At Benefit Meal, He Served Them Right

NEWPORT BEACH — Money was the buzz at the ninth annual Art of Dining benefit Sunday for the Newport Harbor Art Museum.

The price this year was a gaudy $500 a plate, yet the event quickly sold out the 420 or so seats. Combine those numbers with funds raised during auctions held between courses at the Four Seasons Hotel, and you’ve got a gross for the evening of $620,000, according to museum officials--not exactly chump change.

Once again the dinner was marshaled by Los Angeles wunderchef Joachim Splichal, who has a wondrous ability to assemble talent. This year’s crew was gathered willy-nilly by Splichal, who has been caught up in a whirlwind of activity this year, including the opening of three new restaurants (one in Napa Valley and two in Los Angeles) and the arrival of two newborn sons.

Splichal found chef David Burke of New York and Chicago’s Park Avenue Cafe, for instance, while eating a meal the chef cooked in a guest appearance at Catahoula Restaurant in Calistoga. “Burke’s food just blew my socks off,” said Splichal, standing in the hotel kitchen in his chef’s whites.

Noted restaurateur Drew Nieporent suggested chef Chris Gesualdi from New York’s Montrachet. Gesualdi prepared what I considered the evening’s best course, a potato truffle mousseline in a nage of wild mushrooms.

Splichal simply ran into Patrick Clark, now cooking at New York’s Tavern on the Green, at the Highlands Inn in Carmel. He met Alan Wong, who prepared a gingered Kona lobster and scallop dish with miso sesame vinaigrette, at Maui’s Canoe House Restaurant at the Mauna Lani Hotel.

This all worked in favor of the guests. The portions were intelligent this year, and practically everyone polished off the dishes from the first course to the last.

The dinner opened with Four Seasons executive chef Michel Pieton’s terrine of foie gras with frisee, apple-cider vinaigrette and peppered brioche, and from there it was off to the races.

After the duck liver came Gesualdi’s potato mushroom creation, Wong’s lobster with a surprise of fresh corn and Clark’s pan-roasted Chilean sea bass, a dish laden with garden-fresh peas and beans.

The ever-creative Burke came up with something he called “duck, duck, duck,” a trio of duck dishes: meatloaf, a Chinese-style dumpling and rare slices of duck breast. The dessert course was done by Splichal, a lemon sandwich with candied citrus zest and strawberry salad.

The room’s striking nightclub/movie-set design was one of the most innovative in recent years. Another surprise was the biting wit of actress/emcee Mariette Hartley. The dinner paid homage to artist Ed Ruscha.

I left wondering whether Splichal, who does many benefits and who has coordinated all nine Art of Dining dinners, will find the time to spare from his burgeoning enterprises to come back next year. When asked, he merely asked a question of his own--”who can tell?”--and grinned.