Cezanne masterpiece: Restaurant features vintner dinners all month
By Daily Press staff
Dinner at Cezanne restaurant at the Le Merigot Beach Hotel may be one of the best deals and meals you’ll find in Santa Monica this month.
Throughout February, the restaurant is featuring vintner dinners on Friday and Saturday nights. Not only will you be treated to a mouth-watering menu, but also unlimited glasses of wine with the purchase of an entree. This month’s selected vineyard is Washington state’s Chateau St. Michelle. The wine comes at no charge. Last month, Cezanne featured Chateau St. Jean from Sonoma County.
“It’s really catching on,” said executive chef Desi Szonntagh. “People have been spilling in during the week.”
Sommelier George Skorka, who has an extensive background in restaurantuering, will pour a variety of wines from the vineyard. Skorka, who takes great pleasure in pleasing his customers, makes himself available to discuss the selected vintner and wine pairings.
Skorka reunited with Szonntagh at Cezanne eight months ago — the two have worked together before at 1 Pico at Shutters on the Beach — to create a team effort in giving patrons an unforgettable dining experience.
“We’ve known each other for quite some time,” Szonntagh said. “George and I are real soul mates. We’re two aspects of the same personality. He instinctively knows what I am cooking and he knows how to match up wine.”
In the past year and a half, the seasoned chef has taken the restaurant in a new direction by firing up Provencal cuisine and further raising the restaurant’s profile. Prior to joining Le Merigot, Szonntagh was the executive sous chef at the acclaimed Terrace Restaurant at Hotel Bel-Air in Bel Air, where he created a menu that earned the restaurant accolades in the pages of Saveur magazine.
“I have special items that I’ll do just for the tasting. If we get something unusual, I’ll run with that,”
“It’s the extra things to make the dining room special.” — he said
Cézanne’s menu conjures up images of Provence with an infusion of contemporary Mediterranean cuisine and a hint of Pacific Rim zest. The menu features grilled meats, poultry, seafood, and vegetables seasoned with herbs from the farmer’s market, as well as a selection of pastas and salads.
The wide array of appetizers include rice paper wrapped salmon with cilantro pesto; crab rolls on frisée; oysters rocke-feller; pâté maison with pistachios and brioche toast; escargot ragoût bourgogne and coquille St. Jacques.
But the one appetizer that stands out is the spicy tuna tartar. Szonntagh scrapes the tuna off the loin with a spoon for each order, making the texture very fresh. It’s blended with a spicy mayonnaise, cayenne pepper and mustard concoction that is tossed with red onions and capers. And as with every serving, Cezanne doesn’t skimp on portions.
The dinner menu features horseradish crusted salmon with baby leaf spinach and crème fraîche, shrimp and diver scallops with angel hair, roasted tomatoes, garlic, olive oil basil sauce; roasted Chilean sea bass with pipérade of fennel, peppers and leek; pan-seared duck breast and chanterelles, Swiss chard, Israeli couscous, pinot noir essence; veal medallions forestière fettuccini, wild mushroom shallot sauce; and grilled rack of Colorado lamb ratatouille with canellini beans, cabernet thyme jus, to name a few signature dishes.
Szonntagh will prepare a specialty once a week and one of his favorites is creating flavorful stews. Currently, Szonntagh is simmering up a lot of southern French style seafood stews for the winter.
However, the one that stands out is the lamb stew in which Szonntagh simmers the shoulder of the lamb — one of the most flavorful pieces.
“It’s a tough cut that a lot of people don’t know how to cook,” he said, adding it’s a traditional way of cooking in the south of France. “You simmer it for a long time to make it tender and get the flavor out, it’s perfect for a stew.” It’s served with caramelized vegetables seasoned with thyme, bay leaves, lots of garlic in a red wine reduction.
That’s not to say the filet isn’t another good pick — it was described by one patron, a 70-year-old woman who has traveled the world, as a the “best meal she’s ever had.” It’s served with mashed potatoes, tomato wedges, arugula, bernaise sauce and asparagus.
Szonntagh has more than 20 years of experience working as a chef in an impressive roster of fine dining establishments, including Shutters on the Beach; 2087–An American Bistro in Thousand Oaks, where he was partner/chef and received a complimentary review from the Los Angeles Times Magazine Restaurant Critic Irene Virbilla; Tatou in Tokyo, Beverly Hills, Aspen, and New York City; Provence Restaurant, New York City; LaBoheme, New York City; and Le Cirque, New York City. In addition to his extensive experience in these renowned restaurants, Szonntagh was honored to be a featured chef at the James Beard House.
Szonntagh holds a bachelor of arts degree in English literature from La Salle College in Philadelphia, and an associate degree in occupational sciences from the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York. He also has enhanced his career with an estragiere at the Moulin de Mougins in Mougins, France and an apprenticeship at the Greenbrier Hotel in White Sulpher Springs, W. Va.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on February 13, 2004. Read the original PDF.