Just ‘listen to the harmony’

THE parade of amuses-bouche is about to start. “Any food allergies or anything you don’t eat?� asks our server.

Noes all around the table, except from one diner.

“Me?� says Sergio Mendes, the legendary Brazilian pianist who brought bossa nova and the song “Mas Que Nada� into the forefront of American pop culture 40 years ago with his group Brasil ‘66, “Andouillettes!�

In this town, only a serious gastronome would come up with such an answer. Where in L.A. do you even see andouillettes -- French sausages made from intestines and tripe? The moment the word escapes him, Mendes sees the craziness of it; peals of laughter follow.

I’m out for dinner with Mendes and his wife, singer Gracinha Leporace, at Spago, one of their favorite restaurants. To say they dine here frequently would be an understatement. During a recent busy week when they appeared with the Black Eyed Peas on “The Tonight Show With Jay Leno� to promote Mendes’ latest CD, “Timeless,� they dined at Spago “just about every night,� says Leporace.

For Mendes -- who has an 8,000-bottle wine cellar, entertains with gourmand extravagance at home in Woodland Hills and plans his world music tours according to where he most feels like dining -- let’s just say that food and wine are almost as important as music.

“It’s all about harmony,� he says. “That’s my passion -- wine. When I play music, I think about what I want to play. Food and wine. I tell my kids, listen to the music. Listen to the harmony.�

In fact, his love for wine made it into one of the tracks on “Timeless� -- “Yes, yes, y’all,� featuring the artists Black Thought of the Roots, Chali 2na of Jurassic 5 and Debi Nova and Will.I.Am of the Black Eyed Peas. At one point, a rap over the Brazilian beat says, “They probably already know we’re here with Sergio/So let’s get a few classy girls, yo/And sip a little wine, anything but Merlot ... “

Mendes traces his passion for gastronomy to his childhood home in Niteroi, a small town near Rio de Janeiro. “It starts with my mother,� he says. “My mother was a great cook.� He fell in love with French food in Los Angeles, curiously enough, when he and Leporace moved here in 1964, and he broadened his culinary horizons further as he began to travel, seeking out great food throughout France and Italy.

“Fredy Girardet was the most important chef for me,� he says, referring to the owner of the erstwhile Michelin three-star, cutting-edge Girardet in Switzerland. “He would be like Charlie Parker. He loved bebop.�

Mendes says his and Leporace’s 20-year-old son, Gustavo, “was conceived in Room 26 at Les Crayeres.� That would be Gerard Boyer’s Michelin three-star restaurant and inn in the Champagne region; a friendship ensued between Mendes and Boyer. Other friends include Ferran Adria, chef at El Bulli near Barcelona, Spain; Alain Dutournier, chef at Carre des Feuillants in Paris; and Michel Guerard, chef at Les Pres d’Eugenie at Eugenies les Bains. The couple met Guerard in 1977, the first time they visited Bordeaux, when Guerard invited them to a party he was throwing to celebrate receiving his third Michelin star.

“I was playing piano, and she was singing,� Mendes says, referring to his wife, who has been singing in his bands for some 40 years.

So what’s behind his friendship with chefs?

“I’m interested in what they do behind the stove,� he says. “You know, they call that ‘le piano.’ �

Ah, the Burgundy years

AS we sip Champagne -- 1999 Moet & Chandon -- our exuberant server presents sesame-miso cones filled with spicy tuna tartare; Mendes takes one from the clever cone-holder. “I like the hedonistic aspect of drinking wine,� he says. “I don’t like a tasting where they give you a piece of paper.�

The amuses continue: lemon-scented blini with house-smoked salmon and dill cream; hamachi ceviche; foie gras mousse on a kumquat tartlet; a morsel of confit bacon en croute; more foie gras, this time given a pastrami treatment; and a spot of cucumber sorbet with fresh wasabi and oolong-umeboshe tea. Mendes looks to be relishing every one, but he’s not one to wax rhapsodic over flavor nuances; he’s more focused on the social aspect of the evening. He continues his tale about falling in love with French food and wine.

“There was a wonderful bistro on Vine Street,� he says. “Au Petit Cafe. The restaurant was an industry hangout.� The owner Kit Marshall introduced him and Leporace to French dishes such as cassoulet, coq au vin, steak au poivre, escargots and frogs’ legs.

“I wish there could be a place like that in L.A. now,� says Mendes. “Sometimes we used to go for lunch and stay for dinner.�

“We’d be there till 3 in the morning!� adds Leporace.

“Those were the Burgundy years,� says Mendes. “It’s 1968 in L.A.; now we’re having cassoulet, and we’re drinking ’61 Romanee-Conti La Tache. It wasn’t that expensive then.�

“And Echezeaux ... “ says Leporace.

“Every night. La Tache. Richebourg. And today I look back and say I wish I had a case!�

But tonight Mendes has brought with him three white Rhones, some of his favorite wines. Sommelier Kevin O’Connor pours the first one, a 2003 Chateau de Beaucastel Vielles Vignes, made from 100% Roussanne grapes.

Mendes swirls the wine in his glass and takes in the aromas. “It’s 100-year-old vines,� he says, then tastes.

“That’s right, 70- to 100-year-old vines,� O’Connor says.

“I like the Roussanne,� says Mendes. “I like the Marsanne as well. Later we’ll drink the Chapoutier. I think they’re sexy wines. They’re sensual. You want to know my favorite wines?�

Of course I do, and Mendes doesn’t even need to take a second to think about it; he just launches into the list: “La Mouline, Guigal, ’78. La Chapelle ’61. Mouton ’45. Cheval Blanc ’47. Romano Dalforno Amarone, ‘95, ‘96, ‘97, you name it.�

It’s an interesting list, headed by two northern Rhone reds -- La Mouline is one of three legendary single-vineyard Cote Roties from the producer E. Guigal; La Chapelle refers to a single vineyard red Hermitage from producer Paul Jaboulet. Mouton, of course, is the Bordeaux premier cru from Chateau Mouton-Rothschild in Paulliac; Cheval Blanc is widely considered the finest St. Emilion; and the Amarone is from one of the two most renowned winemakers in Italy’s Veneto region.

These are not your typical cult Cabs and expensive California Chards; while the Mouton and the Cheval Blanc would appear on the desert isle list of any wine lover with means, the Rhones and the Amarone are wines for someone with a serious passion and a measure of curiosity.

Now it’s time to attend to what’s for dinner, and Mendes doesn’t take long to think about this, either. No tasting menu tonight, he says. “We’ll order from the menu.�

Surprising for such a bon vivant?

“Next week I’m going to be in Paris, at L’Ami Louis!� says Mendes gleefully. L’Ami Louis is famous for its gigantic portions of foie gras, so apparently he’s saving his appetite. They’ll be leaving for Europe three days from this dinner.

Tonight, Mendes orders Austrian white asparagus to start, with fava beans, cherry tomatoes, upland cress and yuzu-miso vinaigrette -- a challenge to the wine, perhaps. And then, keeping it light, a main-course portion of an appetizer, Maryland crab cake with marinated tomatoes and microgreens.

The first courses come, and O’Connor asks whether he should pour the Chapoutier Ermitage blanc. Mendes says he’d like to wait, and try the 2002 Jean-Louis Chave Hermitage blanc in between. “It’ll be hard to follow [the Chapoutier].�

Mendes is quite a big fan of the whites from Hermitage. “They go to sleep for seven or eight years,� he says, “then they wake up. They oxidize like a bad Madeira. They emerge again, and it’s like drinking a great Montrachet. “

He looks at the golden-colored wine in the glass before tasting it. “It’s a beautiful color,� he says.

Rarest of delicacies

SOMEHOW, the subject of fugu -- Japanese blowfish -- comes up. “It’s OK,� says Mendes, launching into a story of eating it in Kyushu, Japan. “And it’s beautiful. But to tell you the truth, I like this asparagus as much.� The white spears are plump and tender, with terrific flavor, a great match with the exceedingly dry and elegant wine, which shows some herbal and floral notes.

Fugu certainly doesn’t impress Mendes as much as ortolans once did. The tiny migratory birds that were long considered a delicacy in France, served roasted and eaten bones and all, are now a protected species. Alain Dutournier, he says, once served them to him. “Alain said, ‘Close your eyes and open your mouth,’ and it was marvelous. You look at it, and it’s weird, and you taste it, and it’s really something.

“That was like the sea urchin in Japan,� he says. “The ones from Kyushu.�

To be sure, Mendes loves Japanese cooking. For a recent barbecue, he hired a sushi chef to prepare big platters of sashimi and grill steaks flown in from Lobel’s of New York. The party started with a magnum of vintage Billecart-Salmon rose Champagne and a junmai sake.

Then, out on the patio, Mendes opened a bottle of 2001 Aalto “PS� from Ribera del Duero in Spain. He didn’t make any hoopla, pouring it with the casualness that I’d pour an $8 wine from Trader Joe’s. But this was a seriously extracted, complex and delicious wine, one that I later learned nabbed a perfect 100 score from Robert Parker Jr. Even the guest of honor, Mendes’ close friend Jean-Michel Cazes, proprietor of the esteemed Chateau Lynch-Bages in Bordeaux, was impressed.

Before sitting down, Mendes and Cazes decanted a double-magnum of 1982 Lynch-Bages -- that was served with the steaks -- and the evening ended with a bottle of 1982 Chateau Cos d’Estornel and a viewing of Mendes’ just-completed video with the Black Eyed Peas performing the song Mendes made so famous in the ‘60s, “Mas Que Nada.�

Meanwhile, at Spago, sommelier O’Connor has poured the 2000 Chapoutier de l’Oree Ermitage blanc, and Mendes was right -- it would have been a hard act to follow, velvety and lush, complex and terribly elegant, with gorgeous floral aromas. It’s a wine for the ages, timeless, like Mendes’ CD.

During dessert, and an amazing wine suggested by O’Connor -- 1993 Quintarelli Recioto della Valpolicella, a sweet red wine from the Veneto producer known as the Yquem of Italy -- Wolfgang Puck comes to the table.

Clearly, he and Mendes and Leporace are old friends. Puck suggests a few things for them to check out in Vienna, one of the stops on their upcoming tour (they’ll be back in L.A. to perform at the Hollywood Bowl on June 25) -- a restaurant called Steirereck; Naschmarkt, the open market; a wine, a Gruner Veltliner from the Wachau.

“The man with the plan,� says Leporace, smiling. She could have been talking about either one of these giants -- Puck or Mendes. Both have a knack for the long view. And both know how to keep it really, really fresh.