The Jean-Georges in question is, of course, Jean-Georges Vongerichten, who is as well-known as any chef in the world. He arrived in the U.S. in the 1980s as chef de cuisine for Louis Outhier at Boston’s Lafayette, translating the master’s nouvelle cuisine in ways that avoided fussiness in favor of flavor and elegance. He repeated that style at Lafayette in New York, before going out on his own in 1997 to open his namesake restaurant in Columbus Circle, where he would win every accolade possible for developing a modern global gastronomy.
      He next created the modern bistro at JoJo, and, influenced by his time cooking in Asian  restaurants—where he said he preferred eating the staff meals to haute cuisine—he incorporated their flavors, opening the Thai-inspired Vong and Spice Market in Manhattan (both closed). His commitment to vegetarian food at ABCV in New York gave the nod to other chefs hesitant about gong that route. Whenever Jean-Georges went in a new direction, food media and colleagues followed.

      From the moment I dined in Lafayette in Boston I was astonished by Jean-Georges’s range, and several of his restaurants made my “Best New Restaurants in America” list in Esquire over two decades. I became, however, less enamored, or less impressed, when he went from having a handful of places he could taxi among in New York to opening scores around the world, including in Guangzhou, Morocco and Qatar, becoming a brand name rather than a chef who could possibly pay much, if any, personal attention to all his management contracts year in and out.
       While I have not by a long shot eaten at most of his restaurants, I’ve found several to be only fair to good, rarely surprising and unexpectedly repetitious.
       So, I hadn’t high expectations upon being invited by friends to dine at The Mark Restaurant by Jean-Georges, opened in 2010 as a pleasant if bland offshoot rather than a new statement. Yet, the recent installation of a new executive chef de cuisine, Pierre Schutz, who’s had a long tenure with Jean-Georges in many of his properties, seemed good reason to get back there.
      I couldn’t be happier that I did, for my meal was one of the finest I’ve had this year. For even though many similar dishes may be found around town, Schutz, a  native of Lausanne, Switzerland, shows a finesse and creativity that transforms every one of them with dazzling flair.  Of Schutz’s cooking, Jean-Georges has said, “We’ve been cooking together for so many years that our palates are in total sync that we don’t even need to speak.”  
   The very comfortable dining rooms and bar have been done over in silvery, shadowy tones, the rear room slightly less loud, the tables nicely set apart. The bar is one of the swankier spots in town.
      Opening the menu was uninspiring, though everything sounded quite tempting. I skipped over items like shrimp cocktail ($46) and chilled lobster ($72) at eye-opening prices, and instead, knowing Jean-Georges’s penchant for perfect fish, had the hamachi sashimi with avocado and soy yuzu dressing ($39), which showed off his demand for buying the finest fish, in this case well-fatted, silky Japanese amberjack. There were, oddly, two artichoke dishes on the appetizer menu, so I went for the crispy version, similar to the Italian carciofi alla giudea, but with a lovely saffron rose aïoli ($34). One guest ordered burrata, which I thought would be so-so, but it was of excellent, creamy quality, a sizable portion served with a citrus salad, basil and grilled sourdough ($38).

        Forty-nine dollars is a lot for a fontina cheese pizza, even one with black truffles atop, and though the pie is tasty, the price is hard to swallow. The fresh, tender egg-rich fettuccine spiked with Meyer lemon, parmigiano and black pepper was delicious, but at $47 you may want to split it.
       Every one of the entrees was first-rate and more. I cannot recall having a juicier, better cooked plump sea bass in long memory (above), sided with braised fennel, carrot and cerignola olives ($72), a dish that took a great deal of care to get perfect.  A slope of lobster and carrots had the addition of sweet-tangy passion fruit and black olives that worked together well ($87). And three grilled lamb chops—massive and meaty, with just the right amount of fat—had a smoked chili glaze, served with bitter-salty broccoli di rabe ($68) that added wonderful outdoor-like flavors (right).

      Most surprising was what was described as “Parmesan-crusted organic chicken, [with more] artichoke and lemon-basil butter sauce” ($58) that sounded like over-worked chicken parmigiana. But this was far more nuanced, with the natural poultry flavor and buttery juices of the chicken wed to the tang of the lemon-basil.
       Desserts ($21) sound playful but they are substantial sweet triumphs of transformation, as with child-like butterscotch pudding with crème fraîche and sea salt, as rich as might be imagined; a salted caramel ice cream sundae with candy popcorn peanuts—French Crackerjack!—and fudge sauce (left); and perfect, dreamy, fat profiteroles with vanilla ice cream and deep chocolate. The only fancy dessert was called the “Orange Blossom,” with diplomat cream and a crunchy meringue. There is also an artisanal cheese plate with five cheese and condiments ($32).
       With $87 entrees, The Mark Restaurant by Jean-Georges may dent your wallet—a six-course meal at his flagship Jean-Georges almost seems a bargain at  $298 and ten courses at $398—but this really is dining out New York-style at a very high level. It might be hoped the maestro himself drops by, but his name and reputation are being kept at a lofty level by his long-time colleague Pierre Schutz.     
    There is, now, on premises a new Caviar Kaspia designed by Jacques Grange at The Mark with its own menu and boutique (not associated with Jean-Georges), serving dishes like duck foie gras, bottarga plate, rosti and caviar pizza, twice-baked potato and a variety of eggs with caviar farmed in the U.S., Italy and Bulgaria.
      By the way, the tacky-looking 20-foot tall NO VACANCY sign on the hotel building is actually neon art by Warren Neidich, which recalls the long-running Broadway Show “Hot L Baltimore.”

The Mark Restaurant by Jean-Georges is open for breakfast, lunch and dinner daily.

         Sipe had read Katie’s articles and told her it was okay to come out.
        Katie was not going to bother pleading with her editor to send her to La Jolla.  She had vacation time coming, though, given her status at McClure’s, she might have told him she’d just be off snooping on a story and that if it came to anything, she’d report in. David had all the time in the world, of course, and was happy to pay his own airfare to La Jolla to go along on Katie’s investigation, whatever it was. His fantasies about Maria Colón had already faded, though she crossed his mind now and again.
         The two of them flew out to Palo Alto that weekend, on an evening United flight out of Newark to San Diego Airport, which saved them a few bucks and got them in at 10:30 that night.  They rented a car and checked into a hotel not far from Sipe’s home.
        Katie and David decided she would take the lead in the interview and David would take his own notes on any criminal investigations Sipe knew about. They arrived at ten the next morning. Sipe’s home was near the ocean at Black’s Beach, a modest one-story house with a terrace. David noticed how unkempt Sipe’s shrubbery was.
         A sign on the door under the bell read “KNOCK DON’T RING,” and Katie rapped three times. The door opened immediately and Sipe said, “Come on in. Thanks for coming all this way. Coffee? Water?”
         The house looked thoroughly lived in. Sagging sofas and chairs, a coffee table piled with folders and papers, and a few potted plants badly in need of attention. The bookshelves spread from one wall to the next and into the dining area, all fully stacked. Sipe was of average height, a little stooped over, looking older than his 68 years, with long, deep wrinkles in his jowls, tired-looking brown eyes, bushy eyebrows and graying hair. He wore rim glasses, a brown tennis shirt and a gray cardigan sweater over blue jeans and slip-ons. Katie tried to imagine him in a priest’s black habit and white collar. His wife Marianne did not seem to be in the house.
         “So what do you want to know?” he began. “I trust you’ve read my books?”
         Katie answered she had read two of them thus far, and Sipe said most of the others were out of print and hard to find, but he’d lend her copies.
         “There’s so much stuff I haven’t published,” he said, “and don’t know if anyone will publish it. I’m still radioactive in the religious press, though I’ve got a bit more respect in the psychoanalytic community.”
         Katie said, “I see you’ve taught at Catholic seminaries and lectured in medical schools, and from everything I read you are highly respected among your peers.”
         “Depends on the peers. The conservative Catholic media loathe me and have done nothing but disparage my research. The more liberal wing of the Church has been more responsive but very measured in their support.”
         Sipe then took off, not quite in an angry tirade but in a fervent defense of his work and how he’d devoted his life to changing what was going on in the Church.
         David said, “But I see you’ve been both a consultant and expert witness in civil and criminal cases involving sexual abuse by priests.”
         Sipe said, “When asked, of course. But those cases are few and far between, even now that the lid is being ever so slightly pried off the whole damn can of worms.  There’s good work being done but the Church is still powerful enough and canny enough to deflect both criticism and indictments. And it’s not just a problem with the American Catholic Church. Don’t think for a minute that these crimes aren’t being committed everywhere. Look anywhere and everywhere—Sydney, Australia; Johannesburg, South Africa; Paducah, Kentucky, everywhere. This is a global crisis.”
         That was the cue Katie needed to begin focusing in. “Well, that’s one of the things I hope you’d help me with. I don’t have the time and resources to write a whole book on the subject. And, frankly, it seems you’ve written those books for all to read. You’ve provided all the historical and psychological context on the subject. What I want to do is to bore into the core of the corruption in a place that has been successful in covering it all up for years.”
         Sipe sighed. “You want to bring down some cardinals, right?  Follow the money? See if it leads to the Vatican?”
         Katie nodded and said, “Something like that, but where do I start? Boston? New York?”
         Sipe said, “Pick any city you like. As I just told you, this is not a New York or Boston problem. You could focus your story on any of them at any time. Boston is—what do they say in the Army?—a ‘target-rich environment.’”
         David said that in fact he’d spoken to a police colleague named Foley who’d said Sipe would be the man to contact about what had happened when the Boston Globe killed its investigation back in 1984.
         “I remember Foley,” said Sipe. “Good man. Wanted to go after Bernard Law, the Archbishop of Boston. I told him he might as well try to convict the Pope. Law was—is—very, very powerful, and the Boston police wouldn’t try to mess with him, even if Law himself had been a predator, which, as far as I know, he is not. But he has prevented and thwarted almost every case that’s been brought to his attention. Law is untouchable.”
         “So maybe I should be the one to try to get to him?” asked Katie. “I haven’t any attachments to Boston or the Church there.”
         Sipe got up from the sofa and went to get another cup of coffee.
         “Listen, Katie, there’s nothing I’d like more than to catch a big fish like Law, but he swims in a much bigger pool of corruption. You want to go fight the Boston archdiocese, go right ahead. But you’ll get stonewalled at every step.”
     “Well, that’s my job—to bust through the stone wall. I’m pretty good at it.”
         Sipe smiled and said, “I was like you once, but of course I didn’t have the backing of a newspaper or magazine.  And you know how that went down with the Boston Globe. So I’ve opted instead, together with my wife Marianne, to help these priests, or at least the ones who have remorse for their actions.  You have to realize that about fifty percent of priests have some sort of sexual relationship with another person. Sometimes with one of the opposite sex, sometimes with another priest or nun, and, in a number of cases, with children. And among those, there are many agonizing over their actions. Those are the ones I concern myself with now. The others—those for whom schools are their own target-rich environment—are wholly unrepentant and are part of a network that sustains their life choices.”
         “I remember you wrote about what you called ‛The Network’ in your book.”
         “It’s very much part of the problem and it is extensive.”
         Sipe got up again, saying, “Have you ever heard of the Magdalene Laundries?  Or, as the Sisters of Our Lady of Charity of Refuge called them, the Magdalene ‘asylums?’”
         Katie was eager to say she had and had intended to ask Sipe about them.
         “Well,” he said, “I haven’t done much personal research on them. I hadn’t even heard about them until a few years ago, and the last of them closed just four years ago and a lot of horror stories have been coming out ever since. Have you ever heard Joni Mitchell’s song about the Laundries?”
         Katie shook her head, surprised that she’d never heard a song by one of her favorite singers.
         “The song was kind of buried in one of her lesser albums, with the unfortunate name Turbulent Indigo, back in ’94, I think. Somebody sent the song to me, included on an album several women singers did with the Irish folk group The Chieftains. That just came out last year.  Mitchell apparently said she wrote the song after reading a story in a Canadian newspaper about how authorities had discovered unmarked graves on the property of one of the Laundries, and it contained 250 bodies, some infants among them. Let me play it for you.”
         Sipe located the CD on his shelves and played it. It began with a strange, haunting sound Mitchell strummed in an open tuning on her guitar.

I was an unmarried girl,
I'd just turned twenty-seven
When they sent me to the sisters
For the way men looked at me.
Branded as a Jezebel
I knew I was not bound for Heaven
I'd be cast in shame
Into the Magdalene laundries.

Most girls come here pregnant
Some by their own fathers.
Bridget got that belly by her parish priest.
We're trying to get things white as snow
All of us woe-begotten-daughters
In the streaming stains
Of the Magdalene laundries.

Prostitutes and destitutes
And temptresses like me,
Fallen women
Sentenced into dreamless drudgery.
Why do they call this heartless place
Our Lady of Charity?
Oh charity!

These bloodless brides of Jesus
If they had just once glimpsed their groom,
Then they'd know, and they'd drop the stones
Concealed behind their rosaries,
They wilt the grass they walk upon
They leech the light out of a room
They'd like to drive us down the drain
At the Magdalene laundries.

Peg O'Connell died today
She was a cheeky girl, a flirt.
They just stuffed her in a hole!
Surely to God you'd think at least some bells should ring!
One day I'm going to die here too
And they'll plant me in the dirt
Like some lame bulb
That never blooms, come any spring
Not any spring