Friday, November 16, 2007

Mansion scent dinner on Wednesday Nov. 14 was feast for senses

ALFONSO CEVOLA

DALLAS — The circular driveway up to the Mansion on Turtle Creek was uncrowded. No snaking line of cars waiting for a valet. It was a serene evening in the twilight, not unlike one I’d had just days before on a mountain top in the Italian Riviera where wild herbs shimmered, waiting for their day to become an essence for some of the perfumes we were about to experience.

Inside, genial maitre'd, Brian Perry, greeted us as if we were his neighbor. Upstairs scent scholar Chandler Burr had prepared a dinner paired with aromas: A master class for the nose.

Burr might seem to be wound tight, it is a necessary measure. There is so much potential, so much promise in the man, that it must be doled out carefully, like a perfume essence. He has the gift of gab in at least four languages, English, Italian, French, and Japanese. And does he know how to sell. Burr is the perfume critic for the New York Times, which he admits is a first. But he also stated that if he hadn’t met Luca Turin, a man he calls a genius of smell, he wouldn’t be there that night.

On a Eurostar train from England to France, he sat next to Turin, a Frenchman of Italian origin, and they engaged in an intense conversation all the way to Paris. Along the way Burr had already decided he would write a book about Turin, and so the journey wasn’t over at the train station. That book, The Emperor of Scent, is a must-read for anyone who is fascinated with the subject of smell. Burr is so damn good at what he does; he has you reading scientific formulas like they were passages in a romance novel.

Before all the guests arrived, Roederer Champagne was being poured and light fluffy appetizers were floating off the trays. In the corner of the room, tables with all the scents we were going to guzzle were ready like beauties in line for the bathing-suit competition.

The courses, revolving around scents that were connected to the foods created were:

• First course – Salt. Diver scallops cooked in sea salt with black truffle
• Second course – Carrots and Ginger. Carrots three ways: risotto Vichy with young ginger, carrot ginger soup, with carrot foam
• Cocktail Course- Cedar infused martini (absolutely brilliant)
• Third Course – Saffron. Fisherman's stew scented with saffron
• Fourth Course – Pepper. A piece of beef roasted and perfumed with vine cutting embers, fragments of thyme, black pepper, and sea salt.
• Fifth Course – Pineapple, Mango and Coconut. Coconut tapioca pearls, mango coulis, pink peppercorn, and vanilla-roasted pineapple.
• Sixth course – Cotton Candy, Vanilla and Chocolate. Selected textures of chocolate with aromatic quality of vanilla and cotton candy ice cream.

The fascinating aspect to this dinner was how Burr assembled the aromas from their essences, and then showed the perfume that corresponded with the final product. My favorite course was the dessert, a brilliant arrangement of perfumes -- Missoni by Missoni and Black Orchid by Tom Ford; a very blue ice cream and cotton candy; select textures of chocolate with the aromatic quality of vanilla; and the perfect glass of wine, a red and bubbly Rosa Regale Brachetto.

While the dinner seemed a little long to some in attendance, this was a magical evening. Great food and wine with an engaged and charming speaker, mixing up distinct elements to make new arrangements. In the foodie world, this comes along once in a blue moon. And though I had just gotten off a plane from a time zone seven hours and thousands of years removed, this was captivating stuff. No way was I going to surrender to jet lag. Pass me a snifter and some Chanel #5. I’m staying up and watching the sunrise.

The evening was planned as a feast for the senses, with smell being the headliner. But make no mistake about it, the Mansion on Turtle Creek is a visual, audible and textual experience as well, reincarnated and divorced from what seems now a dated southwestern mode. A few miles away, at another property, folks who want to relive their heyday, along with the requisite cotton-candy hair and Goodyear boobs, are welcome to wait in the parking line and take their chances. The Mansion has moved on. A little New York, a touch of Paris, a sense of Milano, but Dallas to the bone. A Class Act.

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