Wednesday, June 22, 2005 | 9:18 a.m.
It's amazing how a year spent with a member of the French Mafia can change your life.
Just ask Sonny Ahuja, the owner/operator of Bleu Gourmet, a European fusion restaurant he opened in Summerlin in December.
For years Ahuja (pronounced Ah-HOO-jah) wandered from career goal to career goal, uncertain of where his talents would take him.
That all changed 15 years ago when he met "Paul," the owner of a bar in Paris, who introduced Ahuja to the cultured life - specifically, food and wine.
Ahuja doesn't even know Paul's last name, but his influence can be seen in every inch of Bleu Gourmet, located at the Barcelone Shopping Center at 8751 W. Charleston Blvd.
Wine dominates the decor of the one-room establishment. More than 350 labels are displayed on mahogany shelves along the western wall and a stand-alone display in the center of the restaurant. Sandwiched between the shelves are a freezer containing vodka and homemade microwaveable meals - including his mother's chicken curry recipe - and a lighted case displaying a variety of wine glasses.
Wine is clearly a subject Ahuja knows well.
"They're sorted by style versus varietal," said Ahuja, who is more than happy to help customers figure out what to enjoy with their meal. "It's more by body."
Metal tables and chairs contrast with metallic paint on the concrete floor. Low-key overhead lighting is provided by intermittently placed fixtures throughout a blue gridwork.
The food area is opposite the wine display. A granite countertop winds its way around an oven area and stops near a deli case.
Ahuja also sells gift baskets including lotions, body washes and candles, and a separate section offers wine accessories and coffee and tea totes. A section near the entrance houses food and wine books for sale.
Ahuja toured the country while putting together his menu, and is particularly proud of the following dishes he created along with his chef, Christophe Bonnegrace: Roquefort salad, Mac & Cheese for Grown-Ups (Castellani pasta with Camembert cheese, Gorgonzola boursin cheese and parmigiano reggiano sauce) and rib eye pizza (marinated aged rib eye, Roquefort, Gorgonzola, Brie and Camembert, drizzled with honey).
Ahuja, 38, is grateful for the opportunity to give his customers - he calls them "guests" - the same experience Paul gave him.
"We're a luxury item, so it's nice to be in a business where people are happy to see you," he said. "My guests want to bring their experience to other people." 'Very Rockwell'
Nothing in Ahuja's upbringing suggested he would end up in a world of high-end cuisine and fine wine.
His parents immigrated to the states from India in search of better jobs, and Ahuja was born in Stillwater, Okla. He was raised in Westchester, Pa., and his parents both worked. His father, Kris, 75, was a mechanical engineer, and his mother, Usha, 68, who graduated medical school in India, worked as a nurse.
"She didn't take the equivalency test here," Ahuja said. "And my father never completed his Ph.D. I'm beginning to think I wasn't planned."
He describes his childhood as "very Rockwell," growing up with his sisters, fraternal twins Arti and Sandhy, 34. He played soccer, baseball and field hockey during the summer months, and hit the hills with sleds and toboggans during winter.
"I was chased by more than a few farmers for being on their property," he said.
He also discovered he had musical ability, and his parents bought him a violin when he was age 8.
"I wanted to play the guitar, but my parents wanted the violin," he said. "My parents were very strict academically."
His mother cooked for the family, but no high-end cuisine. It was mostly Indian cooking, and Ahuja hated it.
"My entire upbringing, the house was filled with the smells of tumeric and cumin," he said. "I didn't like Indian food for a long time. I was a beef-and-potatoes guy like my dad."
In 1978, Ahuja got the chance to experience Indian food from the source. His father went to work in Scottsdale, Ariz., and Ahuja's mother took his family to Jaipur, India, for six months.
"My mother was from Jaipur and my father was from the Punjab region," Ahuja said. "I'd been to India every few years for a few days, but this was the first time I'd spent any real time there."
He began to develop a taste for Indian food, especially the sort sold by street vendors.
"I can't remember the names, but the best was a puff pastry you dip in spicy water," he said. "Another was a hard-shelled pastry with yogurt and chickpeas."
He also began to learn the language, eventually writing and speaking Hindi and Punjabi, "But I ended up mixing them with an American accent. The vendors loved to hear me speak."
Ahuja returned with a greater appreciation for his culture. "It gave me more of a foundation as a person," he said.
The music stops
Ahuja and the rest of his family moved to Scottsdale in 1979, and he continued to pursue the violin, eventually performing in the Phoenix Youth Symphony, for which hundreds of students audition.
"I got 20th chair in first strings. I was pretty good," he said.
But Ahuja was beginning to feel the pressure to perform, a feeling that got worse when his parents prepared to buy him a $10,000 violin.
"I just quit," he said. "It was that whole rebellion thing. I didn't realize until just recently that I could play the violin for fun."
He's had his old violin restrung, but still hasn't taken it out of its case.
"Maybe someday," he said.
But Ahuja remained active in the arts, joining his high school's theatre program onstage and behind the scenes. He envisioned one day having a career in films.
"I wanted to go to college for the arts, but having educated parents, there's no degree in the arts," he said. "Plus, I was a wild child -- a lot of shenanigans.
"They wanted me to be a surgeon, but I didn't have pre-med in me," he added. "They just wanted me to be able to pay the bills. They didn't want their son to become a starving artist."
Ahuja and his parents came to a mutual decision: the business school at Arizona State University in Tempe.
Ahuja remembers the experience as being filled with nothing but distractions -- of the female variety, that is.
"I spent a lot of time chasing girls and going to nightclubs," he said. "I also had a tough time figuring out what I wanted to do. I started as a photography major, then art history, then broadcasting."
It was seven years before he graduated in 1990 -- with a degree in marketing.
"I graduated kicking and screaming," he said. "No one was happier than my mother when I graduated."
Paris persuasion
Before putting his degree to good use, Ahuja did something he'd always wanted to do: go on a backpacking trip of Europe.
"I got an open-ended ticket and got a work visa in France," he said. "I decided to stay for a while."
He moved in with three Canadian women in a studio in Paris, but that didn't last. "They left me and became nannies. I was down to my last $50. My days were numbered."
That's when Ahuja met Paul.
"I was sitting in the office of the work exchange program, and a job came in that day," he said. He got a job bartending at Le Bar, owned and operated by Paul.
"Le Bar was an old speakeasy with all the windows blacked out, and you had to ring a bell to get in," he said. "Paul was this old French Mafia guy -- white hair, 5 foot 7 inches tall, but strong in stature, wearing a long trench coat."
So began Ahuja's introduction to the world of haute cuisine.
"On New Year's Eve, I had to work, and everyone else was out having fun," he said. "Paul brings in 1982 Dom Perignon, creme fraiche, fois gras -- I'd never had any of this stuff before. It was so great."
Paul's business partner, Anna, taught Ahuja the finer points of style.
"She taught me not to buy women champagne at the cabaret clubs. 'You can't afford it,' she told me," Ahuja said. "Paul took me to the Club Opera, a private gambling club most Parisians don't know about. They took great care of me. I ordered a filet with Roquefort sauce, and it was one of the two greatest steaks I'd ever had." (The other was in Mexico.)
But despite the great pay and fancy living, Ahuja wasn't happy.
"The hours were killing me. I got off at 5 a.m.," he said. "And French people smoke, so I was sick all the time."
He left France in 1991 and returned home, but with a passion for wine and food that he hadn't had before.
Getting dirty
Ahuja interviewed for jobs with various marketing firms in Los Angeles and Dallas, but while waiting for replies, his thoughts turned to food and wine.
He had the idea to open a coffeehouse at Arizona State University, but got talked out of it by an investor. Instead, he opened Wine Street, a wine kiosk, at the Riviera in 1992.
"It was bad advice," he said. "But I'm a survivor."
Ahuja's creative side became useful during the dry financial years. At one point, he sold "Nevada desert" in bottles.
"I'd be sitting in a vacant lot, sifting dirt and pouring it into bottles," Ahuja said. "I sold it for $12 a bottle at my kiosk. I sold more dirt than wine."
But by 1997, Ahuja had tired of being on the Strip. He sold his business and, with several partners, opened the Nevada Wine Cellar at Flamingo Road and Durango Drive in 1998.
"It was one of the first real wine stores in town," he said. "I wasn't that carnival barker you had to be on the Strip."
But Ahuja left it after two years.
"The business was underfinanced," he said. "If partners were so great, Jesus would have had one." (A year after Ahuja left, the business folded.)
Ahuja took a full year off to decide on a career. "I wanted to work for someone, but I realized I had no marketable skills."
He may not have had skills, but he still had his passion for Paris dining.
In 2002, Ahuja began researching what it would take to open his own restaurant.
"The research and development took two years," he said. "My partners and I signed a lease 18 months before we got in the building."
In the meantime, Ahuja got the restaurant training he needed from Evan Glusman, owner of Piero's Trattoria. From 2003 to 2004, Ahuja worked for Glusman as a gardemanger, preparing salads, but also got more experience in pizza-making and wine.
Before Ahuja opened his restaurant in late 2004, he wanted to make sure his chef was able to carry out his vision.
"I burned through a chef or two before meeting Christophe (Bonnegrace)," Ahuja said. "We hooked up by fate."
Bonnegrace had been working at Little Buddha at the Palms, and was told about Ahuja by a co-worker.
"We get along great," Bonnegrace said. "We have a great working relationship -- his vision of the wine, my vision of the food."
Here to stay
Ahuja said he feels he's where he belongs, and that his parents are very proud of his accomplishments.
"They were blown away when they saw the place," he said, pointing to a green marble statue atop his freezer. "That's a god of health, wealth and prosperity. My mom carried that around India after she bought it for me. It's really heavy."
He plans to stay in Las Vegas permanently, and although he wasn't able to pursue a career in film or the arts, he is supportive of Las Vegas' arts community.
"I don't know if I have a talent for art, but I have an eye for it," he said.
But don't look for Ahuja to become an artist if he should suddenly become unemployed.
"If this all goes to hell," he said, laughing, "I'll liquidate everything and work in a tapas club in Spain."
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