SOPHIE PARKER

The Post Star

Chez Sophie Bistro, located since 1995 in a renovated steel diner on Route 9 in Malta Ridge, was founded by Sophie and Joseph Parker in 1969.Sophie a renowned French chef, died Tuesday at her home in Hadley, but her restaurant will go on.

Bistro to Survive Death of Founder
By MARIA M. BUCCIFERRO

MALTA -- A popular French bistro that got its start in Hadley more than 30 years ago will live on despite the death of its namesake and longtime chef.

Chez Sophie Bistro got its start in 1969 in a building next to the Hadley home of Sophie Parker, who died Tuesday.

Over the years, Parker, a French chef, built the restaurant into a local institution with a discerning clientele. Her cooking won high praise in 1998 from a food critic for The New York Times. And when Robert Redford was wrapping up the filming of "The Horse Whisperer" in 1997, he mentioned two things he'd miss most about Saratoga County: Saratoga Spa State Park and Chez Sophie Bistro.

Parker died at her home in Hadley, surrounded by family and friends, after a long battle with cancer. She had worked in the bistro, a restored stainless steel diner on Route 9, until the spring of last year.

The restaurant that bears her name will live on, run by her son Paul and her artist-sculptor husband, Joseph, with Mark Trietley as chef.

Trietley had worked with Parker for several years, said Parker's daughter-in-law, Cheryl Clark, who was busy greeting customers Tuesday evening.

"Sophie's legacy deserves to live on," Clark said.

"She made it very clear how she wants this place to be run."

Redford wasn't the only celebrity who frequented the bistro. Another loyal customer was Alfred Vanderbilt, one of the leading thoroughbred owners in the nation, who died last year.

"He was a wonderful customer for years and years," Clark said.

"He was a great friend of Sophie's and a great supporter."

Vanderbilt brought his family to the restaurant in its early days in Hadley and remained a loyal customer when the bistro moved to Caroline Street in Saratoga Springs in the 1970s. The restaurant later moved back to Hadley, and to Washington Street in Saratoga Springs, before closing for a time.

"Retirement didn't sit well with her. She missed cooking," Clark said of Parker. So the bistro reopened at its current location in Malta on July 14, 1995 -- Bastille Day -- with Parker's son Paul as general manager.

Born in Billy-Montigny, France, in 1927, Parker was orphaned before World War II and was raised by nuns, Clark said.

Joseph Parker was an art student studying in Paris on the G.I. bill when he met Sophie on a Paris subway in 1947. He could speak no French, and she could speak no English, Clark said.

The couple moved to New York in 1951, after the birth of their first child. Joseph worked as a commercial artist, while Sophie became the seventh-ranked fencer in the country, Clark said.

The Parkers first visited the North Country through a friend, Toni Collura, who was a fencer and lived at Hunt Lake.

Parker's death is "quite a loss," said Hadley Supervisor Thomas Mason, who knew her for 30 years.

She was a friend of mine," Mason said.

"She was a nice person and a great cook."