全球法餐名厨在北京遭遇滑铁卢

A Global Dining Empire Loses an Outpost
Beijing JournalBy JANE PERLEZDecember 11, 2013
全球法餐名厨在北京遭遇滑铁卢
北京日志JANE PERLEZ2013年12月11日
[要查看本图请先注册并登录]
纽约大厨丹尼尔·布鲁德经营的布鲁宫法餐厅在开张五年后关门。
Sim Chi Yin for The New York Times

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The last meal at Maison Boulud in China, at least for now, was served on Sunday.
布鲁宫法餐厅(Maison Boulud)在中国提供的最后一餐服务是在上周日，至少目前为止是这样。
The [要查看本链接请先注册并登录] run by the New York chef Daniel Boulud in the former American Embassy not far from Tiananmen Square, closed after five years, the victim of a falling out with Chinese partners and perhaps the staid habits of Beijing.
这家由纽约厨师丹尼尔·布鲁德(Daniel Boulud)经营的[要查看本链接请先注册并登录]距离天安门广场不远，所在地曾是美国驻华公使馆的旧址，它在开张五年后关了门，成为与中方合伙人的一场冲突的牺牲品，也许还跟北京的固执积习有关。
At brunch on Sunday, patrons from 7 to 70 dined on golden chicken from Dongbei in northern China and plump shrimp from the Yellow Sea. Gray skies cast a soft light through tall windows into the dining room of the mansion constructed in 1903 as one of the first Western-style buildings in Beijing, the capital.
在周日的早午餐上，年龄在7岁到70岁之间的顾客们品尝着的金黄色鸡肉产自中国东北，浑圆的虾产自黄海。灰色的天空投下一缕柔和的光线，透过高窗照进这座1903年建造的宅邸内，它是中国首都北京最早建起的西式建筑之一。
The guests, including women dressed in pearls and high heels, men in sweaters and jeans and two children, Audrey, 7, and Alex, 13, who with their mother, Ly Vu, have been frequent patrons, all gathered to say farewell.
顾客们都是常客，他们聚在一起，和餐厅告别，有戴着珍珠项链、脚踩高跟鞋的女人、也有穿着毛衣和牛仔裤的男人，还有两个孩子，他们是7岁的奥德丽(Audrey)和13岁的埃里克斯(Alex)，以及他们的母亲利乌(Ly Vu)。
“We adore the restaurant, the ambience and the service,” said Mrs. Vu, a Vietnamese American living in Beijing, as she and her children finished eating a chicken that had been carved at the table by the executive chef, Brian Reimer. “We love the juicy chicken with crispy skin,” she said. “The dining room is homey yet elegant. It’s very sad it is closing.”
“我们喜爱这家餐厅，喜爱这里的氛围和服务。”居住在北京的越南裔美国人利乌说，她和孩子刚吃完行政主厨布莱恩·赖默(Brian Reimer)在餐桌上给他们切的鸡。她说，“我爱入口即化的脆皮鸡。餐厅既温馨又雅致。它要关门让人很伤心。”
For Mr. Boulud’s dining empire, now at 13 restaurants, including establishments in Singapore, London and Toronto, a closing is unusual. A venture in Las Vegas shut in 2010 but another is set to open there, said Brett Traussi, director of operations for the Dinex Group, which manages the Boulud gourmet brand.
对布鲁德的餐饮帝国而言，关闭一家餐厅可谓非比寻常，目前，该帝国旗下拥有13家餐厅，在新加坡、伦敦和多伦多均有餐厅在经营。负责管理布鲁德(Boulud)这个美食品牌的Dinex集团运营总监布雷特·特西(Brett Traussi)说，公司在2010年关闭了拉斯维加斯的一家餐厅，不过在那里又开了一家。
Beijing is known as a tough restaurant town, a place of politicians and bureaucrats, banquet halls and back-room deals. Shanghai is China’s boisterous city, still nurturing the traditions left over from the Europeans who lived and played there in the 1920s and ’30s.
在北京这个满是达官显贵、宴会厅和密室交易的地方，餐馆经营的艰难是出了名的。上海是中国的喧嚣之城，上世纪20和30年代在上海居住玩乐的欧洲人留下的传统，依然在那里得到精心的呵护。
Along the Bund in Shanghai, at least five European restaurants, lavishly decorated and with sparkling views of the Yangtze River, vie for expense account customers. In Beijing, where foreign diplomats are penurious and government officials prefer Chinese restaurants, there were three distinguished Western eateries. Now there are two.
上海外滩沿线，至少有五家装修奢华的欧洲餐厅在竞争能报销餐费的顾客，从这些餐厅能一览黄浦江的璀璨美景。而在外交官们囊中羞涩、政府官员更喜欢中餐馆的北京，只有三家声誉卓著的西餐厅，现在剩下两家。
“Shanghai is pragmatic, moves faster and is more business focused,” said Michelle Garnaut, chief executive of the M Restaurant Group, which runs M on the Bund in Shanghai, and Capital M, one of the surviving Western-style restaurants in Beijing.
米氏餐饮集团(M Restaurant Group)首席执行官米歇尔·加诺特(Michelle Garnaut)说,“上海是务实的，节奏更快，更注重商业发展。”该集团在上海外滩经营有米氏西餐厅，在北京经营有前门M餐厅，后者是北京仅存的几家西餐厅之一。
“Let’s hope Boulud finds somewhere else in Beijing,” Ms. Garnaut said. “It has been an excellent restaurant.” 
加诺特说，“让我们期待，布鲁德能在北京找到其他的营业场所。它向来是一家出色的餐厅。”
Mr. Boulud has not given up on the Beijing restaurant scene. “Our partners have other ambitions for the building,” he said in a telephone interview from Lyon, France. “Beijing is becoming a very cool place. I’ve always liked Beijing. I want the setup to be right, the partners to be right.”
布鲁德还没有放弃北京餐厅业。他在法国里昂接受电话采访时说，“我们的合伙人对这栋建筑抱有别的期待。北京正在变成一个非常酷的地方。我一向很喜欢北京。我希望能有一个正确的组合，正确的合伙人。”
Acquiring the ingredients for a Western menu was one of the great challenges in Beijing, he said. Many were imported: beef from Australia, salmon from Alaska, oil and vinegar from Hong Kong. He was delighted to find yellow-skinned chicken from Dongbei that came close to the stronger taste of the free-range poultry of the Landes region of France.
他说，在北京，为西餐菜谱获取食材是最大的挑战之一。许多食材是进口的：牛肉来自澳大利亚、三文鱼来自阿拉斯加、油和醋来自香港。他很高兴能找到东北的黄皮鸡，具有和法国郎德地区散养家禽相类似的浓烈味道。
But a few items, including some herbs, were impossible to find. Thyme, rosemary and basil could be grown fresh in the kitchen. Chervil and tarragon plants proved too delicate to flourish. Dried tarragon was the only solution.
不过，包括一些香料在内的几样食材根本不可能找到。新鲜的百里香、迷迭香和罗勒可以在厨房里种植。香芹和龙蒿已被证明过于娇贵，没法健康成长。干龙蒿叶是唯一的解决方案。
Maison Boulud had a certain cachet because of its home in the two-story structure that served as the American Embassy; it was one of the first buildings in the capital to use imported steel and lumber from the United States.
布鲁宫法餐厅有一种特别的气势，这源于它所在的二层建筑曾经是美国的公使馆；它是首座使用美国进口钢材和木材搭建的首都建筑之一。
Newspaper accounts from the period note that Sidney H. Nealy, an architect for the State Department, designed the chancery, separate residences, servants’ quarters and an ice factory. “These buildings are such as might be put up in Washington for a similar purpose,” said an article in The Washington Post. “They are in every respect first-class gray brick and granite structures with every modern improvement.” The article said Mr. Nealy learned “enough of the language to handle the native laborers,” who “had to be taught in an American way.”
报纸报道了西德尼·H·尼利(Sidney H. Nealy)在使馆建造期间的笔记，他是美国国务院的建筑师，为美国驻华使馆设计了公使办公室、隔开的居住区、仆人住房和一座制冰厂。《华盛顿邮报》(The Washington Post)的一篇文章写道，“这些建筑几乎完全可以被复制到华盛顿，用于同样的目的。无论从哪方面看，它都是一座一流的灰砖和花岗岩建筑，方方面面都经过了现代化的改良。”文章说，尼利学会了“足够多的语言来和当地的工人打交道”，“必须用美式的方法来”教他们。
When the Communists took power in 1949, the embassy, set on a square known as the Legation Quarter, became the property of the government. Before the 2008 Olympics, developers leased the chancery and the accompanying buildings and renovated them for commercial use in what was planned as a plaza of restaurants and galleries.
自***于1949年执政之后，坐落在东交民巷的这座使馆成了政府的财产。在2008年奥运会以前，开发商把其中的公使办公室和附属建筑出租，并进行改建以作商业开发之用，按计划，这里会成为一个汇集餐馆和画廊的广场。
The interior of the chancery, where the Maison Boulud dining room is on the first floor, retains much of its original look. The white carved banister of the staircase, the black and white marble floors in the bar area and broad beam timber floors in banquet rooms upstairs are still intact.
公使办公室大体上保持着原样，它的一层是布鲁宫法餐厅的大堂。白色雕纹栏杆楼梯、酒吧区的黑白大理石地板和二楼宴会厅的宽木地板依然完好如昨。
A large room at the back of the lobby, now swathed in red wallpaper, was described by the restaurant as the place where Henry A. Kissinger and Zhou Enlai met secretly in 1971 to plan President Richard M. Nixon’s visit to China the following year.
大堂后边有一个大房间，现在贴上了红色的壁纸，餐厅说，这里是亨利·A·基辛格(Henry A. Kissinger)和周恩来在1971年秘密会面、筹划尼克松总统次年访华之行的场所。
In fact, those meetings took place at the Diaoyutai State Guest House compound some distance from the old American Embassy, said Winston Lord, who participated in the 48 hours of talks as an aide to Mr. Kissinger. Mr. Lord later became United States ambassador to China.
曾作为基辛格助手参加那场耗时48小时的会谈的温斯顿·洛德(Winston Lord)说，事实上，会面发生在距美国使馆旧址尚有一段距离的钓鱼台国宾馆。洛德后来成了美国驻华大使。
“We left Diaoyutai once — for a secret tour of the Forbidden City, followed by a secret lunch with Zhou Enlai in the Great Hall of the People,” Mr. Lord said.
洛德说，“我们离开过钓鱼台一次，到故宫秘密游览了一番，随后，我们在人民大会堂和周恩来共进了秘密午餐。”
But if the legend of the Kissinger-Zhou meeting turned out not to be accurate, there are many memories to cherish for the Maison Boulud archives, some of them quintessential Beijing.
然而，即使事实证明基辛格和周恩来会面的传说有失准确，布鲁宫法餐厅的档案中，依然留有许多值得珍藏的记忆，其中的某些记忆带有典型的北京特色。
Not long after the restaurant opened, a successful Chinese businessman from a coal-mining region in Shanxi Province hosted a dinner for a dozen guests. He ordered the best vintage French burgundies and the most expensive dishes, Mr. Reimer, the chef, said.
就在餐厅开张后不久，来自山西产煤区的一名成功的中国商人为数十名宾客举行了一场晚宴。主厨赖默说，他点了最好年份的法国勃艮第和最贵的菜肴。
When the $23,000 bill arrived, the businessman called his driver, who delivered two bags filled with Chinese bank notes to the table to pay the tab.
等2.3万美元（约13.8万元人民币）的账单出来后，中国商人叫来他的司机，后者提拎着两个装满人民币的袋子放到桌上，结了账。