Marcus Vale Would Rather Not Be Interviewed

Plays as you read

Marcus Vale, in the kitchen at Casa Vale

Video: Compass & Cloth

It took four emails and one long phone call to get Marcus Vale to sit down. When he did, he sat for three hours and did not once mention his three stars.

"A menu is a promise I do not want to make every night."

— Marcus Vale

He cooks, he says, from memory — his grandmother's cellar, a summer in Perpignan, the fig tree behind the restaurant.