Chef Joseph Truex who was invited to cook at the famed James Beard House in New York on April 2, 2005 created a culinary tour de force with his “Plantation Trace” menu that evening. The James Beard Foundation magazine reported, “Chef Joseph Truex combines the best of “haute Southern cuisine” and classic French fare in eight on-premise Château Élan restaurants.”

The Plantation Trace Menu (PDF)

Joseph A. Truex is Executive Chef at the Four Diamond, Four Star Château Élan . His responsibilities include directing a culinary team of 65, creating a cultural array of seasonal menus and ingredients at the resort’s eight restaurants which range from regional Southern, Spa cuisine and traditional Irish fare to All-American, Mediterranean and classic French. Chef Truex also oversee’s the large banquet, receptions, and catering service associated with Chateau Élan’s 25,000 sq. ft conference center and the 42,000 sq. ft. Winery.

Thirty-eight year old Truex, has an impressive resume reflecting both classical foundations, as well as extensive travel and study learning the language, and techniques, of traditional national and regional cuisines of Japan, Italy, France, Switzerland, Portugal and Mexico. A graduate of the Culinary Institute of America in New York, he took his early training at New York’s Le Cirque under famed Chef Daniel Bouloud. This was augmented by culinary engagements at Swissotel in Basel Switzerland, in New Orleans at the Fairmont under the classical French brigade system, in Las Vegas and in Atlanta.

One might guess that Truex, a native of Mansura, Louisiana, (population 2,200) in Avoyelles Parish, originally inhabited by French settlers from France and New Orleans might gravitate to a career in the kitchen. His mother Faye and grandmother are both wonderful cooks with Spanish, French origins from the Basque, Pyrenees mountain region. Further, Truex, a bright student and the youngest and only male in a cluster of six sisters, found out pretty quickly that if you did the cooking, your sisters would have to do the dishes.

He became a paid chef at age 10, preparing French toast, omelets and soup dishes for a rich aunt for $5 a meal. But cooking for young Truex was only a passing fancy. He had his sights set on becoming a doctor.

What began as a journey through pre-med studies at LSU, changed course dramatically three years later into a passion for the culinary arts after he took a semester off to work in a Baton Rouge restaurant. “I was exposed to the ‘Club,” he said.

“Being a part of a culinary team creating food and making people happy was a great attraction and I couldn’t get enough of it. It became more and more difficult to concentrate on micro-organisms at 7:30am at LSU when I really wanted to create the world’s best bordelaise sauce. So I enrolled in a cooking arts program at a local community college and subsequently moved on to the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, NY and graduated in the top 5% of my class. That got me into the Fairmont Hotel in New Orleans where I learned how to become proficient at every kitchen post, while learning the fundamental techniques of cooking. Once you have that you can build and create dishes anywhere your passion and vision take you.”

“Traveling through some of the world’s most famous cities and renowned regions, being immersed in diverse cultures, history and traditions is a great human experience and a key to broadening your culinary techniques,” says Truex. Every time I visit a foreign country I became a changed man. I have a deep appreciation for a regions ‘terrior’ (the subtle nuances that define its nature) indigenous ingredients and flavors. And I try to capture these feelings in the foods I prepare for Chateau Élan guests.”

This diverse background explains Chef Truex cuisine and vision. He favors French classic foundations woven with texture and colors from the south of France, Mediterranean, New Orleans Creole and Asia. His cooking style can be described as simple, honest, and less formal with hints of accents rather than complicated. Another powerful influence in his cooking style is the art of simplicity blended with the dynamics of Asian cooking. This comes from his Japanese wife Mihoko, a classically trained chef in her own right with a graduate degree from NYU, the French Culinary Institute, and cooking at New York’s venerable La Caravelle Restaurant.

Chef Truex is a true renaissance man, whose passions transcend food and cooking to collecting folk art, playing and composing music on his piano and guitar, and tending his vegetable and herb garden. Chef Truex and Mihoko celebrated the birth of their son Yohan born December 29, 2004.

*Photographs above taken at a recent "culinary experience" cooking course held within the Chateau Elan's cask room.