By Jane Black
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, December 5, 2007

Michel Richard wants to make one thing clear. Yes, he's opening two, possibly three, new restaurants outside Washington in 2008. But the chef will continue to spend most of his time at his Georgetown flagship, Citronelle. "Of course I should go, because they like to see my beautiful face and my presence," Richard teases with his lilting French accent. "My organization will be present every week. But I'll go maybe once every two months."

It's natural for Washingtonians to be a little nervous. While many of his peers have succumbed to the temptation to open restaurants around the globe -- Jean-Georges Vongerichten has 17 outposts from New York to Shanghai; Nobu Matsuhisa has 19, including spots in Mykonos and Melbourne -- Richard in recent years has been content to stay close to home. After opening and closing a series of far-flung restaurants between 1987 and 2004, he had, until last year, only Citronelle. And when last January he did open a more casual bistro, Central, it was just over two miles away, on Pennsylvania Avenue.

Now suddenly Richard, 59, is on the move. Next month he plans to open two restaurants in California: the 80-seat Citronelle by Michel Richard, at the Carmel Valley Ranch resort, and Citrus at Social, a 2,800-square-foot venue in Los Angeles. The Carmel outpost will offer some trademark Richard cuisine, such as his popular portobello-truffle cappuccino, but will skew toward salads and lighter dishes to please the California crowd. Citrus is a partnership with Jeffrey Chodorow, the wheeler-dealer responsible for such theatrical spaces as New York's China Grill and Asia de Cuba. And though nothing has been formally announced, Richard also is in talks to open a Central-style bistro in Las Vegas.

Richard likes to say that he's simply been waiting for the right offer: "It's like a pretty girl. The boyfriend is not allowed in your bedroom, but one day you have to open the door!" But his hesitation to roll out new restaurants is, at least in part, because he's been there, done that. He opened Citrus, his first fine-dining restaurant in Los Angeles, in 1987 to rave reviews and quickly expanded. The first Citronelle debuted in Santa Barbara in 1992; it was followed by restaurants in Baltimore, Philadelphia, Santa Monica, the San Fernando Valley, San Francisco, Tokyo and Washington.

The life of a "flying chef" didn't suit him, though. "When you are on a plane, you want to be with your wife and kids. When you are with your wife and kids, you want to be at one of the restaurants. When you're in that restaurant, you feel you should be in another. You always feel guilty," he says. "It was tough, sad. I was alone all the time."

One by one, the restaurants closed, in most cases because the hotels with which he had partnered changed hands. (Citrus and the Santa Barbara Citronelle lasted longest, closing in 2002 and 2004, respectively.) And Richard, gratefully, began to focus exclusively on his Georgetown restaurant. Former Citronelle executive sous-chef Cedric Maupillier runs the kitchen at Central.

What's at stake is Richard's reputation, well burnished by the James Beard Foundation's outstanding chef award this year and, in 2002, awards for chef of the year and best fine-dining restaurant from the Restaurant Association Metropolitan Washington. Diners, especially those in a power-obsessed town like Washington, appreciate a chef who is spotted in the kitchen most evenings -- and who spots them as he works the dining room at the end of the night.

By waiting to jump on the celebrity restaurant trend, Richard has succeeded in cutting deals that don't require him to spend his life on airplanes, making appearances at one restaurant after another. Today, he is able to take advantage of diners' growing acceptance that the master chef isn't always in the kitchen, and to put into practice something that chefs have known for years: "You have to be able to leave your restaurant and have it be just as good as it is when you're there," says Michael Ruhlman, author of several books, including "The Reach of a Chef: Professional Cooks in the Age of Celebrity." "It all comes down to being smart about it. Chefs like Michel Richard are hugely respected in the chef community. He has a lot to offer but also a lot to lose."

So why now? Richard, ever the charming Frenchman, answers: "Why not?" His wife, Laurence, loved Carmel. He was flattered that Chodorow, who works with Alain Ducasse in Las Vegas, had called him. "And you know what?" he says. "It makes me feel younger, too. When you reach a certain age, you feel like it's over. And, oh, it's not over."

There are good business reasons for expansion. For one, there's the money. Though he declined to make figures available, Richard says he will receive a salary, a signing bonus and a portion of the revenue -- somewhere between 10 and 15 percent -- at both new restaurants. And with Central, Richard finally has a concept that could replicate well: beautifully prepared but accessible food. (Lobster burgers for everybody? "Why not?") It's very different from Citronelle, where even Richard admits that the complexity and finesse of the dishes -- his four-part egg symphony, for example -- don't always translate.

Building a restaurant empire is an increasingly important way to retain talent. Top chefs invest an enormous amount of time and money in young staff members. But when there is just one restaurant, an ambitious sous-chef has nowhere to go but another company when he's ready to run his own kitchen. "It's a trick for me to keep them in my company," Richard says. "The best way for them to stay is to make them part of a company that they can be a real partner in."

Moreover, Richard believes that his 32 years in America, especially those spent on the road, have taught him how to "work smarter." Rather than travel, he's hiring a chef, not yet named, to be his eyes and ears at the new restaurants. The new chef will train the cooks at the Carmel and Los Angeles venues and will be a regular presence on the West Coast. Citronelle's executive chef, David Deshaies, also will spend some time on the road to ensure smooth openings. "I don't run as fast," Richard says. "But I can use my brain and ask chefs to use what I know. I want to use their bodies. They run faster than I do."

Richard says he insisted on solid contracts with his new partners that allow him to guarantee good salaries for chefs, sommeliers and maitre d's; the pay for those jobs, he says, often gets slashed to help a restaurant turn a profit. "The sommelier helps pay the bills, and a maitre d' welcomes people when they come in the door," he says. "It's important to have the people to make it work, and that's written into the contract."

He's also determined to stay small: "I'm not going to have a chain. Maybe I'll have five, six, seven maximum, and that's it."

Then again, he adds dreamily: "We could duplicate it all over the country. And if we can, why not?"