Who’s cooking for President Bush in Vietnam?

Vietnam’s cultural renaissance is in full swing, thanks to a new generation of entrepreneurs, restaurateurs, designers, club owners, and artists who are transforming the country.

Didier Corlou, a Brittany native, with his dynamic, larger-than-life personality and his culinary panache have cut a broad swath through the world of Vietnamese gastronomy.  Corlou  ranks as the country’s most celebrated chef. In 2004, his book, Vietnamese Cuisine, won the “Best Asian Cuisine Book in the World” designation from Gourmand.

When heads of state call on Vietnam, Corlou gets to work, preparing dinner for the likes of presidents Bill Clinton and Jacques Chirac. Indeed, the government of Vietnam has called on Corlou to prepare the Invitational Dinner for 800 dignitaries coming to Hanoi for the APEC Summit this November, including sitting U.S. President George Bush.

Writers find no end of illustrative descriptors for Corlou, who first came to Vietnam in 1991. “Mad scientist” (NY Times), “jocund” (Toronto Globe & Mail), “passionate and lively” (London Daily Telegraph). All of it is true, but none of it mitigates the bedrock of his place in the culinary world. On Sept. 25, the American Academy of Hospitality Sciences selected Corlou as recipient of its prestigious International Chef Award for 2007.

Didier Corlou, the longtime executive chef at the Sofitel Metropole Hotel in Hanoi, has struck a new relationship with the landmark Sofitel Dalat Palace Hotel and Le Rabelais Restaurant. Corlou, recent winner of the American Academy of Hospitality Sciences’ International Chef Award for 2007, will serve as Consulting Chef at Le Rabelais.

Building off the French foundation at Le Rabelais, twice annually Corlou will reconstruct the restaurant’s set menu, detailing courses with the pioneering flourishes for which he’s won renown across Southeast Asia. For one week each month, he will work on-site at the Palace, assisting Executive Chef Nguyen Huu Huong with fresh interpretations of the menu.

“I’ve been coming to Dalat for more than 10 years,” said Corlou. “For the gardens, and for the spirit of all these vegetables, the avocado, the big fat carrots, the French bamboo, the long-stemmed artichokes. So much is here. These are my passions, and Dalat will feed those passions while I feed guests of the Palace.”

Corlou’s gambit at the Palace is an artichoke and clam starter. From there, the menu skips to a vegetarian soup that celebrates Dalat’s cornucopia of vegetables (grown famously succulent in this mile-high climate) before plunging into the main course, a Rossini Beef Tenderloin.

“Didier sees everything in a unique, light,” said Antoine Sirot, the general manager of the Dalat Palace Hotel. “Dare I say an inimitable light. Our Executive Chef Nguyen Huu Huong has established our place as one of the finest dining venues in Vietnam. Didier is giving diners a whole new reason to come to the Palace and sit down for seven or eight courses.”

Since the founding of the Dalat Palace Hotel in 1922 (then the Lang Bian Hotel), the hotel’s premier restaurant has served diners off a set menu. In the colonial era, there was no choice; today the menu features several main course alternatives.

Regardless, meals at Le Rabelais tend to drift through two or three hours. “It’s been like that here for 80 years,” said Sirot. “You can sit here for two or three hours, and six or seven courses, without boredom. And you leave the table feeling good.”

In July, Danao International Holdings bought out its joint venture partner and acquired a 100% ownership stake in the Dalat Palace Hotel, as well as the nearby Novotel Dalat Hotel and Dalat Palace Golf Club, an 18-hole course that’s been called out as the top layout in Vietnam by Golf Digest.