The Sacramento Bee -- sacbee.com -- Royal chef -
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Published on: 2/21/2002
Last Visited: 2/21/2002
Christophe Cornet, personal chef of Sacramento Kings owners Joe and Gavin Maloof, in the Maloofs' suite at Arco Arena.
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Christophe Cornet -- who just might be the capital city's finest French chef you don't know -- will not go into detail right now about his grand gourmet plans.
He is not discussing his fois gras fantasies and degustation menu designs, in part because he's got some sort of kitchen superstition.
"I have an idea, but I don't want to jinx anything," Cornet says with a thick French accent."So I don't speak of it."
But there's something else.
There's the clock on the wall, and right now it's tick-tick-ticking, which Cornet knows because he keeps glaring at it, as though that will help slow it down.It won't, though, so he has no time to stop and talk.
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"I have to keep moving," Cornet says curtly, his arms seemingly flailing in five directions at once as he stirs sauces, pokes meats, shakes pots and grabs utensils and bowls and plastic food wrap and towels.
"I have no choice; time is very important to me.I have to keep looking at the clock to see if I have to go faster.Usually, I do."
It is the culinary equivalent of the fast break.
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Whenever the Sacramento Kings play a game at home, Cornet -- the Maloofs' personal chef -- spends his day at Arco Arena, racing against time as he cooks a staggering amount of food for the owners' suite and a private players' lounge.
Working almost exclusively by himself and fueled only by espresso ("I don't eat when I'm cooking," he sniffs), Cornet cuts, peels, mixes, boils, grills, roasts, melts, seasons and such for 10 consecutive hours.At which point he races up to the suite to begin the job of carving and scooping and serving -- a sequence he then repeats for the players.
He is both maniacal and meticulous, a blur at the stovetop who will also make sure the asparagus and carrots are facing the same direction.
"I do this for me," he says as he flips an asparagus spear."Nobody else will notice it.But I will."
He can't help it.His attention to detail is obsessive.On his seafood platters, he oils the lobster shells that people will simply push aside.
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Though a chef's skills are measured by the merits of his meals, Cornet has credentials that must be mentioned.
He has worked in one of the finest restaurants in Paris.He has cooked for the Queen of England and two French prime ministers.
Clearly, Cornet knows his way around a kitchen.
So then why is he here, working frenetic 17-hour days without an assistant in a sporting arena where the audience is both limited and limiting?
"This is the only thing I know," he says."I don't know how to change a tire or any of that.I just know cooking."
And this is where the job is, in Sacramento and out of the spotlight of the city's dining scene.
Chefs are artists, and artists generally don't like the tastes of repetition or narrow restrictions.
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And yet Christophe Cornet makes essentially the same meal every time he cooks, because his bosses are simple eaters who prefer predictable, simply prepared staples.
"These guys eat and eat, but they don't eat interesting food," Cornet says of the Maloof brothers."They don't have the most educated palates."
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"Nothing crazy," Cornet says.
He's been cooking for Joe and Gavin and even Phil Maloof for 17 months in their Arco Arena suite and at their homes here and in Las Vegas.In that time, he's learned not to challenge the brothers' tastes with exotic flavor combinations or even slightly off-center ingredients.
Consider the time he tried to get Joe Maloof to eat duck liver.
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"He didn't want to touch it," Cornet says.
And there are other things that the Maloofs don't like, some of which are common cooking components.
No onions, for instance.Or garlic.Or spices.Especially spices.
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Cornet does not seem so certain.
At first, he shrugs off the suggestion -- made recently by one of his foodie friends, another chef -- that he's "locked in a golden prison" because he "can't do what's interesting to him."
"Cooking is always very challenging," Cornet says."No matter how many times you do a recipe -- if you're not concentrating, you have to redo it.So that makes it interesting."
But then, he finally allows this: "I guess I'm not really learning about food with them."
Technically, that's not true, since Cornet is learning new dishes and cuisines, including "soul" food, Lebanese food and Mexican food.
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"Christophe has cooked for the queen; he's done some real cooking.He's got an excellent background and great culinary skills.
"But he's cooking the same stuff all the time.I know he can do a lot more.People don't realize what he can do."
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Cornet admits -- rather quietly and reluctantly -- that he wants to open a restaurant in Sacramento.
One where he can create and challenge himself and his patrons.
One where he can produce what he calls "serious tasting menus -- something really French."
One where he can use spices!
But for now, he insists he's content cooking in the shadows and making some of the finest if most mundane food the public can't try.
Though he will momentarily wander into the spotlight March 16, giving local gourmands a small taste of his talents at a benefit event, Cornet says he plans to keep making meals for the Maloofs even after his one-year contract expires in the spring.
This news should make Joe Maloof happier than a bowl of Cheetos, a favorite snack food.
It was just last summer -- while Chris Webber was being wined and dined by teams around the National Basketball Association -- when Maloof delivered a message to Cornet, who was also a free agent.
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Cornet began learning the epicurial arts at such a young age in part because he's French and the French are obsessed with their food.
But truthfully, he also decided early on that using his hands on the job sounded better than tapping his brain."I didn't want to be an engineer like my brother," he says.
So Cornet signed up for cooking school and earned his cooking certificate after just two years.And by the age of 17, he was already working at a two-star Michelin restaurant in Bordeaux.
A few years later, he moved on to Michel Rostang, rated by the Zagat survey as one of the 10 best restaurants in Paris.There, Cornet was allowed to create his own specials -- a noted distinction in any kitchen, but particularly one in Paris.
Still, after two years, he was ready to make another move.He wanted to leave the culinary center of the world to cook in the United States.
"The taxes (in France) are just unbelievable," he explains."And you cannot get a loan easily if you're in restaurants."
So on Nov. 9, 1998, he arrived in Las Vegas with his own version of the American dream: to become one of the country's most celebrated French chefs.
His first job was at the Las Vegas outpost of the noted New York City restaurant Le Cirque.Cornet was one of three sous chefs, ranking him behind only the chef de cuisine and the executive chef; yet he quickly became frustrated, because he wasn't allowed to be creative.
"I couldn't do my own specials," he says.
He gave his notice and planned to move back to France -- even though he'd already met his future wife, a Le Cirque hostess named Charity.
But on the morning he was supposed to fly home, he says, he missed his flight, because he was still asleep at Charity's house.
He took it as a sign and stayed, and the couple was married on Sept. 14, 1999.
On Feb. 28 of the following year, they had a baby boy, Elijah. (Their second child is due next month.)
And eventually, Cornet landed what seemed to be a dream position: Chef de cuisine at Monte Carlo, an AAA four-diamond restaurant at the Desert Inn where the plates were Faberge and the tasting menu of roasted langoustines, sautéed duck liver, flash-seared scallops with caviar and eye of lamb was $95.
"It was a beautiful room, and I could pretty much do what I wanted," Cornet says wistfully.
But there was a problem.The same week Cornet's hiring was announced -- in June 2000 -- the Desert
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