Haute to Go: Michel Guérard Comes to Bloomingdale’s

          It's getting to be a major challenge to walk your epicurean appetite between Lexington and Third on 59th Street without dissolving into carnal cravings. The mined beaches of Normandy were child's play compared with this detonation of goodies -- the glazed salmon, the upwardly mobile langouste, the jeweled ballottines, the familiar tins of aristocratic sturgeon eggs. From the folks that brought us China, Ireland, and their logo on our cotton panties comes…Michel Guérard's Comptoir Gourmand.

          There it is, a stunning, lacquered echo of Guérard's handsome carryout boutique on Paris's Place de la Madeleine. There it is, 400 square feet of edible notions from the brilliant three-star chef who almost made "cuisine minceur" a pop phenomenon. Flanked by the finny, smoked, and briny delicates of Petrossian of Paris (now in its own reproduction teal-blue shop), in a lineup with French chocolates, sublime Bundt cakes, and a run of tempting breads, Guérard at Bloomingdale's to go: carryout cooked in its rooftop kitchen. "Cuisine gourmande"; minceur (diet) dishes, by the meal or (soon) on a one-week slimming plan; rustic peasant stews from the "cuisine bourgeoise"; lunch boxes for the office; catering (after Christmas); the master's autographed cookbooks; frozen entrées, sauces, and desserts; and, by the jar, veal stock, fish fumet, and demiglace. All in his very own slick shopping bag.

          The Comptoir Gourmand is an extravagant gamble. Almost $500,000 and a year of push went into opening it and the Petrossian shop. Last winter, executive vice-president Lester Gribetz was dispatched to Eugénie-les-Bains, the spa town where Michel and his wife, Christine, run a wondrously stylish retreat dedicated to three-star gluttony on one side of the menu and to "minceur trimming" on the other. In a single day Gribetz managed to taste 24 diet dishes and every desert on the menu. In consultation with his own liver he concluded that Guérard was Bloomingdale's material.

          "We didn't want to buy a name only," says Gribetz. "We wanted a suitable stand-in for Guérard on the premises." Michel's longtime protégé and second at Les Présd'Eugénie, Didier Odile, was the obvious choice. Didier was delighted. He'd spent a fortune in five years of a transatlantic love affair with an American dancer. But last spring, love foundered. Inconsolable, Didier renounced New York, forever. Negotiations stalled. Guérard recruited a replacement: young Patrick Grangien, sous-chef at the three-star Chantecler in Nice. The kitchen design was approved.

          That kitchen had to be on the roof "because I wanted these French country boys to have a window; they need to see the sky," says Alan Reyburn, who, as director of Bloomingdale's feeding, oversees the Comptoir (he's had major assistance from Delicacies Department executives Pam Krausman and Ray Berger). Ever so gently, pressure was put on Didier. Bloomingdale's insisted that he agree to stay "until a competent replacement is trained an established." Guérard pleaded: "It's my name at stake."

          So Didier arrived, sulky and dispirited, late in September, but dutifully ready to work, find suppliers, taste the offerings of our town's carryout competition. As a surrogate father, Reyburn found him an apartment, took him to movies and dinner parties, and "rounded up every single woman I know, preferable French-speaking, who might be interested in a dalliance." Just a few days ago, Didier began to smile. A romance is budding. Reyburn is so cheered he can scarcely conceal his joy.

          So it is ready, the kitchen with a skyline view. Just beyond the "co-worker's cafeteria" and the machines vending Fritos and Hostess Twinkies. From the giant stockpots wafts the perfume of simmering fond of veal. There is a roomy not-quite-so-cold box where the staff can work, "without danger of pneumonia," on the fancy jellied garnishes and sweet fruited creams.

          Day Eight in the countdown. The first official tasting. The staff is double strength now. Claude Neveu, Guérard's chum from the charcuterie Au Sanglier, in the old neighborhood outside Paris, is here, coaching, steeping fresh hams in brine, marinating meats in port and cognac for the terrines and ballotines. Michel Troisgros (son of Pierre), of the Roanne three-star clan, will do a two-month hitch. Grangien is buttoning down the system. And Didier seems to be please with his trio from the Culinary Institute of America.

          All the minceur dishes conform to the gospel -- Guérard's own published recipes -- "so no one will accuse us of cheating," says Didier. By far the best-tasting samples are a splendid saffron-perfumed mussel salad with strings of vegetables, and a dizzying Paris-Brest ($2.50) -- a bagel-shaped puff split and filled with a ruffle of magnificent espresso cream. There is a certain denial in the crayfish soup, and the braised veal is rather tasteless in a too sweet sauce. (A meal of mussel salad or crayfish soup, braised veal, and dessert is $14.50)

          But it's Guérard's no excess-over-looked repertoire (his "cuisine gourmande") that brings admirers to their knees. The dazzlers at this tasting: his trademark boiled dinner ($12 a portion) -- the legendary pot-au-feu of beef, oxtail, pork, and duck, with basil-scented tomato purée on the side and buttery croutons spread with shallots cooked in a red wine. And pithiviers of pigeon ($9 a portion) -- a giant pastry torte wrapped around layers of pigeon and duck farce. And goujonnettes of sole ($10 a portion) -- delicately crumbled ribbons of fish quickly tossed in a suate pan and served with a red-wine-vinegar sauce. (This dish could be perilous to carry out.) And truffle-studded double-cream cheese. And stunning tarte aux pommes Kleber Alix ($3.50 a slice) with a puddle of applesauce, possibly the most thrilling thing to happen to an apple in New York *except perhaps for the warm apple charlotte at Lutèce).

          Lyonnaise sausage is centered in a sublime brioche ($2.50), and M. Neveu's house-cured York ham ($9.50 a half-pound), simmered in pork broth, is masterly carved and delicious. Whole poached salmon, artfully glazed in aspic with fussy carved vegetables ($12 a portion), suffers from too zealous poaching: "The city was here with thermometers, insisting we cook everything over and over," says Didier.

          There will be eleven Guérard vinegars, including a special reserve at $12.50 for 35 ounces. A rainbow of fancy mustards. Spices in glass jars. Preserved odds and ends. Pêches de vigneron (from trees grown between grapevines). Delicious wild cherries in vinegar. Steamed onions in grenadine (an acquired taste I've yet to acquire).

          Indulgently, Bloomingdale's will stock a few frozen fish entrées Guérard is fiercely proud of. At $8.75 to $16.25, they're hardly worth the tariff, though I wouldn't sneer at his frozen sauces ($3.50 and $4). As Didier observed, the beurre blanc ($5) is "not bad at all."

          Everyone knows Bloomingdale's is launching a high-risk venture, promising three-star excitement against the kind of odds that humbled Gaston LeNôtre himself a few years ago less than on block away. But Bloomingdale's chief Marvin Traub thrives on the high wire. And if the shopping bags arrive…if the customers don't rip off the silver trays…if the Health Department doesn't come around squeezing the salmon…and if Didier keeps smiling…who knows?