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The Four Seasons’ “Rip Van Winkle” is Gone

  • Susan
  • June 18, 2009
High Tea at the Four Seasons Hotel, New York City
Image by Between a Rock via Flickr

The culinary world lost another giant last week.  Christian “Hitsch” Albin, the executive chef of the prestigious Four Seasons restaurant in New York City, passed away unexpectedly on Saturday, June 13 after a brief bout with cancer.  The 61-year old chef was described as a “culinary Rip Van Winkle”in an April 2000 New York magazine review for “reawakening what was once too-familiar fare with subtle but surprisingly adventurous new flavors and often marvelous pairings”

The Swiss-born Albin worked at the elite Four Seasons for 36 years, serving his flavorful fare to out-of-town tourists as well as international guests and luminaries from Jacqueline Onassis and Elton John to President Bill Clinton, Princess Diana and Martha Stewart ” a virtual “who’s who” of diners, who came to the restaurant either to see or be seen.  On any night, you could find celebrities and politicos such as Heidi Klum, Spike Lee, Jodie Foster, Henry Kissenger, Denzel Washington or Gwen Stefani feasting on succulent dishes from Albin’s innovative kitchen.

Despite the high profile clientele who frequented the Four Seasons, Albin seemed to get more pleasure from feeding tasty samples of his kitchen creations to hungry delivery people and building workers who came by the restaurant on their regular rounds.  Although he was larger than life and had an infectious laugh, Albin much preferred to stay in the background, and shunned personal publicity.  Yet, under Albin’s quiet, yet assertive leadership, the Four Seasons won a James Beard Award, regarded by those in the industry as a culinary Oscar.

“He was our hero: the man we always turned to when we knew we had to achieve the impossible,” said the restaurant’s managing partners, Julian Niccolini and Alex von Bidder, in a statement published in Forbes.com.

Just last month, on May 5, Albin helped partners Niccolini and von Bidder celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Four Seasons, which had become synonymous with the “Power Lunch over the years.  During the planning of the celebration, Albin spent most of his time in the kitchen, ensuring that the menu was “just right”  Earlier that day, he had been busy preparing a meal for the Dalai Lama, going effortlessly between  tasks.

Unlike many of today’s contemporary chefs who are temperamental, difficult to work with and demanding, Albin preferred to stay out of the spotlight and let all eyes focus on his food and the Four Seasons.  “Publicity was never his goal,”Niccolini and von Bidder said in their statement printed in the New York Times.  “He was always an old-school chef who preferred to be the rock ” rather than the rock star ” upon which the Four Seasons Restaurant relied”

Albin lived in Rockland, New York.  In addition to his wife Johanna, he is survived by a daughter Stephanie; a son Christopher; two granddaughters Nicole and Claudia, and six siblings in Europe.

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