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Jean-Louis Dumonet says he was born into the restaurant business - almost literally. His mother went into labor with him while she was working at his family's restaurant in Paris. "She did, however, make it to the hospital in time," Dumonet adds. After attending the hotel and restaurant management school at Ecole Hoteliere Jean Drouant in Paris, Dumonet cooked in several kitchens in France, including that of the then French Prime Minister Raymond Barre. In 1983 Dumonet was hired to work as a chef de partie by Louis Outhier at his acclaimed L'Oasis in La Napoule, France, where Dumonet would work with another top-rated chef, Jean-Georges Vongerichten. During his five years with Outhier, Dumonet was deputized, like Vongerichten, to head up such Outhier-run kitchens as The Normandy Grill in The Oriental in Bangkok, Thailand, and Ninety Park Avenue - which was awarded a Michelin star - in London.
In 1987 he parted ways with Outhier to open Restaurant Jean-Louis Dumonet in Chateauroux, with his wife. The pair ran it until 1991, when Dumonet decided to team up with pastry chef and former L'Oasis colleague, Jean-Marc Buillier, and Jean-Luc Andriot, to open Trois Jean in New York. While Trois Jean quickly established itself as one of the Upper East Side's more popular French restaurants, the death of Buillier and the decision by Andriot to move to Florida prompted the partners to sell it in 2000.
Immediately following the sale of Trois Jean, Dumonet was named executive chef at Palladin in New York, where he worked until it closed a year later.
In September 2001 Dumonet accepted the executive chef's job at the Carlyle restaurant. Charged with breathing new life into the classic space, he refashioned the menu featuring his interpretation of French...