Last week’s New York Times obituary for the chef Andre Soltner, whose mid-Manhattan restaurant Lutece was legendary, makes no mention of Martha’s Vineyard, but there is a connection, and the place of connection is a camp on a narrow strip of sand between Lake Tashmoo and Vineyard Sound.

The camp was owned by Joe Hyde, a chef and caterer, who had been asked by Town and Country Magazine to write as a trial two articles: one about Lutece, which opened in 1961, and the other about Gage and Tollner, a Brooklyn Restaurant that opened almost a hundred years earlier.

Inevitably, Joe’s research included several meals at Lutece. One chef to another, Soltner and Hyde became friends, and so in the summer of 1962 Andre came to visit. Joe’s camp was little more than a shack. It had water and gas for lights and an ancient stove, but no electricity or telephone.

When Andre came up from New York, he brought with him all the ingredients for a dish created by a French chef for a Russian Prince: Saddle of Veal Orloff.

The “saddle” is cut from the loin that extends from the end of the ribs to the legs on both sides of an animal, the prize cut (if meat is your thing).

Saddle of Veal Orloff is a classic French dish combining thinly sliced roast veal, mushroom duxelles, onion soubise and creamy Mornay sauce. It’s richly decadent with a taste quite unlike anything else.

In a primitive kitchen in that rustic camp beside Vineyard Sound and Lake Tashmoo, Andre Soltner made this amazing dish, probably the first time and perhaps the last time such a feast was set on a dinner plate on Martha’s Vineyard.

If there is a heaven where chefs go, Joe Hyde and Andre Soltner have a memory to share. Those of us who partook in that meal will never forget it.

If you want to try making it yourself, Julia Child’s recipe for Veal Orloff runs for three pages in Mastering the Art of French Cooking.

Peter McGhee

Chilmark and Cambridge