The fine dining institution that has captivated Hanoi’s diners with its hearty steaks and old world charm was designed by French architect Brigette Dumond de Chassart, to be a timeless face in the capital’s ever-changing dining and social scene.

Open since 1997, the Press Club’s interiors mirror Indochine-era hotels in the prospering 1920s. Its timbered floors, elegant wood furnishings and warm lighting celebrate stability and nostalgia in a city obsessed with forward motion. The step-back-in-time effect is consistent throughout the club’s various spaces. On Friday nights, a mixed expat and local crowd congregate on the open terrace to mingle and move to live music; while the Press Club’s handsome bar and library is the scene of many informal get-togethers between the capital’s businessmen, entrepreneurs and decision-makers. The interiors, however, are only a stage setting for the main attraction – the fare. Much of the Press Club’s reputation rests on the expertise of its group executive chef, Marcel Isaak. The Swiss-born chef rolled up his sleeves in places as far flung as Caracas, Chicago and New Delhi before coming to Hanoi in 2004. Since his arrival, Isaak has elevated the Press Club’s menu to levels on par with his five-star background in the food and beverage industry. In contrast to its old-fashioned atmosphere, the Press Club boasts an up-to-the-minute menu, refreshed every three months with seasonal dishes that feed customers’ taste for the novel and exciting. Although branded as a continental restaurant, Isaak’s creations often fuse his long ex-perience with distinctive local ingredients. The results have been described by critics as “light but intensely flavored dishes that break the rules.” The Press Club has been ranked “Best International Restaurant” by the Vietnam Economic Times for six consecutive years; which just goes to show someone in this rapidly evolving country still has a soft spot for the old days.

After 30 Years Abroad, A 37-Year-Old Chef Comes

Home To Hue And His Culinary Roots

Chef La Thua An initiates rediscovery of city, self and Vietnam’s culinary capital HUE, Vietnam – Hue’s past may be in ruins, but its future is in restaurants.

Internationally-trained Chef Thua An has returned to his hometown on a mission to rediscover the purity of century-old Hue cuisine, so the fabled flavors can be savored again, this time by contemporary diners

at La Residence Hotel and Spa. Aside from his knives, the newest executive chef of La Residence brings with him more than seven years of specialization as an executive in the hotel food and beverage industry. His first order of the day at Le Parfum is to refresh the Vietnamese side of the menu in favor of Hue’s distinctive dishes--famed for their refined presentation, skillful preparation and subtle harmonies. After more than 30 years away, the 37-year-old chef says accepting the appointment in Hue was one of the most exciting moves of his career. “I’ve cooked Vietnamese food all my life, but a cuisine is always mixed with influences of the place,” he said. “If you want to make a dish that’s

true to tradition, you have to live with the people, eat with them and see how they do it. That’s why I came back to Hue, to know its identity, which is also my own.” Born in Hue to parents who immersed him in the finer points of Chinese and Vietnamese cooking, Chef Thua An studied the culinary arts and launched his career on the island of New Caledonia, where he expanded his expertise to the spheres of French and Mediterranean cuisine. After successfully directing the kitchens at the five-star Hotel Le Meridien in New Caledonia, and the five-star Bora Bora Nui Resort in French Polynesia, Chef Thua An, now a French national, returned to Vietnam in late 2007. He completed a three-year stint as executive chef of Princess d’Annam Resort and Spa before arriving to take command of Le Parfum at La Residence. Once he’s pared the Vietnamese portion of the menu down to its roots, Chef Thua An plans to draw up a Hue-inspired fusion corner, where he will combine local ingredients and techniques with those from his store of expertise in French, Italian and Japanese traditions. But Chef Thua An’s first priority, he says, is to refine his primordial starters, bun bo and banh canh, Hue-style. “It’s a necessary part of the menu,” he says. “I think if you come to Hue, and you don’t eat bun bo, you lose something.” The other Hue dishes Chef Thua An features will depend largely on what he finds on his forays into the city’s intricate culinary landscape. “I want guests to have a truly authentic menu,” he says. “If guests say they have tasted a more genuine version of the dish outside Le Parfum, I will be angry.” General Manager of La Residence, Anthony Gill, says reconnecting with an authentic, unaffected dish as it was enjoyed decades ago, could only be accomplished by someone like Chef Thua An. “As a Hue native and first-rate chef, he’s personally invested in tracking the city’s time-honored oral traditions to the obscure neighborhoods and nameless restaurants where they still survive, in order to bring them back to the table at Le Parfum,” he said. For his part, Chef Thua An is all set to explore the culinary identity of his hometown. “I’m eager to go around the city and discover the origins of Hue cuisine; I believe it has the potential to be enjoyed by everyone.”

Chef La Thua An Esther de la Cruz

Nostalgia on the Menu at the Hanoi Press Club HANOI, Vietnam For a restaurant that takes pride in leading the pack, Hanoi’s Press Club looks a bit behind the times. About 70 years behind the times, in fact. But looks, as they say, can be deceiving, especially when you look as good as the Press Club.

Chef Marcel Isaak

by Esther de la Cruz | Balcony Media Group

Jim Sullivan & Kurt Walter at The Press Club

The Press Club

Photos courtesy of Mr Kurt Walter, Group General Manager of Apple Tree Group Hospitality; and Mr. Jim Sullivan of Balcony Media Group