Ris Lacoste’s Onion Soup Gratinée

One of Washington D.C.’s most popular restaurants, Ris, is the creation of Ris Lacoste. Ris told me that she had learned the unusual method for this incredible onion soup from Chef Fernand Chambrette at La Varenne in Paris. It involves slowly cooking sliced onions, then cooking whole onions in a pan lined with butter and sugar until the bottom of the pan is covered, in Ris’s words, ‘with a caramelised molasses-like tar.’ As