Legendary Lutèce Chef Andre Soltner Dies at Age 92

In 1947 within the French metropolis of Mulhouse, Alsace, a 15-year-old boy named André Soltner started his kitchen apprenticeship on the Hôtel du Parc, sparking what was to turn into one of many extra storied and influential careers in culinary historical past. Chef Soltner died on January 19, 2025 in Charlottesville, Virginia on the age of 92, forsaking a legacy as a restaurateur, educator, mentor, and pal to scores of individuals within the restaurant trade, and as a pivotal determine within the transformation of American eating.

Soltner, born in Thann, France in 1932, emigrated to the US in 1961 to turn into the primary chef at Andre Surmain’s French nice eating temple Lutèce in New York Metropolis. He took on a partnership position in 1964 and in 1972, he grew to become the only proprietor of the restaurant, which Vogue included in its “Les Six” canon of “grand luxe” eating institutions within the metropolis, alongside La Caravelle, La Grenouille, Quo Vadis, Lafayette, and La Côte Basque. (The final of those, Le Grenouille, accomplished its closing service in September, 2024.) Although Soltner could have cleaved to that “luxe” and haute ethos in his authentic run on the restaurant, renegade restaurant critic Seymour Britchky clocked Soltner’s vibe shift upon Surmain’s departure. 

“In the course of the first decade or so of its existence, the kitchen at Lutèce turned out the very best restaurant meals obtainable in New York,” Britchky wrote in a 1979 evaluation of the restaurant. “On the identical time, sure members of the eating room employees, with the encouragement of one of many institution’s proprietors, did what they may to maintain individuals from having fun with it.” 

However below Soltner’s stewardship, the ice melted and Britchky celebrated the course correction. “At present Lutèce is essentially the most charming and relaxed of New York’s well-known eating places. Anybody who’s uncomfortable right here is uncomfortable,” he wrote. (The notoriously gruff and grouchy author went on to co-author the James Beard Award-nominated The Lutèce Cookbook with Soltner in 1995.)

By all accounts, that thaw wasn’t a fluke however moderately an indicator of Soltner’s affect on the areas and souls he encountered all through his lengthy profession. In 1984, Meals & Wine profiled Soltner in a function titled “Nice Worldwide Restaurateurs in America: 5 Who Lead the Method,”celebrating him alongside Germaine Swanson, Piero Selvaggio, Cecilia Chiang, and Willy Coln as foreign-born restaurant homeowners who educated American palates and “provid[ed] eating experiences that open our eyes to the infinite wonders of the desk.”

“Delicacies in America has been democratized,” Soltner instructed writers Stanley Dry and Catherine Fredman. “Twenty years in the past solely a choose group got here to eating places like this. At present, younger people who find themselves not wealthy will save little by little for six months or a yr and are available right here. The entire night is an schooling for them.”

Accounts range as to if Soltner missed two, 4, or 5 days within the kitchen throughout his many years at Lutèce, working the vast majority of that point alongside his spouse, Simone, who served because the restaurant’s hostess. (She preceded him in demise in 2016.) By 1994, citing exhaustion, he offered his stake to Ark Eating places. However moderately than hitting the slopes full time (Soltner was an avid skier who completed first within the 45 and older class of the Cooks’ Ski Race for charity in 1980), he traded saucepans for a syllabus and took on the position of dean of basic research on the French Culinary Institute in New York Metropolis, now the Worldwide Culinary Heart. There, he labored alongside Jacques Pépin, Jacques Torres, Alain Sailhac, and different luminaries of the meals world to go the craft of cooking on to future generations.

In a latest episode of the Tinfoil Swans podcast, chef Bobby Flay spoke of the affect Soltner had on him, beginning along with his dad and mom treating him to lunch at Lutèce for his eighteenth birthday. “André Soltner, simply the best, would come to the desk in his chef hat and chef coat and say, ‘What can I make for you in the present day?’ He would undergo the menu. It was very severe, very French, fancy, very vital,” Flay recalled. 

Tinfoil Swans

“However in a while in my profession, having the ability to have an actual dialog with him, he would inform tales about the truth that he had the restaurant for 30 or 35 years and he took possibly two days off your entire time. That was the old fashioned and clearly the world of eating places has modified loads since then, however there’s one thing to be stated for it. One of many issues that I’ve at all times made an necessary a part of my routine is cooking in my eating places on a regular basis.”

In a earlier episode of Tinfoil Swans, 1988 F&W Finest New Chef Daniel Boulud gleefully recalled what it felt prefer to have Soltner because the featured visitor chef within the second problem of his self-published e-newsletter in December, 1988. “André Soltner, think about! He was my hero, the individual I seemed as much as as a younger chef in New York as a result of we needed to respect and have a look at the technology earlier than you.” 

Although Soltner was classically skilled — and vocally defied categorizations of his personal meals as “classical” or “nouvelle” — he was neither hidebound nor beholden to approach if he felt it could intervene with somebody’s pleasure. “Cooking to me could be very private. It’s a matter of affection — it’s important to deliver the sensation from inside. My mom gave me this love of meals. She cooked with love, and I’m nonetheless below this affect,” he instructed Dry and Fredman. 

“Take two males, a gastronome and one who is aware of nothing about cooking. Cook dinner for each of them,” he continued. “The gastronome can analyze the meals and let you know why he likes it. The person who is aware of nothing about cooking can not do this however he can acknowledge good meals. If in case you have cooked from the center, he’ll realize it.”

In 2018, Meals & Wine named Soltner’s recipe for Potato and Egg Pie with Bacon and Crème Fraîche as one in every of its 40 biggest of all time.

Upon the announcement of Soltner’s demise, tributes poured in from across the culinary world. 

2023 F&W Finest New Chef Isabella Coss, who helms the pastry division at Lutèce (unrelated) in Washington, D.C., alongside her husband, chef-partner Matt Conroy, recalled Soltner warmly in an Instagram submit. “He was an important chef, a form soul, and a real legend. I used to be fortunate sufficient to satisfy him as a result of he got here to Lutèce yearly for dinner. He at all times had the funniest tales — like asking if we hunted the frogs ourselves, as a result of that’s how he used to do it!”

Union Sq. Hospitality Group founder and restaurateur Danny Meyer recalled Soltner’s response to a chef on the Meals & Wine Basic in Aspen who requested him how he would deal with being requested to cook dinner a steak well-done: “A visitor who orders his steak nicely executed clearly prefers it that method. I’m assured that nobody could make a greater tasting well-done steak than I do. So after all I cook dinner it his method, with pleasure.”

1988 F&W Finest New Chef Thomas Keller shared “First, an idol. Then, a mentor. And later, a pal. That’s how I’ll bear in mind Chef André Soltner. … We additionally engaged in reflective conversations, the place he would share his knowledge and experiences, and I might study and develop. At all times sort. At all times curious. At all times devoted to our occupation. He has left an indelible mark on me and my friends. Chef Soltner as soon as stated he’d prefer to be remembered for ‘giving quite a lot of pleasure to individuals via my cooking.’ And that he did. And a lot extra.”

Soltner is survived by his sister, Marie Rose Vandevoorde, and his associate of eight years, Maryvonne Gasparini, who he was visiting on the time of his demise.