Parting is never easy — especially when it’s done publicly with stinging words and bitter emotions.

Such was the case when Chef Bruno Chemel departed Mountain View’s venerable Chez TJ in December. In a battle played out in the press, Chez TJ Proprietor George Aviet expressed his displeasure that Chemel had not brought Michelin two-star fame to his establishment like his predecessor Chef Christopher Kostow, now at the Restaurant at Meadowood in St. Helena, had. During his less than two years at Chez TJ, Chemel had garnered one Michelin star.

When they couldn’t see eye to eye on that chase for the star (s), Chemel left to open his own restaurant, Baume in Palo Alto, in January. Meantime, Aviet hired Scott Nishiyama, who worked at Daniel Boulud in New York and at the French Laundry in Yountville.

Named after 18^th century French chemist, Antoine Baume, Chemel’s new restaurant is a Zen-like oasis for his brand of elegant molecular gastronomy cooking. The intimate 22-seat restaurant is done up in warm dark chocolate and burnt orange hues, and accented with artsy glass panes covered in Japanese dried seaweed. It serves only tasting menus — five courses ($78), 10 courses ($108), and 15 courses for ($148) at dinner; and a three-course lunch for $48 offered on Monday, Thursday and Friday.

Last week when I visited, the 41-year-old Chemel proudly showed off his new freeze-drying machine that had just been delivered. It can freeze anything — from a sauce to any vegetable — in a flash. Inside his kitchen, you’ll find such molecular gastronomy staples as a dehydrator and canisters of liquid nitrogen, as well as more personal touches such as a framed cotton dish towel from his days working with the legendary Joel Robuchon.

I sat down to chat with Chemel about the Chez TJ incident, and the hopes he has for his new restaurant.

Q: Of course, I have to ask about Chez TJ. Are you satisfied with the way things ended?

A: I did my job for two years. I did my best. All the dirty laundry — I let him (Aviet) do. It’s out of my memory now.

Q: Your pastry chef at Chez TJ, Ryan Shelton, followed you here. Did all of the Chez TJ staff leave with you?

A: When I gave notice, the staff gave notice. I told them that they shouldn’t, but they wanted to come with me. So, most of the staff did leave with me.

Q: Is your cooking different here than at Chez TJ?

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An upscale vegetarian restaurant, constructed of recycled and reclaimed wood, which grows much of its own organic produce and buys the rest from local farmers.

Sounds standard now, doesn’t it? But in 1979, when Greens Restaurant opened its doors at Fort Mason in San Francisco, vegetarian food was anything but elegant and refined. Opened by the San Francisco Zen Center in what was an old Army base, the tranquil restaurant with its sweeping views of the Bay, elevated the then-heavy and heavily brown-colored vegetarian cooking of the day to new heights by even daring to serve wine.

Its building was constructed by carpenters from the Zen Center, including lead designer Paul Discoe, an ordained Zen Buddhist priest, who later went on to design Oracle CEO Larry Ellison’s much-ballyhooed Zen palace in Woodside.

The restaurant may have just gotten spiffed up with new carpet, new slate entry tiles, a warmer paint color and new chairs on the way. But one thing has remained the same. For 28 of the restaurant’s 30 years, one woman has been a constant in the kitchen — Chef Annie Somerville, who took over from founding chef, Deborah Madison.

The slender, energetic, 57-year-old Somerville chatted with me recently about the restaurant’s amazing longevity; why she doesn’t own a cell phone; and what fellow chef and avowed carnivore, Chris Cosentino of Incanto, thinks of her.

Q: Are you surprised Greens has endured all these years?

A: When we shut down for the remodel, I had a chance to go through all these old articles in a filing cabinet. When you read the early reviews, you see how shocked people were that vegetarian food could be so beautiful and that it could be a cuisine in its own right.

I’ll look at recipes we haven’t done in awhile and think, ‘Wow, we’ve been doing that so long and others are making it now.’ It’s all so timely, and we’re still around.

Q: And this is the first restaurant you’ve ever worked at?

A: I never thought I’d be here, and I never thought it would last. The restaurant opened with very little money. We all worked for very little. We had to be thrifty.

Back then, I thought the people working here were crazy. (laughs) They were all so tired. They were dragging. But everybody did everything. A Zen master might be the dishwasher. And we’d all hose off the mats at the end of the night.

Q: When did you become vegetarian?

A: In high school. It was the thing to do at the time.

I don’t think of it in a strict way. I’m not a vegan or a strident vegetarian. Occasionally, I’ll still eat a little chicken or fish. I think the reason Greens has been here so long is because it does beautiful food. I don’t think of it as vegetarian.

Q: Did becoming a vegetarian change your palate?

A: My palate became more rarefied because we have all these great ingredients to cook with. I’m also much more aware of salt now because I eat almost no processed foods.

I don’t think most of our guests here are vegetarian, but we have no way of knowing for sure. For some vegetarians, Greens is not vegetarian enough because we use butter, we use cheese, and there is rennet in the European cheeses we serve. Over the years, I think our food has gotten leaner. Deborah’s cooking was influenced by French cuisine, so there was roux, and butter in sauces. Nowadays, though, we saute in oil and finish dishes with butter, so people can opt to have it or not.

Q: What’s your ideal meal?

A: At home the other night, I had Romanesco cauliflower that I cut into pieces, and roasted at 400 degrees with olive oil and pepper until they were crisp, then squirted on some Meyer lemon juice. Then, I made some polenta with butter and Parmesan. Next, I saute a big head of chard with green garlic and spring onions. There was a nice toasted walnut bread with Andante cheese. For dessert, there were organic almonds, dates and mandarins from the farmers market. My husband and I sat down to all of that, and it was lovely. Everything we ate was grown by someone I knew.

Q: Does it irk you when folks like Anthony Bourdain deride vegetarians as the scourge of the planet?

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