Roxanne's

[Guest guest]

Haute Vegan, With a Twist

 

The food is raw, the dining fine. The chef's biggest

fans and harshest critics? Other chefs.

 

By SHAWN HUBLER

LA Times Staff Writer

 

May 5 2002

 

LARKSPUR, Calif. -- Midweek, and they're elbow-to-elbow at Roxanne

Klein's new

restaurant--people in suits, in caftans, in a huff in the spice-fragrant

doorway, muttering, " Why are we standing? Is there a reason we're still

standing? Is there a reason we can't sit while we wait for our table to

open up? "

 

As a matter of fact, there is a reason. Every seat in the house is

taken. Even the

barstools are full, from the nook where a balding man with a self-help

book wants

asparagus soup to the wall where Alice Waters' former personal assistant

sits

tête-à-tête with Klein's organic gardener. It has been like this for

weeks--the blinking phone lines, the jostling in-crowds, the office

manager telling foodie after foodie that she's sorry, but Roxanne's is

booked a month in advance now.

 

This, for a place where the specialty is uncooked fruits, nuts and

veggies.

 

" The other day we came in, and there were 100 messages on the answering

machine, "

the incredulous chef-owner sighed.

 

Who knew that the buzz of the West Coast fine-dining sector would turn

to a haute

cuisine version of a regimen that even hard-core vegetarians view as

extreme? Tucked

into the main street of this leafy Marin County suburb, the 5-month-old

Roxanne's has

been packing 'em in, to competitors' amazement, with all-organic,

all-vegan " raw "

foods--no meat, no fish, no eggs, no dairy and, above all, no stove in

the kitchen.

 

Nothing is heated beyond 118 degrees, dehydrators and sunlight are used

instead of

ovens, produce is just-picked and meals--presented on her favorite

high-end Bernardaud china, feature such ingredients as " cheese " made

from cashews and young coconut " noodles. " It's a concept that, attempted

by other restaurateurs, has shown all the mainstream appeal of a high

colonic. Klein, however, has critics raving.

 

" Complex and voluptuous, " said Food & Wine magazine.

 

" Don't be surprised if some of these ideas start showing up on other

menus, " said the

Wine Spectator.

 

" You may find it hard to suppress a gasp of delight, " wrote Michael

Bauer, the San

Francisco Chronicle's notoriously tough restaurant critic, lauding the

" miracle " of Klein's yellow curry winter vegetables and whipped parsnips

and her nut-milk ice creams, which are " as good as those made with

cream. " The review--which set off a veritable Bay Area stampede to the

restaurant--gave Roxanne's a rare 3½ out of 4 stars.

 

It has been a dizzying ascent for Klein, a 38-year-old mother and

stepmother to four,

whose career has progressed in fits and starts for more than 12 years.

As recently as

1990, she was dropping out of the California Culinary Academy just shy

of graduation

to have her first baby; she would complete her degree four years later.

 

Now Charlie Trotter, the Chicago chef, is writing a cookbook and

demonstrating

techniques at major food industry shows with her. Ron Siegel, who last

year reopened

San Francisco's classic French stalwart, Masa's, says Roxanne's is not

only

" well-conceived " but " more unique than I've seen in a long time. " Even

Marion

Cunningham, the culinary grand dame and friend of Chez Panisse's Waters,

says she

is " anxious to eat there. "

 

" Everyone's talking about it, " Cunningham said, " and from what I

understand, it's a

great surprise--people say it's really that good. "

 

Of course, that's just the on-the-record part of what people are saying.

The other part

has to do with the restaurant's unorthodox business plan. Six years ago,

the former

Roxanne Sohns, the daughter of Central Valley schoolteachers, married

Michael Klein,

a wealthy environmental activist; they have announced that any profit

she makes will go

to charities and environmental causes.

 

" We don't need the money, she says, walking through the garden behind

her new

five-bedroom mansion and guest house, which are made entirely of rammed

Earth and

recycled materials. " We're happy where we're at, and so it gives us no

greater joy than

to give back to the planet. "

 

That approach, praised by some, has confounded a whole other set of

critics--competitors who say that Klein's deep pockets make it

impossible to fairly

compare her acclaim with that of restaurateurs whose backers demand a

return on their

investments.

 

Unlike others in the Bay Area's recession-strained restaurant sector,

they say, Klein

has been able to afford top-quality ingredients, moderate menu prices,

decor that is

both sumptuous and ecologically friendly, time-consuming preparation

methods and a

staff that reads like a roster of restaurant industry all-stars. Her

chef de cuisine is

Stephanie Valentine, a former chef at Charlie Trotter's. Michael Judge,

her restaurant

manager, opened three of the Bay Area's highest-ranked destination

restaurants--Masa's, Aqua and Gary Danko. Her wine list was designed by

Larry Stone

of Rubicon, the oenophiles' mecca in San Francisco.

 

Before opening, Klein and her husband researched their menu by

commissioning

nine-course tasting menus from chefs across the nation, including such

luminaries as

Trotter and the French Laundry's Thomas Keller.

 

" You can't pass real-world judgment on what she's doing, " carped a

staffer at one

top-tier restaurant who spoke on condition of anonymity.

 

Added another: " Comparing her to everybody else is like having a race

where one guy

has a Porsche and everybody else has to ride a bicycle. What they're

doing is definitely interesting, but it's more like philanthropy than

running a restaurant. "

 

That observer, a chef, also wondered whether Klein would stick with the

grind of the

business, given the fact that, financially, she doesn't have to: " Have

you ever worked in a kitchen 16 hours a day, day after day after day

after day? "

 

In the health-food world, meanwhile, hard-core raw-food fans are

debating her essential

raw-ness.

 

" Her limit is 118 degrees? " sniffed Don Kidson of the Living Lighthouse,

a Santa

Monica raw-food collective that hosts support groups and living-foods

potlucks. " How

long is something going to live at 118 degrees? Here, the dehydrators

are set no

higher than 105. She might as well be serving cooked food. "

 

Not to mention her inclusion of wine, which, Klein says, is technically

raw because the

grapes aren't heated. " Alcohol kills brain cells, " Kidson noted. " I

mean, need I say

more? "

 

Even Klein's fans aren't sure whether the project falls under the

category of " shockingly delicious " or whether the peg should be

" deliciously shocking. "

 

" No one can quite figure it out, " says chef and Napa Valley winery owner

Maria Helm

Sinskey, whose 1999 Sinskey Los Carneros Merlot is on the extensive wine

list.

" They've created this working model to work within luxury dining, and

everyone who

goes comes back saying it's like an otherworldly experience. But the

question is, where

are they going with it? What's their motive? Is this just one big dinner

party for their friends or is it a revolution?

 

" It's just amazing, how young this restaurant is and how controversial

it's already

become. "

 

Klein says she isn't sure how to feel about the attention. A tiny, thin

woman with the sort of porcelain skin and preternaturally clear irises

that imply a seriously toxin-free diet, she says she just wants " to

share my enthusiasm for organic produce and to express my creativity. "

 

Her dream of opening a restaurant, she says, is anything but a vanity

project. Rather, it dates to her childhood, when she watched Julia Child

on TV instead of cartoons and

was able, as a 4-year-old, to sit through a two-hour meal in France

during a family

vacation. She didn't become a vegetarian until she entered UC Santa

Cruz, she says.

Even then, her commitment was on-and-off, particularly during her

culinary training. " I'm not doing this to be dogmatic, " she said, noting

that she's not above the occasional finishing touch of forbidden cocoa,

maple syrup or 100-year-old balsamic vinegar. " This is just my take on

the most exciting, sensual way to prepare seasonal food. I think of this

as a fine-dining restaurant first. "

 

Klein's interest in raw food began about a year after she met her

current husband. Like

her, he was a vegan when they were introduced by a mutual friend in

1995. She was the

divorced mother of a 4-year-old and had gotten her degree, interning at

Stars in San

Francisco and apprenticing in kitchens in Provence. She was at a

crossroads, she

says, weighing a move to Paris against a return to California.

 

" I had set my daughter up to go to school in France, but we were back

[in Marin County]

for a visit with her father, " she remembered. " Some friends were trying

to convince me

to stay. I told them if they found me a place with a big organic garden,

I'd consider it. "

 

Shortly thereafter, she was introduced to Michael Klein, a retired tech

entrepreneur

whose garden--on the former Corte Madera estate of Bill Graham, the late

music

producer--covered three acres. Having sworn after the sale of his last

telecommunications company " never again to work on something I didn't

love, " as he

put it, Michael Klein was serving on the board of the Rainforest Action

Network and

running a guitar company founded by his friend, Grateful Dead guitarist

Bob Weir.

 

" We went to a Grateful Dead concert, my first one, " Roxanne Klein

recalled, laughing.

The two were married a year later. Michael Klein said they began talking

almost

immediately about a restaurant, but the idea didn't take shape until

1996, during a trip with Weir and actor Woody Harrelson to a spa in

Thailand.

 

" We were eating these curries, " Roxanne Klein said, " and Woody just kept

having

these green papaya salads. When I asked why he ate that way, he said,

'Why don't you

try it?' " The Kleins spent a month on a raw-food diet, she said, " and

when it ended, I

couldn't believe how great I felt. I needed two or three fewer hours of

sleep a night, I had so much energy. "

 

The experiment rekindled a childhood passion for garden-fresh food, she

said. " I'm a

fifth-generation Californian, " she said, " and my grandparents were

organic farmers--it

was years and years before I realized that some people bought food from

stores. My

grandpa used to take me outside and say, 'What do you smell today?' And

I'd say,

'Strawberries and peaches.' And he'd say 'OK, then. That's what's ready

to harvest.'

And that sensual experience, of taking the peach from the tree, and

eating it fresh, and the perfume and the juices--it all came back to

me, " she recalled.

 

Though she was writing a book on vegetarian tasting menus at the time,

she says, she

shelved the project in favor of restaurant research, this time with a

focus on raw--or as advocates call them, " living " --foods. The regimen

has moved in and out of fashion in the health-food world, and was last

in vogue in the mid-1990s. Raw-food fans believe that crucial enzymes

are destroyed if food is heated past 118 degrees. (Conventional

nutritionists say heat makes little difference, though raw food is an

important source of fiber and nutrients.)

 

Klein says she put herself on a sort of extended tutorial, beginning at

a San Francisco

restaurant her sister had told her about called Raw. Run by a

then-24-year-old chef

named Juliano Brotman who wore his long blond hair in a topknot, the

place featured

standard hippie-shack salads and smoothies, but also offered such

unusual dishes as

" pizza " fashioned from sun-dried sprouted buckwheat. The reviews--like

those of most

vegetarian eateries--were as tepid as the " mock salmon " Brotman made

from seawater and the dregs of juiced carrots, but critics praised his

innovation.

 

" Not to blow my own horn, but before I got out there, there was nothing

but hummus and

wheat grass, " says Brotman, who now lives in Santa Monica, where he

hosts raw-food

" raves. " He runs a raw-food delivery service and plans to open a

raw-food restaurant in

August.

 

Klein says she paid Brotman to introduce her to the complex food

processing and

dehydrating techniques that now characterize her kitchen. Then she moved

on to

consult with more widely known chefs such as Trotter, at whose

restaurant Michael

Klein had been a regular for more than a decade.

 

" They came first for vegetarian food, then for vegan food, then for raw

food, " Trotter

said. When they requested a tasting menu from him, he said, " it became

an exciting

intellectual challenge to come up with all these possibilities. "

 

Over time, he said, he and Roxanne Klein exchanged ideas, and he became

convinced

that her methods will become the next food wave. Their book is scheduled

for

publication in January by Ten Speed Press. Trotter says that, because

Klein's food is

as delicious as food in any upscale restaurant, she will do for raw

cuisine what

visionaries such as Waters did for organic produce. " Every once in a

while, people

come along and what they do ends up not only being embraced by the

public, but

copied by chefs around the country, " said Trotter. " That's what Roxanne

is doing,

whether or not she realizes it. "

 

Not everyone agrees. Siegel of Masa's says he has had " very little "

demand for raw

food in his restaurants. And, he says, raw preparation is vastly

different from

conventional techniques: " I don't know if you're going to find a lot of

restaurants who can afford to do what they do. "

 

For the moment, however, there is Klein's food, which, in fact, is

extraordinary, from her take on pad thai--so complex and mouthwatering

that, on that midweek night, diners

were trading forkfuls of it in amazement--to her desserts, which taste

the way desserts

did in childhood. Even Siegel, who prefers his food cooked, is

unsurprised by the rush

to Roxanne's.

 

" The public, " he said, " is basically getting to benefit from her

situation. And the food really is good. "

 

http://www.latimes.com/features/lifestyle/la-050502rawfood.story?null