefs to grace a Cincinnati kitchen leaves to check on a little bistro in Mariemont.
It's on his way home.
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