Gourmet fare is a family affair at La Mere Michelle
By Suzanne Cristallo
Ask Joseph Masek how to make a roux, or to explain the influence of feed on the flavor of beef, and you'll get an answer with the wisdom of 818 years of eating-house experience behind it. Since 1182, generation after generation of the Masek family ran restaurants in Czechoslovakia, where Joseph was born. The last 30 years have been in Saratoga where La Mere Michelle, the venerable Big Basin Way restaurant, owned by Joseph, wife Michelle and son Marc, is part of the town character.
"The art in cooking is making everybody happy at the same time--in a relaxed atmosphere," Joseph says of the importance of timing and intuitive response to his restaurant's longevity. "You cannot open a book and cook from it when 10 orders come in together."
He also stresses perseverance, quality service and first-rate facilities. He doesn't overlook the importance of owning his own building in a time when skyrocketing rents are causing many family-run restaurants to close their doors.
"Some nights we don't get the booming Silicon Valley economy here," he says of the quiet village with a dozen neighboring restaurants. But when the boom hits, they're ready. "Some nights, just two of us are handling 100 dinners," he says.
Night chef Marc, 38, who grew up in the restaurant kitchen, and day chef, Gary Sault ,who has been with the Maseks since they opened, enhance the country French menu with two or three specials each day.
Fresh seafood and produce is personally selected by Joseph, who visits Joe Pucci's Oakland fish market and circles the Bay to pick up produce he has "touched, seen and smelled." He is proud of his featured halibut fillet with fresh mushrooms, which sells out each time it's offered.
Fillet mignon is accompanied by up to 1 1/2-pound lobsters from Nova Scotia, kept live in moist seaweed for freshness. Scallops come from that area's Bay of Fundy, described by Joseph as a place "where 60-foot tides rush in and boats with big rakes dig 100 feet into the ocean to scoop up the catch." Beef is selected not by breed but according to what the steers have been fed. "It is better to have naturally fed beef," he says, disdaining feed lot cattle.
The Christmas Eve menu will feature Duck l'Orange and all of the trimmings, topped off with Michelle's great-grandmother's seven-bread and butter pudding. Another special dessert is the house peach melba--a peach poached in port wine with a big scoop of homemade vanilla ice cream topped with raspberry sauce, whipped cream and toasted almonds.
La Mere Michelle offers a prix fixe dinner--usually on Sundays or for private parties--including a choice from three or four entrees, soup or salad, dessert and coffee for $30-$40. The more popular orders, however, come from the range of a la carte entrees offered at $19-$32.
The Maseks met in 1950 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, Michelle's hometown. Joseph had traveled there to manage a hotel after graduating from a hotel and restaurant management school in Switzerland. Besides his native Czech language, he speaks Polish, German, French, Swiss and English. "Here and there I swear appropriately in other languages," he jokes.
La Mere Michelle, 14467 Big Basin Way, Saratoga. Open for lunch Tues.-Sun. 11:30 a.m.-2 p.m. Dinner Tues., Wed., Thurs. 6-9:30 p.m., Fri. and Sat. 6-10 p.m., Sun. 5:30-9 p.m. Sunday brunch 11 a.m.-2 p.m. Closed Mon. 408.867.5272.
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Los Gatos, California Since 1881
