GQ Restaurant Critic Alan Richman Takes NY Star Chef Eric Ripert Shopping

…to Costco. Against his will. And what the chef of Le Bernardin says about the big box retailer is going to surprise you.

(Oh, and fresh Copper River Salmon is in Dallas area Costco stores this week…for $8.99 a pound. Told you.)

Avec Alan

from GQ:

The PBS series Avec Eric, featuring Eric Ripert, co-owner and chef of Manhattan’s incomparable seafood restaurant Le Bernardin, starts with a trip to a bucolic destination. “You still need to be inspired by nature,” he says in the introduction. He learns about a product, returns to New York, and, aroused by his experience, prepares a dish. In one case, a hunt for wild boar (the boar got away) led to a loin of pork. Not only do you learn to cook in these episodes, you learn how a Michelin three-star kitchen operates. After seeing the show, I was inspired to create Avec Alan.

I live in Westchester County, a suburb of New York City, where innumerable residents have substantial money but are reluctant to spend it on interesting food. I invited Eric to experience eating in suburban America, a world unto itself, and participate in the filming of the first (and surely the only) episode of Avec Alan—see it now right here, or you could actually finish reading first. I brought in a staff, consisting of a pal from New Jersey whose excessive use of pots and pans demonstrates how little kitchen training he has undergone. I picked up Eric at the Metro-North station in my town, and off we went to my source of food, the megastore that inspires so much of the cooking of Westchester: Costco. There the food is sold in such bulk that I suspect an entire French village could live for a day off the contents of a single oversized, overloaded shopping cart. On his show, Eric eloquently expresses how thankful he is for his life. I have a different philosophy. When I go to Costco, I’m thankful for a parking space. Here is Eric’s report, starting with our arrival at Costco in Port Chester, New York: