Full Steam Ahead for 15-Year-Old Press Club Hanoi

04-16-2012

 

 

A new milestone and a new menu cater to city’s evolving palate

 

HANOI, Vietnam (16 April 2012) – Anywhere else, a 15-year anniversary hardly merits attention. But in Hanoi, the bridge between the Press Club’s debut in 1997 and its 15th year today is more like the distance between modernity and another age entirely.

 

“Bicycles,” said Kurt Walter, the Press Club’s general manager and group general manager of Apple Tree Hospitality. “In 1997, many of our guests arrived by bicycle. Today, we’re helping to park Bentleys.”

 

Perhaps no city has realized the advances Hanoi has over the past 15 years. And the Press Club, with its cultivated ambiance and its committment to culinary standards observed in Paris and Milan, helped drive that change.

 

Designed by French architect Brigette Dumont de Chassart to mirror the elegant, atmospheric journalist haunts of old Vietnam, the 86-seat Press Club Restaurant very quickly established itself as the address for western fine-dining and business get-togethers in Hanoi.

 

Classically trained chef and author of the Periplus book ‘The Food of Vietnam’, Marcel Isaak’s arrival at the Press Club in 2004 launched the restaurant onto a streak of international awards.

 

Showcasing the club’s signature Australian and American steaks, a refined selection of continental cuisine, and the occasional Asian delicacy, the debut of its refreshed a la carte menu is only one of a line-up of gastronomic highlights the Press Club has cooking for its 15th anniversary.

 

From this month until June, the Press Club is spotlighting an innovative Ciroc Vodka Menu – featuring entrees such as orange duckling breast with Ciroc mushroom tartlet and citrus sauce – for adventurous diners at the Press Club Bar.

 

A similar slideshow takes place at the Press Club Restaurant, with a rotation of culinary traditions featured each month of 2012. To wit, April is about French cuisine, May will star the mango, and June is Mexicano month.

 

After a decade and a half of busy tables, you may expect that the Press Club and Chef Isaak would stick to a formula of popular, pre-approved western fare. You would be so very wrong.

 

“You don’t get ahead by copying what works,” says Isaak. “At the Press Club we do stay in touch with what customers want, but we are always pushing for the surprise, for the dish that commands all of a diner’s attention and stays in his or her memory for days afterward.”

 

For an example, Isaak calls out the first item on the new menu, gravlax terrine with honey mustard sabayon. “As is, gravlax is an old, but good tasting dish from the Scandinavian part of the world,” he says. “So we take a dish like this, which is already a rarity in Hanoi, tweak it, serve it with fresh components -- in short, we upgrade it from good to excellent.”

 

Aside from a smattering of high profile diners like actor Jackie Chan and World Bank chairman Robert Zoellick, Isaak’s regular clientele are a well-rounded mix of diplomats, tourists, locals and ex-pat residents.Dear Sir or Madam,Dear Sir or Madam,

 

In fact, it’s the Press Club’s clientele that have most notably evolved over the years.  Many of the venue’s original staff are still around, and its design has required only one sprucing up, in 2007. However, the restaurant’s Vietnamese patronage grew from nearly non-existent upon opening to 50% of its current customer base.

 

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