From Strasbourg, France, to the sidewalks of Washington may seem like a long trek. But for Philippe Reininger, executive chef at J&G Steakhouse, the city is simply another stop in a lifetime of cooking and travel. Reininger and his boss, Jean-Georges Vongerichten (for whom the steakhouse is initialed, as in “J&G”) grew up living about 5 miles apart in Strasbourg. Both chefs worked for Louis Outhier at L’Oasis, a 3-Michelin-star restaurant in La Napoule on the French Riviera, and to be in the same restaurant, that was a real coincidence, says Reininger. The friendship between Reininger and Vongerichten eventually charted the course of Reininger’s culinary life, including his stints in New York and Boston.
As a teenager, Reininger started getting connected to the chemistry of food. To earn spending money, he took a summer job working in the front of the house at a Strasbourg restaurant. For several days, management assigned him to work in the kitchen. Taken by the joy of cooking, Reininger asked to return the following summer. And a career was launched.
