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It's official, French cuisine is back with a whole new take on the classics by some of the country's most celebrated chefs.  What's happening today in the kitchens and dining rooms of French restaurants in America represents the latest logical development in our ongoing French-connection evolution that continues to be steered as much by world events and economic conditions as by passing fashions in taste and diet.  In America, where food trends go in and out of style like the length of skirts, French cuisine has lasted well past the norm.  In fact the range of Gallic eateries is now growing at a record pace as French food is being reinterpreted by both French-trained American chefs and French-born chefs. Choices used to be limited if you wanted to dine in an elegant yet unpretentious French restaurant in the United States.  Not anymore.  "You have the bistro, the brasserie, and haute cuisine and there is room for all," says celebrated Manhattan-based chef Daniel Boulud who presides over the upscale Daniel, the more casual Café Boulud and his new "modern bistro", DB.

The new style of French restaurant that is emerging in this country is unmistakable in manner, whether it's Daniel or Le Bernadin in New York, Pascal's in Coral Gables, or Fleur de Lys in San Francisco.  As distinctive as they are from each other, restaurants like these share a commitment to quality, freshness and simplicity, in ingredients as well as in preparations.  What distinguishes them above all, however, is a lively sense of the variety and abundance of regional French cooking. For all the talk about new styles of French cooking solid evidence indicates that at its heart, French cooking is still grounded in tradition. According to Pascal Oudin, chef/owner of Pascal's on Ponce in Coral Gables, Florida, one of the reasons behind the renaissance of French cuisine is the public's quest for classic "real food." "After a decade or so of American fusion-cuisine people want unpretentious dishes like trout amandine, lobster bisque, and chateaubriand served to them in a casual, yet elegant manner," explains Chef Oudin. Pascal's menu includes a simple, perfectly roasted rack of lamb that five years ago would not have been considered exciting or creative enough.  "Today's cuisine has to be contemporary, not as heavy as it was in the 60's. Great emphasis is placed on beautiful, creative presentations employing varying food textures and colors," he remarks. At Fleur de Lys, chef de cusine and owner Hubert Keller takes a standard French lentil salad and gives it a new twist by eschewing the usual chervil for minced fresh cilantro, uses a bit of soy sauce for a hint of salt and fresh fava beans for contrast and fennel instead of onion.

Diners are not going to go without garlicky frog's legs, hearty confit or homey pot-au-feu, but French cooking gradually has been moving into the multicultural mainstream, picking up new ingredients right and left from the Asian, Italian and American market basket. They have abandoned some, but not all, of the butter and cream in favor of vegetable purees, infused oils, broths and juices. As horizons have broadened beyond French borders, pasta, vibrant spices, and even mozzarella are finding a spot on many menus. Eric Ripert, Executive chef of Le Bernadin in New York City, is a native of Andorra, the tiny country between France and Spain. He learned his craft at La Tour dArgent and Robuchon in Paris. "I am a French chef, but I am also a New Yorker and I am greatly influenced by the different cultures that surround me-South American, Chinese, Italian, and American.  Rather than bending ingredients to fit one of the world's most rigidly codified cuisines, the modern French-American restaurant creates or adapts dishes in order to utilize an ever-growing availability of high-quality produce," he explains. After a six-year apprenticeship at Michelin three-star Auberge de I'll in Alsace, Hubert Keller went on to work with Roger Verge opening restaurants in Sao Paulo, Brazil before coming to San Franciso. "I was seeing things and tasting things you never find in France," he says. He incorporates the flavors he encountered on his travels such as passion fruit, mango, and lemongrass into his French-based dishes. He has also blended the ideas of Rick Richardson, his American executive chef, who has worked for Keller for over twenty years. So, it's no surprise to find all-American crab cakes on the Fleur de Lys menu. "I love to take all these crazy American ideas and show how to make them with finesse," he remarks. One the greatest principles of Escoffier:  Faites simple (keep it simple) still holds true today. The greatest concoctions are often the simplest, in which none of the few ingredients overpower the others but combine into one dish sublimely elegant in its simplicity. Service, too, has been simplified with a relaxed yet professional approach that suits us better than the old, formal French-style service.

For many of us, the story of French food in America began in 1961 B.E. (before Emeril) when Julia Child came along with her PBS television show and her classic cookbook, Mastering the Art of French Cooking. As we moved into the seventies, America experienced a great awakening of taste with the clean, fresh flavors of Nouvelle Cuisine, so dubbed by the highly respected Gault-Millau cuisine journal.  Gourmets, critics, and American chefs alike were becoming aware of a new attitude concerning food preparation in France, most elegantly demonstrated by such innovators as Michelin starred chefs Paul Bocuse, Jean and Pierre Troisgros, Michel Guerard, and Roger Verge. By shrugging off the rigid structure of la grande cuisine, Nouvelle Cuisine paved the way for the high level of creativity that defines modern French cuisine. As high-quality ingredients became more available in America, young American chefs began to experiment-drawing upon traditional French techniques and concepts but feeling freer to decide what to incorporate into their own individual style.  Chef Eric Ripert says, "Before Nouvelle Cuisine if I wanted to make a Hollandaise sauce with coriander, the chef would lose his mind. Today we have this freedom." More than ever, modern French cuisine has become light, creative and sophisticated, with roots in both classical and robustly regional French cooking. "While 10 years ago most fish sauces were based on cream or butter, today they're lighter, built on wine, olive oil or a vinaigrette," Ripert says. "But we still offer some with cream. You need a variety so everyone is happy."

In the United States, there is a proliferation of schools specializing in the training of men and women in all areas of the culinary arts.  It used to be that if you wanted to become a chef, you were expected to go to cooking school in France where you learned classic technique.  But over the last decade, the culinary world has shifted to America. Famed chef Paul Bocuse thinks enough of American culinary talent to send his son Jerome to the Culinary Institute of American in Hyde Park, N.Y. "We are seeing what is going on now in the United States and now we have to be better in France," Bocuse states. Chefs might credit Bocuse more than any other culinary great as the man who made it possible for chefs to emerge from the kitchen and become stars. Along with Michelin chef Roger Verge and patissier Gaston Lenotre, he is a consultant to the Pavilion des Chefs de France in Disney World's Epcot Center in Orlando.  Chef Daniel Boulud says, "Before coming to America twenty years ago, I had always assumed that the finest cooking, using the best ingredients, could be done only in France, where the tremendous variety of excellent ingredients-the meats and fowls, vegetables and herbs, fruits and cheeses, fish and crustaceans-had no other equal in the world. However, I am now convinced that the quality and variety of the American bounty is similar to that found in European markets and more diverse. In the last decade an abundance of superior foods such as high-quality fresh herbs, fruit, vegetables, and free-range poultry have become more generally available throughout the U.S. We're in touch with small farms from all over, as well as fishermen who'll FedEx in some of their day's catch." American chefs are no longer intimidated by European haute cuisine and are now among some of the most innovative and exciting talents in the field. French-born Chef Daniel Boulud, has responded to American influences with a culinary style that balances the best of both worlds. Born on a farm near Lyons, France and trained in classic French discipline and technique with Michelin chefs Georges Blanc, Roger Verge, and Michel Guerard, he is now teacher to two American-born chefs, Chinese-American Alex Lee, executive chef at Daniel and Italian-American Andrew Carmellini, executive chef at Café Boulud. "These two young Americans are greatly inspired by their culinary heritage and combine that with respect for French tradition and classic technique in dishes prepared in harmony with the bounty of the seasons. There has to be respect for quality; there is no compromise. That is what I teach everyone who comes into the kitchen," he remarks.

France's Alain Ducasse, the only six-Michelin star chef in the world-three in Paris, three in Monaco--recently brought his version of haute cuisine to New York, the city that calls itself the world's dining capital. But don't count on a table at the legendary chef's eponymous restaurant, tucked away in the Essex House hotel. Instantly, there was a six month waiting list with almost 3,000 names on it. New York's great French restaurant tradition began in the 19th century with Delmonico's and is descended through the 1940's Le Pavillon. The 90's saw an influx of French chefs to New York to open outposts of their French restaurants. In addition to the chefs who are working both sides of the Atlantic, there are chefs who have abandoned their highly rated restaurants or positions to open shop here. Like many of his peers who came of age in the Bocuse revolution, Pascal Oudin got the itch to come to America seeking fame and riches at the end of a plane ride to the United States. Oudin, who began his culinary apprenticeship at the age of 13 in Moulin, France, training in classic French discipline and technique, came to the States when he was 21 for a job in Williamsburg, Virginia. "Under the French system I would have to work as a sous chef until I was 35 years old. After only one year here, I became an executive chef, " he remarks. That open-mindedness, along with the differences between European and American ingredients, has inspired most of these newly arrived chefs to re-create their recipes. When Hubert Keller came to California in 1982 he could sense the scene would explode, "farmers came knocking at my door with produce and soon I would see that same exotic product in the supermarket." Keller says, "I definitely left my heart in San Franciso."

For generations, bistros have been the culinary soul of France, no-frills neighborhood spots where regulars drop in for local gossip and a reassuringly familiar meal. Even as Americans embrace French haute cuisine, the appeal of the classic bistro, for a taste of France's past, is undiminished. There is a boom in bistros that serve traditional cuisine and a new generation of French restaurateurs are nailing the word bistro over their doors. Hubert Keller explains, "The whole French idea is "in" again-cafes, bistros, brasseries. The climate is right for bistro food. There's a new young clientele who have traveled to France and experienced the uncomplicated, non-intimidating flavorful foods of the French bistro. They have responded well to authentically executed bistros here. They know right away when it's not authentic-you can't do things half-way." Keller is making plans to open an as yet unnamed bistro in San Franciso. Bistro menu-makers today are taking old standbys and transforming them into stand outs.  Back to basics is the call to arms with pot-au-feu, cassoulet, and simple roasted chicken. Passion, it seems, drives all of these chefs, and it seems clear that the style of French cuisine continues to evolve as we head into the new century.

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