Restaurant owner cooked for presidents, other dignitaries in D.C.

Goffstown Editor — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 20:01:00 GMT

BY DARRELL HALEN

During the week leading up to Bill Clinton’s 1993 presidential inauguration, Damian Martineau and several other chefs teamed up to make special treats for the inaugural balls – 25,000 saxophone-shaped shortbread cookies.

It’s one of the memorable highlights of the nearly 24 years Martineau spent in the nation’s capital, where at times he cooked for some of the highest dignitaries in government, including presidents, ambassadors, cabinet members and the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

“I don’t believe that I would have met the people that I met, cooked for the people I cooked (for), rubbed elbows with the people I rubbed elbows with, in my entire life had I not taken this career path,” said Martineau, 45, a professional chef.

Martineau, who now lives in Bedford, took an interest in cooking as a teenager working in a Pelham restaurant. At The 76 Restaurant and Pub, Martineau rose from dishwasher to line cook.

“It was a good introduction to food,” recalled Martineau. “They say when you enter the food industry, you get bit by the bug and you can’t get it out of your system. That’s what happened to me. I knew that’s what I wanted to do.”

After graduating in 1980 from Pelham High School, where he baked and cooked during home economics classes, Martineau refined his professional trade at the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, N.Y.

Following cooking stints in Nashua, Montreal and Connecticut, Martineau began a 24-year stretch working in the Washington, D.C., area.

Seventeen of those years were spent working as a corporate chef for Guest Services Inc., a company with contracts to cook meals for employees at many federal agencies, including the Pentagon, the State Department, the Department of Justice and the Central Intelligence Agency. The work required Martineau to obtain government security clearance.

“We cooked for all the brass for the Pentagon,” he said.

Martineau has cooked for Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice, secretaries of state; and Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez, twice met George H.W. Bush, and won Hillary Clinton’s appreciation for his service on Team Nutrition, which helped the U.S. Department of Agriculture improve its school lunch program.

“I was never a big political junkie,” said Martineau, an independent voter, who was not politically active. “Of course, in Washington, you’re bombarded with (politics) every day.”

Martineau has worked in kitchens where agents from the Secret Service brought dogs through to sniff for bombs, and has prepared meals for presidents under the agency’s watchful eyes.

One day when Martineau was cooking in a kitchen, agents escorted Bill Clinton through the room.

“They don’t want people to know what route they’re going to take,” said Martineau. “They always have three or four ways of getting in and three or four ways of getting out.”

Martineau has also made meals for famous newsmen – Brit Hume and Sam Donaldson among them – and cooked at a law firm where John Roberts, the chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, practiced law.

Martineau acknowledges being “a little star struck” when he first began cooking for famous people. But eventually, he said, the novelty wore off.

Martineau currently runs Damian’s On the River restaurant in New Boston, a refined casual dining establishment he opened in July 2007.

On the day the old restaurant building on the site was being auctioned, Martineau – with a cell phone in one hand and a saute pan in the other – was cooking a luncheon for President George W. Bush in Virginia while placing his bid.

Life in Washington had changed dramatically following the Sept. 11 terrorists attacks. The stress of working in the nation’s capital, and the desire to raise his four sons away from the city and closer to his large New Hampshire family, prompted Martineau and his wife, Sonia, to move to Bedford last year.

Despite leaving Washington, he has fond memories and keeps a collection of memorabilia, some of which are on display in his restaurant.

A photo of him and Hillary Clinton hangs on a wall. A bottle of champagne from Bill Clinton’s 1993 inaugural sits on the dessert case.

Martineau also has a small bottle of champagne with the presidential seal from Ronald Reagan’s presidency, an autographed tie clip from the first President Bush, a photo of him with Attorney General Janet Reno and a wristwatch featuring the presidential seal.

During his tenure in Washington, Martineau became a member of the American Academy of Chefs, the honor society of the American Culinary Federation.

Henry Haller, who spent 22 years as the White House Executive Chef, nominated him.

Martineau also served five years as president of the Nation’s Capital Chef’s Association. During his tenure, he increased the organization’s membership from 80 to 400 members and vastly improved its finances – from being in debt to having more than $100,000 in the bank.

In 1992, the group raised more than $250,000 for charity.

Since opening his restaurant, he’s donated 700 pastries to the Bedford Rotary Club for its pasta dinner and gave away free ice cream cones to the 250 children participating in Goffstown Public Library’s summer reading program.

“I’ve always believed if God gives you a talent, use it for good,” he said.

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Restaurant owner cooked for presidents, other dignitaries in D.C.