Omelet at the Red Hen

On omelets French and American, past and present.

The 17 of us stood by our cook stations — each with a cook-top range, a seasoned eight-inch skillet, a spatula and two eggs.

The white-jacketed French instructor, Pascal, stood before the assembled students and tried to impress upon us that today we would learn one of the most important lessons of our two years in cooking school: how to make an omelet.

“Typically, if a cook in France applied for a job, I would ask him to prepare an omelet, ” Pascal said. “If you can’t make an omelet, you don’t belong in my kitchen.”

Omelet? Our eyes rolled.

But we quickly learned that French omelet-making involves a mad, 30-second ballet of purposeful scrambling and precise hand placement, of tipping and folding, of faith in the transformative power of heat and of a serious voila moment in front of the stove.

Pascal demonstrated. After pouring in the beaten egg, he held the pan’s handle in his left hand and shook it back and forth as he vigorously scrambled it with a clockwise-circling fork held in his right hand. Those of us who couldn’t pat our heads and rub our bellies were already out.

When the egg was almost — but not totally — set, he stopped and laid a few wisps of grated Gruyere cheese across the center. He then changed his grip on the pan handle to an underhand one and held the pan at a 45-degree angle over a plate. He smacked the juncture of the handle and pan with the butt of his right fist until the omelet loosened itself from the pan and slid partway out.

With his little French pinkie sticking out, Pascal folded the top third of the omelet over with his fork, upended the pan and let the omelet fold once again as it fell into the plate.

“By the time you get this to the table, the egg will no longer be gooey, and the cheese will melt, ” said Pascal. “It’s beautiful, no?”

Since that time, I’ve been a huge fan of French omelets, with their creamy centers and sheer, lemon-yellow surfaces.

The few times I’ve been in France since then I always make it a point to find a restaurant that serves a good omelet. It’s a lunchtime dish there, and it usually comes with a green salad and a pile of roasted potatoes or frites. Add a glass of white wine, and I’m practically ready to slip on a beret and wax my moustache in appreciation for all things Gallic.

And here?

It seems the only way to find a French-style omelet is to make one. Typically omelets here are springier and cakier. The cooks let the eggs partially set, lift the edges and let the raw part flow underneath. Sometimes they give the whole business a flip to fully set the eggs before encasing cheese and whatever else in the center.

This process can make for a good omelet as long as the cook is vigilant about not letting the eggs brown and about keeping the flame moderate. If the heat is too high and the eggs sit, unstirred, in the pan then they will begin to leaven themselves. The result is a rubbery mass pocked with little bubbles.

I went on a mini-omelet quest for my blog through some of Atlanta’s favorite breakfast and brunch spots. I’m sorry to report that Ria’s Bluebird (the vegetarian-friendly joint across the street from Oakland Cemetery) made the picture-perfect bad omelet — stretchy, bubbled and brown. Thumbs Up’s version was more tender at the center, but hard and brown on the surface.

Rise-N-Dine in Emory Village served a huge, thin circle of egginess folded over a gooey cheese center. It was a fine version of the American omelet — tender enough but too sturdy to have that surprising, yielding characteristic of French omelets.

Then, one day when I was in Alpharetta, I stopped in the Red Hen Cafe for a late lunch. The restaurant served breakfast all day, and the omelet with Gruyere cheese and bacon caught my eye.

It was soft, yielding, bright yellow, folded in thirds. It wasn’t as good as Pascal’s, but it came close. I told the owner how much I liked it, and he laughed.

“My partner, ” he said, “has this thing about French omelets. . .”