When Michelle Obama Gifts You Champagne, You Hold Onto It
Ethiopian-born, Swedish-American chef Marcus Samuelsson is no stranger to cooking for powerful heads of state. At age 24, he had already prepared dinner for the Swedish royal family, and since then he’s cooked for Presidents George Bush Sr., Bill Clinton, and Joe Biden. But none of those gigs compared to cooking President Barack Obama’s first state dinner in 2009 for Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
“It was an amazing dinner to work on; it was a very big deal for me to do their first state dinner,” Samuelsson says. “After saying ‘hi’ to 400 guests, Michelle and Barack were kind enough to take the time to come back to the kitchen with their security team and meet my entire team. Everybody was so excited to meet the President and the First Lady—and not only did the Obamas come back, they took the time to speak to every staff member. I thought that was a really special moment.”
What was even more special was the personal note and bottle of Champagne the celeb chef received as a thank you for a job well done.
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Owner: Marcus Samuelsson, chef, restaurateur, author, and father
Bottle: 2004 Dom Pérignon Champagne
How’d I Get It? “About a week after the state dinner, I was back at work in New York and a beautiful package in a wooden box arrived from the White House. It was a bottle of 2004 Dom Pérignon with a note from Michelle Obama and her team. I’ve never taken a sip. I’ve waited—I keep waiting! When is the right time? When is the right occasion? The box is so beautiful and it sits on my shelf; the bottle of Champagne is in a wine cooler. First of all, the box is engraved—and the handwritten note!—but really it’s the memory around it.
It took months to plan the [state dinner] menu; the First Lady was involved and so was [Obama’s former personal chef] Sam Kass. I remember when we were in the [White House] garden, Sam told me: ‘This moment is so much bigger than you, Marcus,’ and he was so right. He said people are going to look at this menu for a very long time … every ingredient you pick. It’s hard to understand when a moment is bigger than you, but he was so right! I’m pretty good at dealing with security and heads of states; I’ve cooked at the U.N. many times. But I agreed with Sam; this was Barack Obama’s first state dinner and Sam knew the impact the Obamas had around the world.
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Before that, most of the state dinners were French-influenced. We wanted to reflect a sense of place, so I worked with Kass and Michelle Obama’s team—she had just started her garden; this was an opportunity to showcase where the country was going and show that American food was as fine as French food. The menu was built around Indian culture and American culture and the menu reflected that. It was a melange of aspects of India and America. There were American wines, for example, and we had chapati and cornbread in the bread basket with sides of collard greens and chickpeas.”
Purchase Price: Gifted from FLOTUS
Estimated Value: $299, according to Wine-Searcher
When Do You Plan to Drink it: “I’ll definitely drink it with my wife [Maya], because she was there. Red Rooster Harlem is turning 15 this year so maybe we’ll open it in the fall for that anniversary … that might be a time to open it. In those moments, you want to celebrate with a group. I feel like whatever beverage it is, it shouldn’t be drunk alone—it’s a memory and it’s a celebration.
We in the industry—people like Daniel Boulud or Charlie Palmer—are around great beverages all the time. So, for me, it’s more the memory around [wine] that’s so special. [Chefs] go to dinners and wine tastings that are out of this world with crazy money values on bottles. I’m cooking a dinner soon with bottles that start at a thousand dollars per person; we do those dinners and we don’t take them for granted. Those are rare bottles! But this [bottle], it’s not the price range that’s so crazy, it’s the moment and the story associated with the wine. Anyone who can afford to can buy this wine, it’s accessible from a store.
I typically like to send books as gifts, but to mark a big moment, I think sending a meaningful bottle of Champagne—maybe in a vintage of the year someone was born—it’s a way to mark excellence. It’s a great tradition to celebrate craftsmanship and stories.”
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