Story By Diana Vallette • Photos By Wildwoods Creative
Twenty-six dog years.” It’s the answer I got when I asked both owner Arthur Durham and executive chef Mohamed Chettouh how long the pair have been working together at La Truffe Sauvage.
The guys met in the kitchen of the Ritz Carlton in Houston. “When we first opened La Truffe, our menu probably had a heavier Middle Eastern influence than it does now,” says Durham.
I learn early on in the interview that trying to get 70-year-old Chettouh to sit still long enough to answer questions is going to prove tricky. Chettouh, who’s originally from Algeria, dropped out of school and began working in the kitchen of a ship when he was only 14 years old. “I grew up in a very poor family,” he says, while crisping a piece of red snapper. Chettouh was one of five boys in his family. “We never had enough food and school wasn’t feeding me, so I dropped out. My mom was a very good cook. She had only one knife and she could do everything with it,” he says.
Although Chettouh has never had any formal culinary training, he was fortunate to work with, and under, many talented chefs. “One of the places where I worked, they’d bring in a different chef every year. I learned many different things from those chefs.”
Chettouh worked for a time in France before moving to the United States in 1989. Even though he works in Lake Charles three days per week, he still lives in Houston where his wife is a first-chair violinist. “Her job is bigger than mine,” he says. The pair have been married since 2005 and have one 11-year-old son.
Andrew, Chettouh’s sous chef, has also been at the restaurant for a “doggedly” long time. Chettouh says he’s very clean and organized, though not incredibly creative. “He may not be creative, but when I show him how to do something, he does it the same way every single time without taking shortcuts,” he says.
It’s important to Chettouh that those working in the kitchen take food as seriously as he does. No short cuts.
“Mohamed is … Mohamed,” says Durham, laughing. “He has a very traditional approach to food. There’s a right way and a wrong way. He has big ideas about what food is and what it should be. It’s a big deal to him.”
Durham goes on to draw correlations between Chettouh and Tony Shalhoub’s character in the 1996 movie Big Night. “Above all, he’s dedicated. We’re lucky it worked out,” Durham says.
Chettouh firmly believes if you “receive something good, you can make something good. At La Truffe Sauvage we have quality people and quality food. Quality and quantity … those are two different things.” La Truffe serves only local, wild caught seafood.
Chettouh is the kind of man who lets his food do most of the talking. He didn’t sit with me to chat during our interview, but he did feed me several dishes on the famous La Truffe china. In addition to the seven-layer dessert, Chettouh served up crispy red snapper with Gulf shrimp, saffron steamed potatoes and a side of fresh avocado and creme brulee.
“I’m stubborn,” he says. “In the kitchen, I want it my way.” Chettouh says he’ll stop cooking when he “drops.” He’s an active man who practices yoga often when he’s not bringing his son back and forth to piano and violin lessons. “I don’t want him to cook,” he says.
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