Mind Over Menu

Michel squeezes droplets of a bright green basil oil into the bowls of 24 silver spoons. He and David top the oil with what appear to be neat quarters of hard-boiled eggs. But they trick the eye. The "whites" of the eggs are really mozzarella; the "yolks," yellow tomatoes. The chefs drop tiny bits of puffed rice into the bowl of each spoon to add crunch. Crunchy textures delight him. Michel -- who has stuck his reading glasses atop his head and forgotten them there -- gleefully makes crunching sound effects while he works.

These virtual eggs are one of Michel's signature dishes. He's been making them so long that he doesn't remember how he came up with the idea, only why: Mozzarella's essential blandness bored him. He felt compelled to make it fascinating, to transform the cheese as thoroughly as he himself had been transformed, from impoverished child laborer in France to world famous chef in Washington. Besides, he says, "It's fun to make people wonder. I love the magic of surprise."

The regular kitchen staff at Amangani is getting caught up in the magic. Several local cooks, who are supposed to be making dinner for the resort's regular dining room, gather wide-eyed as Michel and David prepare the amuse-bouche, a surprise first course that doesn't appear on the elaborate menu but will be brought to diners as soon as they sit down. David spreads starched white napkins across the worktable to keep their serving plates perfectly clean. On each of 24 small plates Michel and David place an eggshell that has been neatly cut in half lengthwise using a rotary tool called a Dremel. Tiny slivers of macaroni have been glued to the top half of each eggshell, turning it into a lidded vessel with a handle. Each egg vessel will hold a dollop of lamb tartare, a dish Michel has never made before. He adds a dash of hot pepper sauce to a large bowl of tartare, stirs and tastes. He adds a pinch of cracked black pepper. He tastes. He adds lemon juice, and tastes again. He nods. David dips in a spoon. He nods. The two chefs begin spooning tartare into eggshells, taking care that all 24 plates look precisely the same.

Out in the resort's library, Michel's dinner guests are sitting down at three large tables of eight. He leaves the kitchen to welcome them. The chef is making his way down a dark corridor when three carefully coiffed women from Los Angeles recognize him. "Oh, my gosh, that's Michel Richard," one squeals.

"I've had dinner many times at your restaurant," another tells him.

"We're big fans of yours," the third woman says.

"His food always looks so beautiful," the first woman adds.

His dinner guests are waiting, but Michel obliges these fans with a brief, broad performance. "So many gorgeous women," he says theatrically. "Are you here with your husbands, or are you alone? You are alone! What a gift from God!"

The chef leaves the women giggling in his wake.

He sighs. He walks as if his feet hurt. He is 58 years old. He needs to lose 50 pounds. The fact that his audience has paid a huge sum for the privilege of adoring him gives him little comfort. As far as he is concerned, he is only as good as the next meal he makes.

"Here we go," he murmurs as zero hour approaches, sounding like a child reassuring himself before plunging off a very high diving board.

WITH ONLY MINUTES LEFT, Michel and David work closely, without needing to speak. The only sounds in their corner of the kitchen are the blowing of a convection oven and the rhythmic whooshing of powerful dishwashing sprays. Rimmed soup plates are lined up in neat rows on their worktable. In the center of each plate, the men artfully mound cubes of vegetable compounds: two blackish ones made with eggplant, two orange made with carrots. Amid the cubes they stand a single translucent chip made with deep-red beets.