Dan Barber on David Kinch

David Kinch and Eric Ripert

David Kinch joined Eric Ripert of Le Bernardin, the legendary Michelin three star restaurant in New York, for the new culinary TV show Avec Eric. The new series, which is seen nationally on PBS stations, airs on KQED in the San Francisco Bay Area. For the "Star Ingredients" episode, Ripert traveled to California to visit David Kinch at Manresa and Cynthia Sandberg at Love Apple Farm.

12 Restaurants That Matter

Manresa
At a hidden gem on California's Central Coast, food is art

By Joyce Goldstein
Saveur
April 2009
Photos by Penny De Los Santos

Everything at Manresa, David Kinch's restaurant in the small town of Los Gatos, 50 miles south of San Francisco, is luminous, thoughtful, and sensual. The air is perfumed by the herb plants and citrus trees on the patio outside. California sun filters into the dining room through translucent window shades, causing the wood beams and linen-covered tables to glow. In the pristine, state-of-the-art kitchen, a cook sends a shower of snipped chives onto a soft-cooked egg enriched with cream, maple syrup, and crunchy salt, still in its delicate shell. Another cook arranges bright red prawns, pulled from the waters of Monterey Bay this morning, now redolent of cardamom and fennel, over gleaming slices of cucumber.

As each successive dish arrives, I'm struck by the arresting beauty of the food itself: a tender wood pigeon roasted in a savory salt mix and served in a bright halo of crushed raspberries and hazelnuts; a filet of silky-rich Copper River salmon topped with tiny jewels of smoked steelhead roe and a briny-sweet roasted-tuna sauce; a cherry blossom mousse crowned with a confetti of toasted almonds and meringue "kisses". The compositions are so artfully arranged, so brilliantly expressive and personal, that I can't imagine their being replicated. And yet, for all the elegant presentations and impressive technical skills displayed on each plate, what impresses you first is flavor, intricate layers of flavor.

At Manresa there is also a palpable connection with the earth and, more specifically, with the fields and hills that lie just miles from the restaurant's door. The foundation of chef David Kinch's cooking is laid 25 miles southeast of his kitchen, at Love Apple Farm, a biodynamic farm in the Santa Cruz Mountains that is the principal supplier of fresh produce to the restaurant. There, grower Cynthia Sandberg produces, among hundreds of other things both familiar and exotic, Peruvian purple potatoes, bright green sunflower sprouts, dozens of kinds of heirloom tomatoes, painted lady runner beans, a kaleidoscopic array of herbs, and fresh organic eggs.

Vegetables pulled from the ground at the farm in the morning often end up on the plate the same evening without ever having made a layover in a refrigerator. Kinch offers a simple starter called Into the Vegetable Garden: a selection of seasonal vegetables served raw or cooked gently in their own juices and presented on the plate with a dusting of dehydrated chicory "dirt" that tastes earthy and bright at the same time. In another cook's hands this dish might come across as precious, but with each bite you sense Kinch's reverence for the garden and his passion for keeping the vegetables as alive as possible. Kinch was born in Pennsylvania and has worked in restaurants in New York City and San Francisco. I asked him once what had brought him to tiny Los Gatos. "I'm a surfer," he told me equably. "I wanted a more integrated life." Witnessing this mix of creativity, artistry, and grounded philosophy, I'd say he has succeeded.

Pizarro: Bobby Flay no match for Manresa's David Kinch

By Sal Pizarro
The San Jose Mercury News
March 15, 2009

In the "Iron Chef America" battle between California casual and Southwest celebrity, David Kinch was a head above Bobby Flay. A head of cabbage, that is.

Kinch, executive chef of the renowned restaurant Manresa in Los Gatos, wowed the Food Network show's panel of judges with his creativity and flavor combinations using the leafy vegetable — the secret ingredient around which both chefs had to create five dishes in 60 minutes.

At a viewing party held at Manresa on Sunday night, Kinch said he was excited to work with cabbage, over the other two "secret ingredient" possibilities — squab and farm-raised sea bass.

"I was really happy it was a vegetable," he said. "We're only as good as the ingredients we work with. It's not magic. It's not hocus-pocus. It's not molecular. You start with a really great product."

At least 100 Manresa regulars and other foodies filled the restaurant on Los Gatos' Village Lane for the 8:30 p.m. party — among them Cynthia Sandberg from Love Apple Farm and winemaker Randall Grahm from Bonny Doon Vineyard. Also in attendance were Manresa's current chef de cuisine, John Paul Carmona, and his predecessor, James Syhabout (who's opening Commis, his own restaurant in Oakland). Both of them served as Kinch's sous chefs at the taping several months ago in New York.

Everyone sipped wine and munched on appetizers until the big show started a little after 9. (Some of the apps included chicken wing confit, a Monte Cristo sandwich and a delightful little cube that seemed to be filled with liquid bacon. If there was a cabbage-based treat, I missed it).

There were big whoops when Kinch was announced and boos when Flay came on screen. The crowd — admittedly a little biased — even cheered Kinch's speedy knife skills. And they really swooned over the dishes on the screen, as did the judges.

Most of us stick to boiling cabbage and serving it alongside corned beef for St. Patrick's Day, but Kinch seemed to dazzle the three judges with his choices.

Among them were a red cabbage borscht with pear sauerkraut, a Napoleon-like stuffed cabbage and a dish he called a "Cabbage Patch." It featured cabbage leaves and stems with country ham, a Riesling wine sauce and "edible dirt," a mixture of toasted hazelnuts and roasted chicory root to symbolize the earth the veggie came from.

The judges gave that a bit of a sideways glance (actress Cady Huffman jokingly referred to it as "potting soil"), but they dug it in the end.

When the final scores were announced — Kinch outscored Flay across the board on taste, plating and originality — the cheers turned into a deafening roar, and Kinch raised his arms in victory. As a congratulatory gift, his colleagues from nearby Trevese sent him — what else — a head of cabbage as a trophy.

Manresa fans who love the restaurant's organic ingredients and slow-food style shouldn't worry that Kinch will change his ways after his "Iron Chef" experience. "There's nothing we make in this restaurant that we make in an hour," he said.

Manresa chef heads to the Big Apple to battle 'Iron Chef" Bobby Flay

By Judy Peterson
Los Gatos Weekender
March 13, 2009

Sunday's episode of "Iron Chef America" could well be called Los Gatos' very own version of March Madness: Manresa restaurant's executive chef David Kinch battles TV superstar Bobby Flay in the Iron Chef challenge that airs March 15 on the Food Network.

It is the first time Kinch has been involved in a television cooking competition.

"I was surprised at how much fun it was," Kinch says. "The Food Network people take really good care of the challengers. They did a lot to alleviate any concerns we might have so we were as comfortable as we could be."

Kinch was not alone in the Food Network Stadium when the hour-long program was taped last June. Manresa's chef de cuisine John Paul Carmona and his former chef de cuisine James Syhabout assisted Kinch.

"Iron Chef America" brings some of the nation's best chefs to New York City to compete against one of five established Iron Chefs who appear regularly on the program.

It is an action-packed show with the winner decided by a panel of judges who are also food critics.

The stakes are high, and the national exposure is, well, priceless.

Kinch was one of five Bay Area chefs, and the only one ever from the South Bay, invited to appear on this season's program.

"They sent me an e-mail out of the blue," Kinch says. "I was honored to be asked."

Kinch's restaurant, Manresa, has gained critical acclaim for its contemporary California cuisine. Kinch specializes in "ingredient-driven" cooking which utilizes fresh produce picked daily at the Love Apple Farm in the Santa Cruz Mountains.

Manresa has been awarded two Michelin stars and has been named one of America's Top 50 Restaurants by Gourmet magazine.

On the other hand, Flay's Mesa Grill in Las Vegas has merely one Michelin star.

Kinch describes Flay, who is best known for his Southwestern style of cooking and his barbecuing skills, as a very gracious, nice guy.

Still, he notes that the competition was an "away game" for the Manresa challengers, so Flay had the "home field advantage."

A hallmark of the "Iron Chef: show is the "secret ingredient." The competing chefs do not know until the clock is ticking what exactly they will be cooking.

Kinch cannot disclose the secret ingredient before the show airs, but he says he made sure to cover his bases in advance.

"My thinking was it could be a meat, fish or vegetable thing," he says. "I didn't go in blind. I tried to narrow it down so when the secret ingredient was revealed we had a line of attack."

Kinch actually had 15 plans of attack.

"You have two months to think about it, so you can plan for any kind of contingency," he says.

While the main ingredient remains a secret until the last minute, Kinch says the program's producers provided everything else in advance.

Although chefs do bring their own knives, Kinch says, "They discourage you from bringing your own ingredients. But they send you a list of everything that's in the pantry. They have anything you could possibly want, including equipment. If they don't have it, they'll get it for you."

Kinch and his team arrived in New York several days before the taping of their segment, so they were able to watch another Iron Chef being taped. That helped answer a lot of questions Kinch says.

"You learned where the ladles and spatulas were, and that was a big help," he says.

Still, Kinch says it was a nerve-wracking experience.

"I saw a lot of things I've never seen before," he says. "The show is so fast-paced. Walking out of the tunnel into the stadium — they shoot that five times. They film the introduction, film the judges and all the technical things. There's a lot of production."

While the entire production takes eight hours, the competition itself gives the chefs just one hour, in real time, to cook five servings each of five different dishes.

One serving of each dish is cooked for photography purposes, one is for the show's "chairman" and three are for the judges.

That's a lot of food done fast.

"The actual hour is very, very real," Kinch says. "You can cut your finger or equipment can break. It doesn't matter. You get an hour to cook."

While Kinch already knows if he won the battle, fans will have to wait just a few more days for the outcome.

"They said,`Your job isn't to win or lose; your job is to have people like you so they'll come to your restaurant. Win or lose, make people like you.' I didn't do it for personal fame or glory, I did it to promote the restaurant," Kinch says. "You want to go out and win, but I think them saying that to me allowed me to go out and have fun no matter what the outcome."

The Kinch vs. Flay "Iron Chef" episode airs this Sunday at 9 p.m. on Channel 35 on Comcast Cable and on Channel 110 on the Dish Network. The episodes are rerun several times during the week and can also be viewed online at www.foodnetwork.com.

Manresa is at 320 Village Lane, Los Gatos. The restaurant is open for dinner Wednesdays through Saturdays starting at 5:30 p.m., and on Sundays starting at 5 p.m. For more information or to make a reservation, call (408) 354-4330 or visit www.manresa restaurant.com.

Gargouillou: A New Meaning to ‘Garden Variety’

Gargouillou: A New Meaning to 'Garden Variety'

By Christine Muhlke
The New York Times
February 10, 2009
Photo by Justin Lewis

A few months ago, I was dazzled by Paul Liebrandt’s vibrant vegetable appetizer, From the Garden, at Corton in TriBeCa.

A mixture of vegetables, leaves, fruits and flowers, each prepared in a different way — from Thumbelina carrots cooked with saffron to oven-dried spinach — was set upon a “dirt” made from black brioche crumbs and powdered tomato. It was unlike anything I’d ever seen or tasted.

A few weeks ago, while at Manresa, David Kinch’s restaurant in Los Gatos, Calif., I enjoyed a vibrant vegetable appetizer called Into the Vegetable Garden. The mixture of vegetables, leaves and flowers, each prepared in a different way and set upon a black “dirt” of roasted chicory root and dried potatoes, was very much like something I’d seen and tasted. Deliciously so.

I asked Mr. Kinch how long he’d been serving it; he told me that it evolved over the last three years — since he began getting his vegetables from Love Apple Farm, the biodynamic spread near the restaurant.

He wanted a dish to showcase the farm’s daily offerings, from roots to leaves. “It’s like holding a mirror up to the garden,” he said by phone. The cooked vegetables on the plate are individually braised; their juices combined to make the foamy emulsion that represents dew.

He said he was inspired to make the dirt after tasting a dish at Noma in Copenhagen with malt powder sprinkled around the plate.

Mr. Kinch gives credit for his creation to Michel Bras, the chef in Laguiole, France, who has long served a dish whose ingredients reflect the land around the restaurant.

Gargouillou (pronounced gar-gu-YU) is the name of the dish, said Mr. Liebrandt, who also credited Mr. Bras. “He is the genius chef from Laguiole who took a simple vegetable composition and elevated it into something new, fresh and magical,” he wrote by e-mail.

Reached in Laguiole, where the restaurant that he runs with his son, Sébastien, is closed for the season, Mr. Bras said that the idea for the 50- to 60-ingredient dish — which changes daily based on what’s in the market and his home garden — came to him during a run in the countryside in June 1978, when the fields and mountains were in full flower. “It was beautiful, it was rich, it was marvelous,” he said. “I decided to try to translate the fields.”

Gargouillou’s effect has been as prolific as it has been poetic. In 2007, on a posting on the Love Apple Farm’s blog, www.growbetterveggies.com, Mr. Kinch wrote, “This dish has had enormous influence on a whole generation of chefs around the world, many who took the idea and built their own theme into it.” For example, at Mugaritz, just outside San Sebastián, Spain, the chef Andoni Aduriz, “one of the world’s brilliant talents, has placed his own stamp on what has now become a signature dish at his restaurant worthy of his name,” Mr. Kinch wrote.

There are other Gargouillou gardeners in the United States, like Daniel Patterson at Coi in San Francisco, who serves Abstraction of Garden in Early Winter. And at a dinner set for Feb. 21 at the James Beard House in Manhattan, Dominique Crenn from Luce at the InterContinental San Francisco will serve Le Jardin de l’Hiver (Winter Vegetables with Black Olive Soil).

Mr. Bras is flattered by the homages. “I’m self-taught, so I’m very proud,” he said. Asked if an urban chef could make a true Gargouillou, he said with a laugh that a visit to the Union Square Greenmarket could yield “the world’s biggest.”

As for Mr. Kinch, he wrote in an e-mail message: “I think that it points out the evolution of how great ideas and concepts spread. It is wonderful.”

“We all find our inspiration from our peers,” he added. “I know I do.”

Manresa chef displays artistic flair

David Kinch and Cynthia Sandberg at Love Apple Farm

Manresa chef displays artistic flair at Michelin two-star restaurant
Chef creates a sense of place in Los Gatos

By Bruce Newman
San Jose Mercury News
August 31, 2008
Photo by Karen T. Borchers

It is 4:45 in the afternoon, and in the backroom at Manresa, chef David Kinch is doing prep work with his staff of 40 at the renowned Los Gatos restaurant. "It's going to be interesting all night long,'' says the bearlike Kinch, forking something into his mouth from a silver mixing bowl that definitely isn't on the menu.

A demanding couple that dines regularly at Manresa is requesting a last-minute reservation for Table 6, the most desirable banquette in the South Bay's hottest — and hautest — dining spot.

Kinch wants to make everybody who visits Manresa happy, but the wife has already delivered a withering rebuke to the restaurant's reservation agent. If something isn't done, the amuse bouche this evening may not be all that amoozing.

The gastronomic wonders that unfold nightly at Manresa haven't even begun yet, and its 47-year old maestro — his surfer dude hair uncombed and face unshaven — is completely absorbed in preparing for the long evening ahead. It's his attention to detail as much as his passion for cooking that has made Kinch a superstar chef, and his small, provincial-style restaurant one of the best in the world.

"So mollify them,'' Kinch says, referring to the unhappy couple. The sommelier asks if he should "Champagne them,'' and Kinch nods. As the serving staff gets up, he adds, "And push the hake. We've got plenty of it.''

By 7 p.m., hake is practically flying out of Manresa's kitchen. Kinch stands amid a lively swirl of traffic preparing plates of the delicate whitefish. He assembles his more exotic creations on the plate, sculpturally — sometimes using tweezers to get every sprig of bronze fennel and stuffed squash blossom just so — after 14 line cooks have finished their prep work.

"I'm the chef of the restaurant,'' he says. "You're not going to see me with a pot and pan. That's not how it works.''

Here's how it usually works: A chef becomes an exalted figure for being a great restaurateur (like Wolfgang Puck), or a culinary genius (the French Laundry's Thomas Keller), then transforms the brand into an empire. Here's how Kinch does it: Show up for work, bring an artistic sensibility to drawing out the natural flavor of ingredients and then make sure everything goes perfectly for customers who expect it at those prices.

"A large part of our appeal,'' he says of Manresa, "is that I'm there every day.''

Always checking in
The first time Kinch left the restaurant for more than two nights in a row was for an eating trip across France with his girlfriend, Pim Techamuanvivit, author of the popular food blog ChezPim.com. "He was constantly on the phone, cecking in,'' she says. "I kept telling him, 'It's OK. The restaurant probably hasn't burned down.' "

For Kinch, Manresa is more than a stopover on the competitive cooking circuit. France's prestigious Michelin Guide awarded Manresa two (out of three) stars the past two years, and Gourmet Magazine has named Manresa one of the top 50 restaurants in America. In its third year, Restaurant Magazine named it one of the top 50 dining stops in the world.

"We still have a lot of work to do,'' he says. "I just don't feel completely comfortable with the food. I'm looking for something that's a complete reflection of us, and of the garden. It's still not quite there yet.''

While Kinch is constantly looking to embellish his presentation, the dishes on his 14-course Grand Tasting Menu — a four-hour, $145 gastronomic spectacular — have no fussy adornments.

"I like to have three things on the plate,'' he explains, "two that have a natural connection — and then a third, jarring element. It has to be something that makes people go, 'Now why did he put that there?'"

Kinch believes that if you strip dishes down to their bare essentials, the ingredients must be perfect and the technique impeccable. "That's what you're paying for in fine-dining restaurants: the quality of the carrots, the best veal, the freshest John Dory.''

Started as a teen
He did not always esteem ingredients — or even steam ingredients — as he does now. His approach now was shaped in his early apprenticeship.

He grew up an oil brat (Texas crude, not olive), before his family settled in New Orleans — one of America's great dining cities — when Kinch was in high school. He went to work as a busboy at 15 in kitchens where many of the cooks were ex-cons.

"I remember being in awe of the cooks,'' he says. "They were these loud, profane guys who were almost like pirates, working with open flames! From the first day, I knew I loved it and I didn't ever want to leave it.''

One of his best friends in high school was Wynton Marsalis, a trumpet prodigy who played with the New Orleans philharmonic at 14. "At 15, all Wynton could talk about was being a trumpet player, and all I could talk about was being a cook,'' Kinch says. "A lot of my friends laughed and thought that was crazy, but Wynton listened to me, and he understood.''

When Marsalis began touring with Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers at 19, it gave Kinch a sense of his own possibilities. He attended the prestigious Johnson and Wales Culinary Academy, took a job cooking for a small hotel in France and in 1984 undertook a pilgrimage to the Michelin gods of the Burgundy region. "I wanted to be the best, and it was all right there.''

At the restaurant of the late Alain Chapel, Kinch was served the meal that changed his life. "It was just this roasted pigeon, with a little braised lettuce and braised peas, not any of this fancy French stuff,'' he says. "It still is the greatest meal I ever had.''

Shocked, Kinch returned to his room in silence, then began to cry. "I wanted to do what Chapel was doing, but I had absolutely no idea what it was.''

And that was the moment of his great epiphany: He wanted to create food that accurately reflected who, and where, he was. To create a sense of place, as Chapel had done.

After backpacking around the world for more than two years, and trekking through countless kitchens, he opened Sent Sovi in Saratoga in 1995. Outgrowing that space, he opened Manresa in 2002.

"I wanted to create a great American restaurant,'' he says. Manresa had to reflect "all the flaws, all the brilliance, all the quirks'' of his personality, and he also wanted it to mirror the character of its setting.

To assure that, he forged a partnership with Cynthia Sandberg's Love Apple Farm in Ben Lomond, the two-acre biodynamic garden that provides all of Manresa's fruits, vegetables and eggs.

"You go to the farmers markets, and you see every chef in town buying the same Swiss chard and peaches and carrots,'' he says. "It's great stuff, but how do we set ourselves apart? The answer's obvious. You have to grow it yourself.''

He forages in the restaurant's garden almost every morning for that night's ingredients. This process "writes the menu,'' he says.

One of his signature dishes at Manresa is called Into the Vegetable Garden, which is on the menu every day, but is always different. It's "as if we had held a mirror up to the garden and it showed an edible reflection,'' he says.

"He can use every stage of the plant's life here,'' Sandberg says. "I mean, sunflower shoots that are an inch tall? I don't care which farmers market you go to, you're not going to find that.''

After the first wave of diners at Manresa has received its starter courses every evening, Kinch takes a lap around the dining room, paying special attention to the tables that have been "Champagned.'' For many top chefs, this is a kind of curtain call, a chance to soak up the admiration of diners who come from as far as Singapore and Saudi Arabia as supplicants.

Kinch dislikes the ritual. "But it's good to let them know you're there,'' he says.

Even chefs sometimes need to have a sense of place.

The Manresa Biodynamic Garden

David Kinch, Cynthia Sandberg and Indy

Digging biodynamic
Restaurateurs look beyond organic in quest to cultivate pristine produce

By Olivia Wu
The San Francisco Chronicle
May 30, 2007
Photos by Craig Lee

David Kinch is known to drive at almost 90 miles per hour. When asked why, Kinch says, with a shrug, "I have to get somewhere."

Yet when this has-to-get-somewhere chef and owner of the four-star Manresa in Los Gatos arrives at Love Apple Farm in the Santa Cruz Mountains, he slows to an almost unrecognizable pace. Shortly after 7 one morning this spring, as two Australian shepherds dance around his heels, he ambles up to the back porch of the farmhouse. Wordlessly, he sits down on a bench next to farm owner Cynthia Sandberg, grabs a worn garden stake and vigorously stirs a nearby bucket of rainwater.

At this time of year, Sandberg provides nearly all the vegetables that appear on the restaurant's summer menu. On this May morning, the chef and farmer are making Preparation 501, one of nine formulas used in biodynamic farming. Ground quartz, or silica, is whipped into water for exactly one hour. The solution is then sprayed over the crops.

Biodynamically grown vegetables are the cornerstone of Kinch's cuisine because they are superior to organic, he says. Like chefs nationally who are strengthening the ties to the source of their food, he wants the farm nearby, and he wants to be hands-on.

Sandberg tells him she got going without him because, "you're supposed to start at dawn.'' Kinch protests he only got to bed at 2 a.m. the night before.

Yet, thanks to Kinch's relentless drive, Manresa garnered four stars from The Chronicle, and also received two stars from the 2006 Michelin Guide, and a spot on Restaurant Magazine's 2005 World's 50 Best Restaurants list. In Europe, where the quest for ultra-fine vegetables in haute cuisine is a full-blown movement, Kinch is recognized as a leader.

Earlier this month he was a featured presenter at "Vive las Verduras," a produce-focused gastronomy/science/architectural conference in Spain, where chefs Alain Passard (restaurant L'Arpège in Paris) and Ferran Adrià (El Bulli, Spain) were the marquee names.

Two months ago, Passard cooked three dinners at Manresa, using the vegetables from Love Apple Farm. Passard, who gets his produce exclusively from a farm outside of Paris, said Kinch's garden shows "a genuine craft, and a search for the definition of flavors."

Responding to that inner drive to "get somewhere," although perhaps not at 90 mph, Kinch started searching for a farm that would supply him with vegetables grown biodynamically about two years ago.

Biodynamic farming is the brainchild of the late Austrian philosopher/naturalist Rudolf Steiner, who came up with the method in the 1920s as farming was turning to chemicals, depleting the soil as well as the plant. Steiner felt that as a result, human nutrition was suffering. His philosophy is called anthroposophy; longtime adherents of biodynamics also study anthroposophy.

At the heart of Steiner's biodynamics are nine preparations. Most, like the springtime silica solution, involve highly diluted mixtures applied to compost, to the crop or to the land itself at specific times of the year.

"It's the next level,'' Kinch says. While he gratefully acknowledges Alice Waters' legacy, the farm-restaurant connection and the organic revolution, it's nonetheless time to go deeper. "You go to the farmers' market and all the chefs are there. We're buying the same organic leeks and lettuces. We're all doing the same thing. I wanted to do better.''

He looked at various properties as he contemplated acquiring his own farm. Then he tasted some tomatoes grown organically by Sandberg, and asked her if she would start growing other vegetables and to supply Manresa exclusively. On the day that he and Sandberg sat down to negotiate a contract, the talks went smoothly. Then, Kinch said he hesitated. He had hoped for something else besides exclusivity and organics. Simultaneously, she piped up that she had a condition, too. That something edged on the "voodoo side," he said, but he wanted to try biodynamics. As it happened, she did, too.

Kinch is not the only American chef to look toward biodynamics and to create a more intimate, exclusive relationship with a farm. On the East Coast, chef Daniel Barber has Blue Hills restaurant on the site of Stone Barns farm in Pocantico Hills, N.Y., focusing on the farm-raised produce. A Rockefeller Foundation -funded living museum is also part of the complex.

Other Northern California chefs are following close behind. Preston Dishman, the new chef of the General's Daughter in Sonoma, has similarly tapped Andrea Davis, a graduate with a degree in sustainable agriculture, to grow the restaurant's vegetables, in part at nearby Benziger Family Winery in Glen Ellen.

Benziger has been biodynamic since 1997 and is certified by Demeter, an independent certifying organization. By adding a food production garden to the biodynamic grape growing, Benziger can increase the diversity of its acreage -- including pasture land, insectory, woodland and wetlands -- and complete the balanced system integral to biodynamic farming.

The restaurant Ubuntu, slated to open this summer in Napa, will be directly supplied by a biodynamic garden at Lion's Run Winery. Restaurant and winery owner Sandy Lawrence has dedicated acreage at her winery to biodynamic vegetable production for the restaurant.

"My aim is to live by not having a large footprint on the landscape,'' she says. Like others who had been growing crops organically, she was seeking "the most sustainable way to farm and produce food." To do so, she hired Jeff Dawson, uber gardener to Wine Country.

Dawson headed the Fetzer Valley Oaks gardens in Hopland (Mendocino County) in the '90s, then worked for Kendall Jackson, helping persuade the vintner to go organic. At the same time, he was schooling himself in biodynamics. By the early 2000s, when Copia, the American Center for Wine, Food & the Arts was created, he had the tools and techniques to build a biodynamic garden.

He took a piece of land razed by construction, and through use of biodynamic preparations, converted it into "a garden that people were amazed by, not only in its beauty but by the quality of produce. Chefs tasted the produce, hand to mouth, and couldn't believe the flavors and intensity of what they tasted," he said.

Dawson sounds remarkably like Kinch. "It's another level of quality," Dawson says. "The biodynamic process connects the plant to the earth and to the cosmos." Steiner's various preparations are part and parcel of "an incredibly balanced system that takes the whole of nature into consideration. We sensitize the plant and soil to those forces."

Although Kinch couches biodynamics in "voodoo" terms, he insists on participating in all of the preparations, such as filling cow's horns with cow manure and burying them, then retrieving them six months later, making a watery preparation with the aged manure and flicking that solution over the crops with a paintbrush.

On the day that he sprayed the silica solution with purchased biodynamically prepared silica, he and Sandberg followed it by making their own biodynamic silica: Grinding quartz by hand into silica, pouring it into cows horns, and burying it in readiness for the following year. Love Apple Farm is gradually making its own preparations from scratch as it converts to biodynamic.

Dawson currently consults at several biodynamic gardens, including those at Round Pond Estate in Rutherford, which grows Cabernet Sauvignon and Nebbiolo grapes, olives for oil and garden produce. At the height of summer, Dawson says, the overflow produce is sold to Thomas Keller, who uses it at the French Laundry, Bouchon and Ad Hoc.

Besides the biodynamic philosophy and techniques, the movement's chefs and growers are aiming for near-complete independence, creating what Kinch calls "a closed loop," consisting of the garden, his menu and his signature cuisine.

Dishman, from Florida, wanted a supply of fresh produce from three sites to provide him with as much as 90 percent of the restaurant's produce.

Dawson says that in three years' time, Lion's Run, just a 12-minute drive from the 120-seat Ubuntu, will be able to provide 80 percent of the restaurant's produce in summer, and 50 percent in winter. Kinch says that he models his garden after Passard's, whose garden is just a few hours north of Paris. The beautifully crafted vegetables capture an inimitable quality of soil, sun and spirit of place.

Almost two years into the partnership with Sandberg, 80 to 90 percent of Manresa's vegetable menu is sourced from her garden. "We've written it into our business plan," Kinch says.

The savings in his produce bill is already apparent (about 60 percent), he says. As at L'Arpège, Passard's restaurant in Paris, Kinch often serves produce that is so freshly picked it hasn't yet been refrigerated. The flavors, he says, are incomparable.

Manresa's staff must continually adapt to the garden's harvest. On the day he worked on Preparation 501 at the farm, he stayed to harvest spinach, radishes, fennel, carrots and purple potatoes, among other produce. A plethora of chard, kale and other leaves becomes a veloute, a vividly emerald saturated creamed soup that is served over tea-smoked purple potatoes from the garden.

"It's not like opening a box of inanimate stuff," he says. "You're being thrown a curve ball every day. You've got once chance to cook it right.

"Boiling them and frying them in hot fat -- we don't do that," he says, referring to the traditional techniques of parboiling and sauteing. Such treatments destroy the fragile yet full flavors of the vegetables, he says. Instead, he semi-cooks them over low heat with a tiny amount of oil or vegetable stock and saves the cooking juices to make a sauce.

A medley of raw and barely cooked vegetables becomes the evening's "vegetables with potato dumplings and burrata," where more than a dozen assorted vegetables sporting a carefully orchestrated, tousled look, cover three tiny dumplings. Other vegetables are cooked slowly and then pureed into a sauce.

The garden regimen also means Manresa's sommelier, Jeff Bareilles, has to look for an array of lighter wines. "I have three wine lists -- one by-the-glass, one by-the-bottle, and a third that I use to pair with the spontaneous dishes from the garden," he says.

Kinch's mellow moments at the farm are when his culinary ideas spring to life -- "90 percent of them," he says.

Being intimately connected to a farm, and especially one that is tuned to the forces recognized in biodynamic farming, may be the new-old road that chefs are rediscovering.

What is biodynamic farming?
A biodynamic farm by its nature is organic, although it might not necessarily be certified as organic.

Farms can be certified biodynamic by Demeter International, the European biodynamic certification organization.

Biodynamics follows precise methods and techniques enunciated by Austrian philosopher Rudolf Steiner in a series of speeches he gave in 1924.

Biodynamic farming involves the rituals, practices and formulas based on his study of nature and the cosmos -- for example, the making and applying of certain preparations by the lunar, solar and astrological calendars.

Two of the preparations, 501 and 500, involve stirring quartz and manure respectively into water in a way that creates a vortex in the water, reversing direction intermittently throughout one hour. The mixture is highly dilute, and often described as "homeopathic" in dosage.

Some other formulas include those injected into compost. One consists of dried chamomile flowers stuffed into intestines (natural sausage casings) and buried underground for six months. A yarrow compost preparation consists of dried yarrow blossoms stuffed into the bladder of a deer, hung from a tree for six months then buried underground for another six months. Oak bark preparation, also used in compost, must be placed in the skull of a domesticated horned animal and buried for six months before it is used.

For more information, go to www.biodynamics.com/steiner.html or www.steinercollege.org/biodynamics.html.

Strawberry & Tomato Salad With Maple
Serves 2
The unlikely combination of tomatoes with strawberries from David Kinch of Manresa makes a stunning summer salad.

Ingredients:
1 teaspoon maple syrup
3 drops of vanilla extract
3 teaspoons balsamic vinegar from Modena
5 teaspoons highest-quality extra virgin olive oil
Sea salt and pepper to taste
1/2 pint strawberries, hulled and cut in half (or quarters if large)
1/2 pint cherry tomatoes, halved
4 basil leaves, cut into fine strips
Several small whole mint leaves, for garnish

Instructions: Make the dressing by combining the maple syrup, vanilla and balsamic vinegar together and vigorously whisking in the olive oil. Season with salt and pepper.

Combine the strawberries, tomatoes and thinly cut basil. Season with the dressing and a turn from a pepper mill and toss them as gently as possible so as not to bruise the strawberries or crush the cherry tomato halves.

Serve in a bowl and decorate with the whole mint leaves arranged around the top.
Per serving: 155 calories, 1 g protein, 12 g carbohydrate, 12 g fat (2 g saturated), 0 cholesterol, 10 mg sodium, 3 g fiber.

Pea Pesto
Makes about 1 cup
Chef David Kinch of Manresa says, "This recipe will not work and will not be worth doing unless the peas are as naturally sweet as possible" -- ideally when just harvested. Kinch likes it with grilled calamari. It's also good with crudites and grilled fish, and may be stirred into a vegetable bouillon for a soup. Young ginger is a pale cream color with very thin skin. It is available at most Asian supermarkets and fine food stores.

Ingredients:
1 cup of very sweet, fresh shelled peas
About 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil, preferably Catalan
1 tablespoon finely chopped toasted Marcona almonds
Grated zest of one lemon
1 tablespoon grated Parmigiano-Reggiano
Fine sea salt to taste
About 1 teaspoon lime juice
About 1 teaspoon young ginger, freshly grated

Instructions: Place 3/4 cup of shelled peas with the olive oil in a blender and puree until completely smooth. You might need to add a touch more oil to get a pourable consistency. Add the rest of the peas and pulse a few more times so you have a bit of pea texture. Season with the almonds, lemon zest, cheese, salt, lime juice and young ginger to taste.
Per tablespoon: 75 calories, 1 g protein, 2 g carbohydrate, 7 g fat (1 g saturated), 0 cholesterol, 8 mg sodium, 1 g fiber.

Nasturtium Risotto
Serves 4 as a first course
If foraging for wild nasturtiums, make sure you're picking from a place that is not sprayed with chemicals or that is too close to traffic. If you're serving the risotto as a main dish, you may want to sprinkle it with toasted pine nuts or almonds. Use the leftover nasturtium stock in soups and dressings.

Ingredients:
Nasturtium stock
2 large bunches of nasturtium flowers on long stems
Additional flowers to make one packed cup
2 cups still mineral water
2 tablespoons softened unsalted butter
1 tablespoon of lemon juice
Sea salt to taste

Risotto
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 tablespoons minced white onion
1 cup carnaroli or arborio rice
1/4 cup white wine
1 1/2 cups Manresa Vegetable Stock, at low simmer (see recipe)
About 1/3 cup nasturtium stock
5 to 6 tablespoons grated Parmesan
Sea salt to taste
Nasturtium buds, for garnish (optional)
Young nasturtium leaves (optional)

Instructions:
For the nasturtium stock: The day before, separate flowers, tender young leaves and stems. Save the unopened buds for garnish on the finished rice.

Make sure you have at least one cup of the picked nasturtium flowers. Cover the nasturtium stems with mineral water, cover with plastic wrap and allow to infuse in the refrigerator for 24 hours. The next day, strain and discard the stems. Save the nasturtium water.

Slowly heat about 3/4 cup of the nasturtium water until warm, around 120°. Do not overheat.

Pour water into a blender and add the flowers and the butter. Blend the flowers until you have a smooth sauce. Strain and season with lemon juice and salt. Set aside. Makes about 1 cup.

For the risotto: In a medium saucepan over medium heat, melt butter and add onion. Cook until onions have softened. Add rice and stir until it begins to clump slightly. Add wine and stir in. When wine is absorbed, add prepared vegetable stock by the 1/2 cupful, stirring after each addition. When the stock is almost absorbed, add additional stock (about 1 1/2 cups total). Add the prepared nasturtium stock. When the rice is finished, stir in cheese, add desired salt and spoon onto the plate. When serving as a main dish, top with toasted almonds and/or pine nuts. Garnish with the buds of nasturtium along with any other flowers and tender leaves.
Per serving: 250 calories, 6 g protein, 31 g carbohydrate, 10 g fat (6 g saturated), 27 mg cholesterol, 356 mg sodium, 1 g fiber.

Manresa Vegetable Stock
Makes about 3 quarts
Allow the stock to rest after cooking, and refrigerate with the vegetables in the liquid to give the stock more body, says chef David Kinch.

Ingredients:
6 medium carrots, peeled and quartered
1 onion, peeled and quartered
2 shallots, peeled and left whole
2 leeks, trimmed and cleaned
Several sprigs of fennel tops
1 bay leaf
Sprigs of thyme and parsley
2 whole star anise
1 tablespoon sugar
2 cloves garlic, peeled and left whole
1 cup white wine
3 quarts of water

Instructions: Combine all ingredients in a large stockpot. Bring to a low simmer over medium heat for 25 minutes. Turn off the heat and let sit, covered, for 4 hours. Store in the refrigerator, and strain only as needed, just before using.

Alain Passard Cooks at Manresa

Alain Passard, the first to make green sexy, cooks in California
Greens are the star when Paris' Alain Passard and David Kinch collaborate on eight courses

By Betty Hallock
The Los Angeles Times
March 14, 2007
Photos by Randi Lynn Beach

In an early spring garden tucked into the Santa Cruz Mountains, Alain Passard knelt beside a patch of young Chinese cabbage, carefully rubbing the leaves between his fingers. He made his way through the garden, stopped next to some red mustard and plucked a leaf to taste, then some sorrel, then the yellow bud of flowering Chinese broccoli, and the thick, dewy leaf of ficoïde glaciale, a salad plant whose succulent leaves are covered with minuscule silver dots so that it looks as if it's covered in fine frost.

Passard, the chef of L'Arpège in Paris who six years ago made what was considered a revolutionary move by publicly declaring that his Michelin three-star restaurant would shift its focus from his signature meat dishes to vegetables, came to California last weekend to cook dinner with chef David Kinch at Manresa in Los Gatos and to visit Kinch's garden.

"I've been a big fan of L'Arpège for 20 years," said Kinch. "The first time I went was an eye-opening experience, and every few years I've seen how his food has changed." He said he sought a collaboration because Passard's restaurant gardens were an inspiration for his own. The dinners took place over three nights, with each chef creating four of eight courses.

"We talked about what was in the garden and what we would plant for the dinner and hoped the specialness of the vegetables speak for themselves," Kinch said.

Passard agreed, explaining, "I knew we shared a profound respect for the provenance of ingredients."

Passard has set up two potagers, or kitchen gardens, on several acres in Normandy and Brittany, where he's from. The properties provide all of the vegetables, transported by high-speed train, for the restaurant in Paris. Passard said he recently purchased another property near Mont St. Michel. "If I didn't have my gardens, I would no longer love to cook," he said.

More than a year ago, Kinch set up his own potager at Love Apple Farm in the Santa Cruz Mountains, run by grower Cynthia Sandberg. Now he says there are 45 vegetables and herbs in the ground with more on the way.

Kinch picked up armloads of vegetables for dinner — white beets, turnips, rutabagas, baby carrots, baby leeks, mâche and tiny breakfast radishes with their tendril roots that grow in the new hoop house among the kohlrabi, peas and "freckles" lettuce.

At dinner in Manresa's pretty dining room, in the heart of Los Gatos' tiny downtown, the tiny radishes, some no bigger than the tip of your finger, showed up as an amuse bouche with a little bowl of crème fraîche mixed with tarragon and a touch of fleur de sel.

Then came a small tangle of baby spinach and a quenelle of carrot-orange mousseline.

The first course arrived, a consommé of osetra caviar, and Passard himself soon followed. He enthusiastically made his rounds in the dining room, dressed in a black button-down shirt, a pair of Levi's and his white apron.

'So much flavor'
You never would have known that he had arrived in California that same day and had cooked both at L'Arpège and at a special event for 100 people the night before in Paris, going back and forth between his restaurant and the fête foraine that he had set up in a courtyard in the 16th arrondissement.

"How is it?" he asked, referring to the consommé prepared by Kinch. "So much taste, so much flavor of the sea, oui?" Miniature black pearls of osetra caviar and flecks of wakame, or kelp, and laitue de mer — seaweed from Brittany — were suspended in the gelée-like broth, set with gelatin from long-cooked turbot and infused with wakame. It was served with seaweed brioche, buttery and toasty and stippled with laitue de mer.

A rustically beautiful block of hand-churned salted butter placed on a tile of granite was set on the table. Kinch commissioned cheese maker Soyoung Scanlan of Andante Dairy in Petaluma to make the butter specifically for this dinner.

"We did some experimenting to get the right salt flavor," Kinch said. It was his gift to Passard, whose use of the famous salted butter of Brittany is an integral part of his cuisine.

"The [salted] butter is like a little test for the vegetables," said Passard. "When cooking with it, it brings just the right seasoning" to highlight the pure flavors of the vegetables. "You have to treat the vegetables delicately, to preserve their essence."

From France
Baby leeks came to the table, cooked softly in butter and served with an emulsion of Bagaduce oysters and Muscadet vinegar that Passard's "right hand," Julie Coppe, brought with her from France along with the beechwood to smoke the potatoes in another dish and the mustard from Orleans that Passard makes with a maître vinaigrier.

Monterey Bay abalone was served with a slow-cooked "broken egg" and 12 different vegetables from the garden, including watermelon radish, the blossoms of Chinese broccoli, baby fennel, beet greens and braised white radish. That was followed by a filet of tender monkfish with a sauce made of Passard's moutarde d'Orleans and smoked fingerling potatoes garnished with Persian cress.

One of Passard's signature dishes came next: sweetbreads with sliced chestnuts and black truffle sauce. Although he eschews red meat, he said he couldn't take the sweetbreads off the menu at L'Arpège. "People always ask me for the sweetbreads with truffle sauce and chestnuts."

Kinch's roast spring lamb with young root vegetables was served with a purée prepared with "forgotten, lonely greens," in Kinch's words — tatsoi, red Russian kale and Toscana kale, red mustard greens — "kind of like a compost sauce."

Meanwhile, the kitchen was a swarm of cooks and servers. Passard or Kinch hovered around the plating station, watching the composition of a plate of colorful baby carrots set on a Valrhona chocolate sauce flavored with ginger, hazelnut oil and the juice of lobster.

"It's the easiest thing in the world to take some foie gras and truffles and make a luxurious, delicious dish that's intellectually stimulating and has an artistic nature to it," Kinch said. "Doing that with a carrot is a completely different thing."

The chef at table
The hour was nearly midnight and the clutch of diners still left in the restaurant were polishing off their final courses. Dessert was the carrot dish with chocolate sauce from Passard, a Meyer lemon soufflé served with Meyer lemon cream, a compote of three kinds of mandarins infused with hibiscus and garnished with mint, and a candied willow leaf mandarin set in custard.

Passard was about to sit down to his own dinner. He said he liked the unexpectedness of a table being set for six in the middle of the dining room just when others were finishing up their meal.

A white tablecloth was unfurled across a big round table and set with silver, wine glasses and carefully folded napkins. Passard passed a plate of Bagaduce oysters, an omelet with morels that he had asked Kinch to prepare, the seaweed brioche and blocks of the salted butter. "Where's the fromage?" he asked, and a platter of domestic cheeses arrived.

Passard breathed deeply from his glass of Cheverny, a Sauvignon Blanc from the Loire Valley. "Peach — white peach — pineapple, mango, honey."

He was lost in another garden.

Alain Passard, left, with Manresa chef David Kinch, examine a box of morels.

Leeks with oyster emulsion
Total time: About 55 minutes
Servings: 4
Note: From Alain Passard

8 Blue Point oysters, rinsed under running water, or 1 (8-ounce) jar of fresh oysters
7 tablespoons unsalted butter, cubed and softened slightly but still cold
3/8 teaspoon high-quality white wine vinegar
12 baby leeks or 2 medium leeks
7 tablespoons salted butter
1 lemon
Fleur de sel

1. Bring a small saucepan half full of water to a light simmer over medium heat. Use an oyster knife to open the oysters without losing their water. Hold the oyster with a thick potholder to protect your hand. With the oyster (cupped side down) in your palm, push the point of the oyster knife about 1 inch into the hinge of the oyster between the lid and the body. Twist the blade to pry the oyster open. Cut the muscle from the lid. Alternately, if using oysters from a jar, remove the oysters and place in the bowl, along with 2 tablespoons of the water from the jar.
2. Place the meat and water from the oysters into a high-walled bowl (large enough to fit over the saucepan) and purée them until smooth with an immersion blender. Pass the purée through a fine mesh strainer.
3. Heat the purée over the saucepan of hot water until warm, then blend it again while adding the cubes of unsalted butter and the white wine vinegar. Move the sauce on and off the heat as needed to keep the temperature barely warm. The butter should melt, but should not make the sauce too thick; the sauce, during cooking, should coat the back of a spoon. Season with one-fourth teaspoon salt, or to taste. Reserve near the stove in a slightly warm space.
4. Cut each of the leeks lengthwise and run under cold water to clean and dislodge any dirt. Cut each half crosswise in 1-inch segments (for the medium leeks, slice each segment again into thirds lengthwise). In a medium sauté pan, melt the salted butter over low heat. Add the leeks and cook covered over low heat just until tender. When leeks are cooked, take the pan off the heat, add three drops of fresh lemon juice and fleur de sel to taste.
5. Place the immersion blender back in the sauce, and blend so the sauce produces a good foam (you may need to blend between plating each portion to make the total amount needed for the recipe). To serve, place three tablespoons of foam in the center of a shallow soup plate. Place about 2 tablespoons leeks on top of the foam.
Each serving: 339 calories; 8 grams protein; 28 grams carbohydrates; 4 grams fiber; 23 grams fat; 13 grams saturated fat; 78 mg. cholesterol; 169 mg. sodium.

Four Stars, San Jose Mercury News

Audio Visual: Manresa chef and owner, David Kinch, talks about several dishes from the restaurant.
Mercury News photo by LiPo Ching

If Dining Could Be Perfect...
Manresa doesn't miss a beat for 3 hours, 17 dishes

By Aleta Watson
San Jose Mercury News
December 24, 2006

2006 has been a very good year for David Kinch, chef and partner of Manresa Restaurant in Los Gatos.

Four years after he opened his dream restaurant in a remodeled ranch house tucked away on a back street of a Silicon Valley suburb, Kinch has been flooded with coveted culinary honors: two Michelin stars, four Mobil stars, inclusion in Gourmet magazine's Top 50 restaurants in America and Gayot's Top 40.

The New York Times Dining section profiled Kinch and his cooking in a trio of articles in February. And last year, Restaurant Magazine of London named Manresa one of the 50 best restaurants in the world for 2005.

It's all heady stuff for a man who has chosen, like many of France's most celebrated chefs, to practice his craft in an epicurean byway. He may not be a household name like Thomas Keller of Yountville's French Laundry, but dedicated food tourists now make a detour from San Francisco to Los Gatos for a chance to taste his moist and meaty John Dory fish seared on a special Spanish stove-top or custardlike coddled egg seasoned with maple syrup.

My recent tour of the chef's tasting menu reaffirmed Kinch's accomplishments. The 3-hour-and-45-minute meal was a tour de force from the first tiny tastes known as amuses bouche to the last of the desserts. In all, there were 17 little dishes and not a misstep among them.

This is food as revelation, awakening the senses to the possibilities in something as simple as a freshly picked bunch of spinach or as complicated as foie gras that takes three days to prepare for its brief grilling over a mesquite fire. A savory black olive madeleine and a ruby red jelly, looking for all the world like a refined gumdrop with its dusting of sugar, starts the meal with a little pepper kick. A single crunchy croquette shatters at the bite, releasing a flood of velvety liquid foie gras onto the palate.

Here, great food comes in a friendly, informal setting with little of the pretense so often associated with haute cuisine. Servers wear simple gray, band-collared shirts and black pants. They may present the wine with ceremony and describe the dishes with reverence, but they also smile warmly and cheerfully explain unfamiliar ingredients when requested.

The 68-seat dining room is understated and modern, with stained wood beams at the ceiling, heavy silk curtains at the windows and Oriental rugs on the polished floors. A curved wall painted the color of saffron separates the dining room from the kitchen.

Cherry wood chairs from Spain pull up to closely spaced tables draped in heavy white linens. Banquettes line the walls. Jazz plays faintly in the background.

I last visited Manresa in 2002, just two months after Kinch had opened his new venture on Village Lane. The chef already had built a following for his refined renditions of French classics and emphasis on fresh California ingredients in seven years at tiny Sent Sovi in neighboring Saratoga. But at Manresa, he was changing gears, inspired by innovations in Spanish cooking to push culinary boundaries with inventive juxtapositions of temperature, texture and taste. (The restaurant is named for a medieval Spanish town as well as a beach south of Santa Cruz.)

I was blown away by that meal and gave the restaurant a rare four stars. The food was creative and often surprising. Hot played against cold, sweet against spicy, crunchy against creamy.

Since then, Kinch's cooking has become more refined, with the emphasis clearly more on flavor than legerdemain. He credits the restaurant's new garden in Ben Lomond, noting that he's confronted every day with a changing harvest of just-picked vegetables to highlight on his menu.

"It's taken on a life of its own, and it's changing how we do things,'' he says. "It's the hardest thing I've ever done.''

The combinations still are unexpected: A soup of Romanesco broccoli layers over foie gras mousse, lightening a rich dish with its herbal character. A raw oyster is embedded in sea urchin jelly, intensifying the briny flavors of the sea. An earthy blend of 20 Indian spices works in counterpoint to the sweet, barely cooked flesh of meaty spot prawns.

Diners choose between the elaborate, carefully orchestrated tasting menu ($115) and a simpler four-course meal ($85) selected from dishes on the small menu, which changes daily. Offerings may range from butterfish sashimi with olive oil and chives to roast suckling pig to vanilla bean souffle with autumn fruit compote.

The impressive wine list runs to more than 20 pages, with an emphasis on French, German and Spanish vintages. Bottles routinely top $100 and range up to $1,000 for a 1976 Geisenheimer Klauserweg Riesling, but there are many half bottles and offerings by the glass.

If all those choices make you dizzy, the simplest route is to let the sommelier pair wines for you in small portions ($52 for the four-course menu and $72 for the tasting menu).

My companion and I split a wine pairing and were introduced to seven good wines that we might never have picked on our own. The aromatic 2003 Domaine Bru-Bache La Quintessence, a white muscat with citrus notes, cut nicely through the buttery richness of the grilled foie gras and underscored the tart, sweet flavors of the apple jelly and quince consomme with which it was served. A 2003 Rousset, Crozes-Hermitage, a soft and fruity syrah from the Rhone Valley, danced gracefully with the deep caramelized flavors of luscious, boneless short ribs, slow roasted at low heat for hours in their own juices and served with mushrooms and baby bok choy from the garden.

By dessert, we were sure we couldn't eat another bite even though each course had been only a couple of mouthfuls. Luxurious foie gras had starred in four courses. One dish had featured house-made boudin noir, the darkly intense blood sausage, with an ethereal quenelle of chanterelles. This was substantial fare.

Yet a single spoonful of faintly herbal, barely sweet sunchoke ice cream crowned with a salty, fried sunchoke chip, revived our interest. Pastry chef Deanie Fox likes to use unexpected ingredients and juxtapose sweet and salty flavors. She transforms avocado into a silky mousse punctuated by an icy grapefruit granita, pairs a homey brown butter waffle with vivacious passion fruit syrup, and pumps up a demitasse cup of rich hot chocolate with habanero chile.

When a Lilliputian chocolate madeleine arrived on a white plate, accompanied by another red jelly -- this time tasting sweetly of strawberries -- the meal had come full circle. For David Kinch, dinner is as much an intellectual journey as a gastronomic adventure.

Manresa Restaurant
320 Village Lane, near North Santa Cruz Avenue,
Los Gatos, (408) 354-4330.

* * *

The Dish: This nationally acclaimed restaurant just keeps getting better as chef and partner David Kinch refines his creative French- and Spanish-influenced menu to bring out the best in extraordinary ingredients. Although the food qualifies as haute cuisine, the atmosphere and service are friendly and informal.

Price range: Four courses, $85, to chef's tasting menu, $115. Corkage fee: $30.

Details: Impressive wine list, emphasizing French, German and Spanish vintages.

Pluses: Exquisite short ribs and mesquite-grilled foie gras.

Minuses: Only the most dedicated eaters will want to spend three hours or more at the table for the chef's tasting menu.

Hours: Dinner starting at 5:30 p.m. Tuesdays- Saturdays with last reservation at 9 p.m.; starting at 5 p.m. Sundays with last reservation at 8:30 p.m.

Restaurant reviews are conducted anonymously. The Mercury News pays for all meals.