The Elephant Walk chefs share their history in the restaurant business and an easy family Ecuadorian−style soup recipe

Nadsa and Lonteine de Monteiro prepare French-Cambodian cuisine at Boston’s renowned The Elephant Walk. (Courtesy Nadsa de Monteiro)

How to make avocado citrus soup, Ecuadorian style

Monday, October 4, 2010
By Jon Cheng
The Tufts Daily (Tufts Univ., Medford, Massachusetts, USA)

Nadsa de Monteiro and her mother Longteine de Monteiro, chef−owners of the Massachusetts restaurant chain The Elephant Walk, claim that their family was the first to bring Cambodian cuisine to Boston when The Elephant Walk opened in 1991.

The restaurant gained renown almost immediately - Esquire Magazine named it one of America's Best New Restaurants in 1992 - but the de Monteiros attribute the restaurant's success to the decades of hardship they experienced before its establishment.

Nadsa, who oversees operations of the restaurant's three branches, said The Elephant Walk's menu, which she calls "three parts Cambodian and one part French," derives directly from her family's background.

Though she was born in Cambodia, her father's work as a diplomat and ambassador brought her to Yugoslavia, the Philippines and Taipei before her family was finally forced to take asylum in France to escape massacres brought on by the Khmer Rouge's takeover of the Cambodian government in 1975, she said. Nadsa's grandmother and uncle were among the fatalities in the country's infamous "Killing Fields" period.

It was in France where her affinity for French cuisine developed, Nadsa said, and where her mother began cooking.

"Before France, my mother has always been the ambassador's wife, so she didn't have to cook," Nadsa said, but when they moved to France, her mother taught herself how to cook in order to preserve the family's standard of living. "My sister and I, when we came home from school, had an amazing spread of food that she prepared."

Soon after her move to France, Nadsa moved again - this time to the United States to work as a travel agent - while her parents stayed in France, hoping to immigrate eventually but having been denied refugee status.

In the meantime, Longteine quickly became a skilled culinarian and decided to turn cooking into a profession. She pawned her jewelry to open up a restaurant, Amrita, which saw success during its 10−year run. After Nadsa became a naturalized citizen, Longteine and Nadsa's father were finally able to move to the United States and they left Amrita behind. Upon their reunion, Nadsa was drawn into the culinary world, "mostly by necessity and mostly by chance," she said.

"Until my parents moved here, I never cooked. Then, I got sucked into the restaurant business," Nadsa said. "So I went to get culinary training in France [under Michelin−starred chef Yves Thuris], but I also learned from eating my mother's food."

After graduating from the Cambridge School of Culinary Arts and working as sous−chef at The Elephant Walk for two years, Nadsa succeeded her mother as executive chef. From then on, the restaurant's success has been overwhelming, she said.

"We've been receiving the Best of Boston award every year for the last 10 years. Just last year we were inducted in the magazine's Hall of Fame," she said. "We have also published an ‘Elephant Walk' cookbook that is being sold in bookstores and on Amazon.com."

Once a week, Nadsa holds a Saturday morning cooking class with her mother and brother−in−law chef Gerard Lopez that usually draws in eight to 18 people.

"We've had couples, even teenagers take the class - the youngest one being nine years old and the oldest one 81 years old," she said.

Due to the establishments' proximity to nearby colleges, the classes and restaurants alike tend to attract a lot of students. But the family still strives to further spread the culture of their food to younger generations.

"Don't be afraid to taste new things; be adventurous. Hamburgers, fries and pizza aren't the only things - Boston now has tons of ethnic foods. If you're limiting your scope, that's your own problem," Nadsa said.

To help, she offers a simple recipe for a chilled avocado citrus soup, which students can easily whip up in their own kitchens (see page 3).

"This is a recipe that was inspired by one of my trips to Ecuador," Nadsa said. "I brought it back, played with it, recreated it and put it on the menu five years ago. It's just a big hit and everybody just loved it. I get requests for it all the time. Anybody can make this. If you can't make it, you're an idiot."