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Brigette Homrig Renaud '89 with a long-time employee in Fleur de Sel, the restaurant she owns with husband and chef Cyril Renaud.

BY DAY, BRIGETTE HOMRIG RENAUD '89 WORKS IN A MIDTOWN Manhattan law firm where she can go for long periods without seeing another person. Instead, she often holds conference calls with corporate clients and actuaries, and pores over the federal tax code in a set of books that go out of date every six months. By night, she enters a different realm, behind the scenes in a cozy French restaurant that she owns with her husband in New York's Flatiron District. Here, 30 people of different complexions and native tongues move deftly in and out of each other's space in a kind of dance. It is a workplace where there is no such thing as a private phone call and everyone always knows who's having a bad day.

This is hardly the life Renaud envisioned when she graduated from the UNH hospitality management program in 1989, headed for a career in international hotel management. She got her first job at London's Hilton on Park Lane. The only American working in the huge hotel and the only woman in her department, she befriended another outsider, a Frenchman named Cyril Renaud. When they parted a few months later, they vowed to keep in touch while she attended law school back in the United States. For three years they communicated by letter, in French and English.

Brigette and Cyril Renaud shopping at a farmer's market.

The pair married in Renaud's native Brittany. Following local custom, virtually the entire town of 400 people turned out for the "toast of honor" after the ceremony, and every one of the guests expected the bride to deliver the customary four bisous, or kisses, alternating cheeks twice. (This grand display of affection must have been contagious. Today she greets friends and restaurant workers alike with two bisous and an expansive "Hi, how are you!")

The couple moved to New York, where Cyril Renaud worked as a chef at two of the city's most famous restaurants—first Bouley and then La Caravelle. But Brigette suggested they open their own place. Fleur de Sel, or "flower of salt," was named after the gourmet salt from Brittany.

Goat cheese ravioli garnished with caviar.

Fleur de Sel, which opened in 2000 in a small brick townhouse on E. 20th Street, has received excellent reviews from The New York Times, The New Yorker, and New York magazine. "Who doesn't pine for that little neighborhood restaurant, tucked away on a side street, where the lighting is subdued, the Chef is French, and the food is terrific?" The Times asked rhetorically. Fleur de Sel's many repeat customers, including some famous New Yorkers like Gwyneth Paltrow and Jimmy Fallon, apparently agree.

When it comes to running the restaurant, Brigette Renaud says she takes the "20,000-foot view." Her business background continues to be helpful in dealing with insurance policies, investor relations, human resources and legal concerns. She also enjoys debriefing people she knows—often from her Midtown world—who have recently dined at Fleur de Sel. "Sometimes I feel like a spy," she says, "but they know I want the whole truth!"

When Renaud spends time at the restaurant, she can usually be found in the cellar, perhaps joking with the pastry cook about how many times "Chef" has come down to sneak a pastry. She might spend some time going over figures in a snug cockpit of an office near the wine storage area. It's a typical New York space, crammed with two or three people and four computers, and she enjoys hearing the workers "buzzing around" just outside the open door.

Of the many roles Renaud plays in her double life, none is more enjoyable than "food appreciator." Her husband, whose paintings adorn the walls of the restaurant, is an artist as well as a chef, and she often describes his dishes in visual as much as gustatory terms. She speaks lovingly of the "beautiful little pillows" of goat cheese ravioli in a brilliant red beet-Dijon jus. But her sentimental favorite has to be the caramelized apple crêpe—a traditional dish from Brittany. "I can take some credit for the Devonshire cream Cyril puts on top," she says. "It's a dessert where English meets French."

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