FRENCH culinary innovator and restaurateur Jean-Georges Vongerichten has once again been causing a stir among Shanghai foodies.

He was in town last week on his semi-annual visit to his gastronomic masterpiece Jean Georges Shanghai, bringing new recipes for spring and summer and running a master cooking class at Three on the Bund. He was joined by his executive chef Lam Ming Kin.

Vongerichten, who owns 15 restaurants worldwide with ratings up to three Michelin stars, was one of the first top chefs introducing superlative dining and service to Shanghai.

He thinks and cooks outside the box and never fails to surprise with his latest, creative editions of the freshest food with exotic flavors and aromas. Though trained in classical French cooking, he has reduced the butter and heavy sauces, leading the way in nouvelle French cuisine and light, healthy eating.

His cooking demonstration offered a taste of his talents. (See the chef's detailed recipe on Page B14)

Vongerichten emphasizes seasonable vegetables. For example, green asparagus is served with asparagus sauce and morels on side. To add a Chinese twist, he cooks the morels in Shaoxing wine. Vongerichten is a huge fan of Shaoxing wine which is used to cook morels. He also whipped up kingfish sashimi, with chipotle mayonnaise, crispy rice.

The Alsace-born and New York-based chef keeps most of his recipes easy to execute as well as instantly appealing to anyone willing to try something new. He uses mainly locally grown organic product and the freshest seafood.

Though many other chefs combine classic European training with the flavors of the rest of the world, Vongerichten was among the first to incorporate Asian flavors into nouvelle French cuisine.

Despite his passion for fresh ideas, the kitchen maestro is not keen on extreme molecular gastronomy, which is no longer the rage.

"I'm going back to what is essential and taking away all the superficialities: good product, good flavor pleases the palate and speaks for itself,'' said Vongerichten.

"When I cook a prawn, I want it to look like a prawn, taste like a prawn, add a little twist to make a new prawn but still a prawn,'' laughed the amiable and witty chef. "Some people (molecular gastronomists) just went too far. At the end of the day, we go back to what is real; food is to please the palate."

The Shanghai food and beverage scene has changed dramatically but Jean Georges Shanghai continues to thrive since its opening in 2004. The initial idea was to serve an international clientele living in and visiting the city so diners were 80 percent expat. Today around 60 percent are Chinese.

Vongerichten, who travels a week in every month, is pleased to see the city's evolving food and beverage scene.

"A decade ago, Shanghai was not known as a fine dining mecca, with only M on the Bund existing on the river strip. Now, it is crazy." He said local chefs and cosmopolitan mix of cultures have propelled Shanghai into new culinary territory, observing that "Shanghai is not far behind.''

Vongerichten is always on the lookout for something new and he never stops experimenting with new flavors. His travels are a constant source of inspiration. In Shanghai, he was awed by the variety and abundance of flavors. On each visit, he tries new restaurants, in addition to working at his own. This time he dined at Mr & Mrs Bund, Yi Long Court in the Peninsula Shanghai and Jesse. He also has a taste for Shanghai street food like xiaolongbao and egg-filled pancakes with chili sauce.

His own food offers piquant surprises and ingenious combinations. Influenced by Chinese cooking, he first started incorporating a few local ingredients, like black beans, Shaoxing wine, chilies, ginger, Sichuan peppercorns and even MSG.

"I put chili everywhere. All of my dishes have a little touch of spice,'' he said of the combinations that create an explosion of flavors in the mouth.

Early days

The young Vongerichten's interest in food started in his family kitchen on the outskirts of Strasbourg, France. Asked about his earliest memory of good food, he said "banana mash with fresh orange juice - sweet, sour, fragrant and delicious."

He grew up on traditional food cooked by his mother and grandmother and woke every morning to wonderful aromas. The family cooked lunch every day for employees of the family's heating business and the boy quickly became a kitchen helper.

"It was quite heavy and rich. We had a lot of pork, sausages, potatoes and cabbages," he recalled. "My family cooking gave me the foundation for future development.''

He was expected to take over his father's heating business and was sent to engineering school when he was 16. "I hated every minute of it, and they threw me out after six months," he recalled. His parents were angry.

When his parents took him to L'Auberge de l'lll, a Michelin three-star restaurant in Alsace for his 16th birthday, a whole new world opened up. He was amazed by the food, the presentation and the service.

"That day the chef came to the table and my father said, 'This guy is good for nothing - if you need anybody peeling vegetables and washing pots and pans, call him.' The chef said, 'Sure, send him over next week'."

Thus began a three-year work study program at L'Auberge de l'lll as an apprentice to chef Paul Haeberlin. That humble beginning ignited a lifetime of study, discovery and perfecting flavor combinations.

"When I started cooking in 1973, it was still old school and nobody played with food,'' reminisced Vongerichten. "Since 1974 and 1975, a few of French master chefs started to travel to Japan. Influenced by the Japanese style of food presentation, dishes went from platter to plate.''

After Alsace, he went to the south of France, which is all about tomato, fresh herbs and olive oil. He went on to work with top chefs, including master-chef Louis Outhier at L'Oasis and Paul Bocuse in Lyon - giants of the French nouvelle cuisine movement.

Then, a chef he had worked with in the south of France began consulting for The Oriental Hotel in Bangkok and asked Vongerichten to become the sous-chef. "I thought he was crazy - I'd never directed a kitchen,'' he said. "He called me every day and then said he would pick someone else if I didn't answer. I agreed. That was 1980.''

The move to Asia changed everything. Vongerichten studied English with Thai people and his own palate was transformed. "Thai food is incredible. You start with a pot of water, add lemon grass, lime leaves, lime juice, coriander, mushrooms, and shrimp - five minutes later you have the most fragrant, delicious soup.''

For five years Vongerichten cooked in Asia, spending time in Bangkok, Singapore, Hong Kong and Osaka, everywhere delving into local cuisine, ingredients and spices that he would later interpret for is own menus. At that time, no French-trained chefs were using lemon grass, ginger, cilantro, coconut milk and other ingredients.

In 1985, Outhier sent Vongerichten to Boston to open the Lafayette restaurant. There he started to change the concept, adding recipes using the lemon grass and ginger that he bought in Chinatown. He unveiled a dramatic personal cuisine that synthesized East and West.

A year later he burst onto the New York dining scene and earned four stars from The New York Times for his food at the Lafayette in mid-town Manhattan. He was 29.

In the mid-1980s, the food revolution began in New York as diners sought food that was lighter and more flexible.

Vongerichten was in the vanguard, reducing the butter and heavy sauces, opting instead for vegetable juices and infused oils. His food was artfully light, but very flavorful.

In 1988, he invented one of the world's most impressive desserts: molten chocolate cake, rich and moist with a warm pudding-like chocolate center that oozes out. Based on Vongerichten's recipe, the cake became popular in the States; it's now almost a de rigueur item on French restaurant dessert menus. Actually, the molten cake was the product of serendipity - slightly undercooked cakes served to a party of 500 guests at the Lafayette. "I was supposed to serve chocolate cakes, but when you're baking many cakes, they don't work the same way. The oven temperature dropped and it was undercooked. When people put their spoons in ... the inside was running."

Vongerichten's skills extend far beyond the kitchen. One of the most successful chef-cum-restaurateurs, he now runs 15 successful restaurants himself, and 15 others in partnerships with hotels in four continents.

His empire began in 1991 when he opened the bistro Jo Jo on the Upper East Side, in partnership with Phil Suarez, his devoted regular from the Lafayette, producer and restaurateur Phil Suarez.

"He came in with Michael Jackson in 1988. After couple of times he asked me to give him a call if I was ready to open my restaurant,'' Vongerichten recalled. "After I showed him the space for Jo Jo and my unprofessional business, he wrote a US$200,000 check right there.''

"The year 1991 was tough. Wall Street crash, Gulf War. It had to be year of cautious spending. We signed the lease on January 25, 1991, just as the first Gulf War was starting.''

But Jo Jo was named Best New Restaurant of the Year by John Mariani in Esquire and earned three-stars from The New York Times.

"I only charged one third of the price to eat in a hotel restaurant. Interesting food, inventive cooking, low price, attack! Jo Jo was a hot ticket and I paid back my debt in six months.''

The success of Jo Jo gave Vongerichten the confidence to become a restaurateur and constantly seek new dining experiences. Many would agree that in the past two decades, no single chef has had more influence on the way New Yorkers dine out - or on the way other chefs cook and other restaurants look.

International footprint

His holdings have grown to include Vong, Perry Street, Jean Georges, Mercer Kitchen, and Spice Market in New York; Prime Steakhouse in Las Vegas; Dune in the Bahamas; Spice Market in London; Le Market in Paris, Vong in Hong Kong, among many, many others.

He is actively involved in every aspect of his restaurants, from concept and menu to architectural design, staff selection and finishing touches. The aim is to create a sophisticated dining experience that involves, comforts and excites culinary and visual appetites.

He keeps extending his international footprint. Since 2006 Vongerichten and Suarez have partnered with Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide Inc to create the multi-concept restaurant and licensing business, Culinary Concepts by Jean-Georges.

The empire has become vast, fast. But Vongerichten is careful to balance his work in chef's whites with his work as a savvy businessman and formidable restaurateur.

"It's about finding the right talent," he said. "I have trained up many, many chefs over the years and many of them will be presented with opportunities to set up other places. I always work with young teams of chefs to develop new recipes and tastes. They bring me fresh ideas."

"When I was young, I wanted to impress with fancy combinations. But as I grow older, I want to eat healthier and better so 80 percent of our work is to source the best product and the rest is to add techniques and personal touch.''

The ABC Kitchen in New York is a good example reflecting Vongerichten's philosophy: going back to the basics, the core. The stated theme of ABC is "sustainability'' and "farm to table.''

It offers dishes made with the freshest organic and local ingredients. Vongerichten visited Shanghai this time with Dan Kluger, his chef at ABC, whom he met in a market.

The celebrity chef, in addition to making regular TV appearances in New York, has published four cookbooks. A new book on simple home cooking will be published in October, adapting his latest recipes.

Vongerichten, who recently became a grandfather, goes on vacation with his family: skiing, fishing, St Barts for Christmas and eating everywhere. His favorite gourmet destination remains Singapore and for him, the best market for fresh food is Thailand.

Speaking about modern Chinese cuisine, he said there are a few great Chinese chefs updating the cuisine and bringing modern Chinese cooking to the forefront.

One of the big trends in New York is pop-up eateries that open for a limited time on the premises of other businesses. Vongerichten says pop-ups allow young chefs to showcase their food and experiment without the risk of bankruptcy, by taking advantage of under-used kitchens.

Although Vongerichten has reached the top of his profession, he is a home cook at heart.

At his West Village home, he enjoys entertaining with one-pot meals, like the ones he remembers from his childhood.

"Nothing is plated, things go in the middle of the table and you serve yourself," he said. "I go back to the old-school dinner platter when I'm at home."