Back To Basics

La Marmotte chef and owner Mark Reggiannini bring a taste of Telluride to Billings, Mont. next week when shows her skills to a small group of about 30 attendees of a cooking demonstration at the home of Montana State University Wine and Food Festival.

Reggiannini show attendees how to make fondues, oysters, smoked trout, beet salad, and juniper crusted elk loin with mushrooms and warm molten chocolate cake with blueberry ice cream. The party event - like dinner will also feature wine pairing. 

Attendees will also receive the ingredients and instructions on how to make each dish for amateur cooks can recreate at home. His menu reflects the cuisine in his restaurant La Marmotte Telluride, something he calls the French Alps.

"I tried to do things that are pretty basic," said Reggiannini . “Porcinis are something that can be found in the mountains in the summer. Elk and game are something that people associate with come and eat here. "

Reggiannini said tickets for the May 14 event sold out in an hour. He is flying on May 12 with one of his cooks and hopes the festival will help theirs and La Marmotte name in the world of foodies.

Reggiannini Mairen Reagan and his wife have owned La Marmotte for the past 11 years, taking over from a French couple who previously owned it. The restaurant has been in Telluride for 27 years, still retains a traditional French flavor, but with a modern twist. Reggiannini short heavy creams and dairy products often make French food feels too heavy, but keep cooking techniques.

The restaurant is known for its prix fixe menu, where $ 50 will get you three courses including dessert. The menu changes almost every night, depending on what is fresh and seasonal.

"We continue to adapt and change things forever," said Reggiannini. “I think the food is a bit like the fashion in which changes a lot and you just have to keep up with what's going on.”

But Reggiannini, who studied at the Culinary Institute of America and has worked at Jean Georges Vongrichen Mercer Kitchen, is really a traditionalist at heart. You like preparing meals simple and straightforward: braised beef short ribs, coq a VIN, lamb crusted with parmesan, grilled mahi mahi. 

And as he has gotten older, said he has negotiated Reggiannini nights out to fancy restaurants for the simple goodness of street food. On a recent trip to Belize, said the best meal I had was not at the resort, but the jerk chicken from a roadside stand.

It also rejects fashioned method " sous- vide " employed by many high volume fine dining restaurants where food is sealed in airtight plastic bags and cooked for a long time at low temperatures, then a couple of seconds is given on the grill before they are served to customers. Neither is a fan of food science and molecular gastronomy, which investigates chemical transformations of ingredients and their effects on finished products.

"It's like chemistry," said Reggiannini. "Many of the things in the world of pastry made their way to the more traditional kitchen ... We are here.”