This is one dinner that's destined to elicit Oh! la la's. Two dear friends, who also happen to be extraordinary chefs, are joining forces to bring us what's certain to be an elegant and memorable evening. Not too long ago, both Laurent Manrique and Sylvain Portay cooked in New York, and all you had to do for a taste of their outstanding food was to hail a cab and hotfoot it to Midtown, or thereabouts. These days, except for one very special night this month, you'd have to book a flight across the United States.

Both Manrique and Portay boast iron-clad rèsumès. Indeed, "for a chef, the rèsumè of Laurent Manrique approaches the ideal," according to Caroline Bates of Gourmet, "a childhood close to the earth and an apprenticeship among the stars." That childhood was spent in Gascony, where Manrique's grandparents ran an auberge; and the apprenticeship? Taillevent, naturellement. After receiving his diploma in haute cuisine, Manrique left Paris for L.A., where he had his first taste of California cuisine. In 1991, he was tapped for the top post at Le Comptoir in New York City. From there he moved on to Peacock Alley at the Waldorf-Astoria. New Yorkers were thrilled. Next, it was on to Gertrude's, where the applause reached near-fever pitch. Bates described Manrique's menu at Campton Place as "a love letter to Gascony and the Basque country of his Spanish father." Bill Citara of the San Francisco Examiner put it simply: "Manrique's food is, in a word, luscious."

San Francisco knows a good thing when it has one. Once it had one great New York chef on the line, it cast about for another. Soon the City by the Bay managed to lure Portay away too. A native of Evian-les-Bains, Portay began his career in 1976 as an apprentice with Jean-Louis Palladin at La Table des Cordeliers in Condom, France. He spent three years at Restaurant Faugeron in Paris before coming to the States to work with Palladin at his legendary D.C. outpost, Jean-Louis at the Watergate. In 1980, he returned to France to work with the crëme de la crëme: Jacques Maximin, Jean Delveyne, and Alain Ducasse. Fresh from his stint as Ducasse's chef de cuisine at the Michelin three-starred Louis XV in Monaco, Portay joined the team at Le Cirque. When Le Cirque closed for renovations, The Ritz-Carlton, San Francisco, made its move. Under Portay's direction, the acclaimed Dining Room has earned four stars from the San Francisco Examiner, and is consistently named the city's best restaurant by Gourmet readers.