Roland Passot

Roland Passot is a French chef and restaurateur. His best-known restaurant, La Folie, was open in San Francisco from 1988 to 2020. He is also the owner of the more casual Left Bank brasseries and LB Steak restaurants. Passot was named one of "the eight wonders of Bay Area dining" by San Francisco Chronicle lead critic Michael Bauer.

Early life and career Passot was born in 1955 in Villefranche-sur-Saône, in France's Rhône-Alpes. He is a classically trained French chef, having attended cooking school in Lyon while beginning as an assistant, at age fourteen, in the city's Léon de Lyon restaurant under Chef Paul Lacombe, and then Pierre Orsi Restaurant. After Passot rose to the rank of assistant sous-chef at Léon de Lyon, Jean Banchet (who Passot considers his most important influence) (He was fired from the French Room after getting into a shouting match with its maitre d'). In between, he opened Le Castel in San Francisco. His wife conceived the name, which means "craziness" or "folly" in French, referring to the difficulty of opening a new establishment in San Francisco's competitive restaurant scene. La Folie steadily gained in reputation until, by 2000, it was one of only several restaurants in the San Francisco Bay Area, California, to earn a "four star" review from the San Francisco Chronicle. Avoiding "fusion" influences, the establishment was a contemporary French restaurant, with classic French use of stocks and sauces, but lighter than traditional French and with attention to local ingredients.

Passot joined forces to open Left Bank The second Left Bank opened in Menlo Park, California in 1998,

Influence and awards

In style, Passot favors contemporary French cuisine, avoiding fusion, molecular gastronomy, and new devices or techniques such as sous vide. Trey Foshee of George's at the Cove in La Jolla, California, and Michael Kramer, formerly of McCrady's Restaurant in Charleston, South Carolina and (as of 2008) of Voice Restaurant in Houston, Texas

In 1991 Passot was inducted into the Maitres Cuisiniers de France. His restaurant won the Zagat Survey awards for "Best Food" and "Best Nouvelle French restaurant" in 1998, and "Best French restaurant" in San Francisco, in 2002. He also earned a James Beard Award as "best rising star chef" of 1980, In 2001 the French Government awarded him the "Chevalier dans l’Ordre du Mèrite Agricole".

Personal life Passot met his wife, Jamie, when she was working at the Four Seasons Resort in Irving, Texas. They have two kids, Charlotte and Jean Paul. Known for being gregarious and social, Passot is a frequent participant in cooking shows and demonstrations, charity events, and television appearances.