Inside The Broadmoor, atop a case of shiny chocolates and ornate pastries, there often is perched a tray of cylindrical sweets unfamiliar to the American eye.
This is canelé.
However small, the delicacy sends a big message about the fine dining scene at the historic resort in Colorado Springs: It is a scene shaped by immigrants.
Shaped by people such as Franck Labasse. He’s The Broadmoor’s executive pastry chef behind the desserts found in Cafe Julie’s, including the canelé.
It is a divine bite, crunchy on the caramelized outside, moist in the custard center with subtle hints of rum and vanilla. It is how Labasse’s grandmother made it back in France, from his small childhood village.
samples a canelé in the Broadmoor’s Cafe Julie’s bakery at the five-star hotel Wednesday, July 10, 2024, in Colorado Springs. Labasse, who grew up in France, learned to make the pastry with his grandmother when he was 5. Christian Murdock
Christian Murdock, The Gazette
“From 5 years old, I was doing the pastry with my grandmother,” Labasse says. “I knew that was my goal for my life. That was it.”
It was on to French pastry school, on to Paris, on to New York and Las Vegas, where Labasse honed his skills under some of the nation’s finest chefs. And then on to The Broadmoor a couple of years ago — on to the macarons, croissants, cakes, tarts and breads that circulate around the resort’s many restaurants, cafes and lounges.
They are but some of the foods crafted by people who come from afar to help deliver The Broadmoor’s proud Forbes five-star and AAA five-diamond distinctions — distinctions held longer than those of any other resort in the world.
It is a tradition of excellence dating to Louis Stratta. The Italian arrived in 1917 to be the hotel’s first executive chef. The executive chef today, Justin Miller, followed in the footsteps of Austrian-born Siegfried Eisenberger.
“We’ve always had that diverse staffing model here; it’s just kind of in our DNA,” Miller says. “And I think it’s what makes us really great at what we do.”
Kitchens have been largely staffed by culinary students traveling on J-1 visas. Daily across The Broadmoor’s kitchens, something of a cultural exchange ensues between pupils and mentors.
Executive chef Rita Perez holds a Smokestack 8 oz. House Grind Burger Thursday, Aug. 1, 2024, at the Broadmoor’s Restaurant 1858 at Seven Fallls. Christian Murdock
Christian Murdock, The Gazette
“One day you have a kid from South Africa, one day you might have a kid from Indonesia, El Salvador,” says Rita Perez, a Broadmoor chef who has watched flavorful collaborations since 2019. “It’s very interesting to see how the same ingredient transforms different things and gets everybody excited. It gives our food more character I would say.”
Perez is now chef de cuisine of Restaurant 1858 at Seven Falls. The dinner menu recently included a pork porterhouse served with red pipian, the creamy sauce Perez’s grandmother made back in Mexico City.
Raised there by a busy, hardworking single mother, Perez often found herself in her aunt’s and grandma’s kitchens. She found herself walking the streets of farm stands and mom-and-pop grab-and-gos tucked amid award-winning sit-downs.
“All these colors and ingredients and smells and everything around,” Perez says. “That was something that really inspired me to follow this career.”
She’s brought other inspirations to 1858’s menu. This summer, grilled trout was marinated in adobo and topped with pineapple. “It reminds me of al pastor tacos,” Perez says.
Elsewhere, in the bright and airy space of Summit, ceviche recalls flavors of Peru.
Rocia Neyra Palmer, the chef de cuisine at the Broadmoor’s Summit restaurant, poses for a picture Wednesday, July 10, 2024, in the dinning room. Christian Murdock)
Christian Murdock, The Gazette
Chef de cuisine Rocio Neyra Palmer grew up in Lima. She grew up at a time of political tumult and terror, a time of curfews and rations. “Where you could get maybe one pound of sugar or two cans of meat,” Neyra Palmer says. “We made it work somehow.”
Uncles and aunts and cousins would share ingredients and bring their own dishes to frequent family gatherings. Neyra Palmer delighted in these gatherings and other celebrations — occasions in which food was front and center.
She wasn’t much for hugging, nor did she care for dancing and singing. “I’m a very weird Latin American,” she says with a laugh. “But I had to make my people happy. And to show them that, I say, ‘What do you want to eat?’”
This has been her pleasure at The Broadmoor since 2008 — seeing guests savor tastes of her home.
Neyra Palmer found a new home at the hotel; she met her husband here and continues to bond with people just like her. They are chefs from very different places. And yet, their approaches are quite similar.
“I’m not the only one here who cooks and thinks of their family,” Neyra Palmer says.
Perez is another. She’ll be surrounded in the kitchen by students like she once was — young people from around the world here to learn the finest culinary ways at one of the finest resorts out there.
Perez doesn’t let them forget where they came from.
“It’s something I tell my cooks every time,” she says. “The dish you’re serving right now is for the person you love the most.”