Foodservice News is excited to present its first annual Top Ten Chef list. It was a tough choice, because the Twin Cities has more than its fair share of talented chefs. We know going into this that we left off many worthy candidates, and we’d lose sleep over it if there wasn’t going to be a list next year and the year after that.

Here’s the short list on what didn’t influence our decision: free food, bribes, calls from their mothers, tips from psychics, requests from PR people.

What we did take into account were: Our own observations, the observations from local and national media and suggestions from industry pundits.


David Fhima
Mpls. Cafe, Fhima’s, Louis XIII

Background: Born in Casablanca, and educated in cities such as Strasbourg, London and Geneva, David Fhima said his best culinary education was getting in the kitchen of a restaurant and working. “I’ve worked in some great restaurants and some not-so-great restaurants,” he said. Growing up in a family of ten children helped, too—Fhima’s mother, he said, was a “great cook” and an inspiration for him. “I don’t ever remember eating the same thing twice,” he said.

His European experience with food and “trying everything” is what motivates him with his restaurants. “It’s a love; I like creating things, I like dealing with people,” he said. “I like getting them to try things they haven’t tried before.”

What he’s most proud of: My kitchen’s versatility to create the memorable experience or the casual meal—whatever the customer wants. My kitchen has the mentality to run wild with the menu.

The downside of success: I only get to spend about half my time in the restaurants’ kitchens. That’s not nearly as much as I wish.

Is there a difference between American and European palates? No. American palates are just as sophisticated. It’s just that American culture revolves around other things—housing, cars, investments—rather than eating well and drinking well. America, particularly Minnesota, takes the easy safe route with food. And they want it fast, even fine dining. But when you expose that palate to great food, it’s just as sophisticated.

You studied to be a mechanical engineer. Has that impacted your cooking in some way? It’s funny, because I never thought about it until someone mentioned it to me. All my dishes are very symmetrical.

Guilty pleasure food: Foie gras. That, and cheeses. I love cheeses.

—Mike Mitchelson


Vincent Francoual
Vincent: A Restaurant

Background: A native of Puy-L’Eveque, France, Vincent Francoual earned a C.A.P. of Cuisine and Pastry at the culinary school in Souillac. After working in the kitchens of hotels and resorts throughout Europe, including a short stint with Celebrity Cruise Lines, Francoual came to the United States for what was to be a six-month stay. He met his future wife in New York City and France’s loss was our gain (as if giving us the Statue of Liberty all those years ago wasn’t gift enough). When Northwest Airlines transferred his wife to Minnesota, the Twin Cities became the beneficiary of his talents in the kitchen—and as a charming host.

Memorable U.S. training: Chef de partie at New York City’s famed four-star Le Bernadin, under Eric Ripert.

Before opening Vincent, other Twin Cities experience: Executive chef at Un, Deux, Trois

FSN meets Vincent for the first time: 2001 at a Kids Café benefit dinner. Francoual was one of four chefs volunteering his time. He prepared a lobster cappuccino, a frothy wonder in a tiny cup that took only a few sips to polish off—a few sips too few. What impressed the crowd was the amount of work that went into the dish, which Francoual demonstratively demonstrated.

Has your philosophy of cooking changed over the years? When you’re young you want to do everything. Now I’m feeling more humble. I want good, clean food. (“Clean,” by the way, means “three, not 10,000 ingredients.”) If I cook monkfish, I want you to have the flavor of monkfish.

What attributes are you looking for when you hire cooks? Passion. People who aren’t afraid to get angry, or to make mistakes.

Favorite junk food: Kraft macaroni and cheese, especially after a few beers at home. And, sour cream Pringles.

Favorite place to dine in the Twin Cities: Broders’ Pasta Bar, because it’s a neighborhood place where I feel comfortable. Also Alma.

Do diners at Vincent ask you over to the table just to hear your French accent? I don’t have an accent. Everyone here has an accent, not me.

—Nancy Weingartner


Michael Goodman
Pazzaluna Urban Trattoria and Bar

Background: Goodman started working in restaurants at age 15. He attended Bemidji State University to study industrial organizational psychology, but decided the major didn’t fit him. Restaurants did, however. He worked as sous chef at the Country Pub in Kasota, Minn., while resuming his degree at Mankato State when he “did a one-eighty” and asked if the restaurant would pay his way through culinary school. He graduated from South Central Technical College’s culinary program in 1995. In April 1999, Goodman joined Pazzaluna as the interim executive chef. In 2001 he also became general manager.

How does it work as GM and executive chef? In Pazzaluna’s situation, it makes sense. It’s hard to have a high-powered chef come in and then put the bridle on them. We’ve carved out a niche to stay in.

Have your psychology studies helped? Immensely, with how I motivate and talk to people, really try to individualize the person on the staff. That also comes with maturity, too—time in a position. You learn to keep your mouth shut, to think before you react.

Your take on critics and reviews? Reviews, in my opinion, are more for marketing; they’re more for the consumer, not for the person receiving the award. … This is a small restaurant town, considering New York, Chicago, etc. You have to be careful who you’re dealing with, and how you’re dealing with them and be cognizant of the fact that you’re going run into them again someday. It’s nice to get a good review—I can’t deny that—and it’s the best PR you can get.

Favorite place to eat: My kitchen or on my deck. My wife and I have an appreciation for entertaining, and I’ve got four children. On my days off I spend a lot of time with the family.

Guilty pleasure food: Peanut M&Ms and microwave popcorn. Try it, and you’ll never watch a movie without it as long as you live. You get the popcorn when it comes out of the microwave, pull on the corners of the bag and you dump in a big fat bag of peanut M&Ms, give it a shake, dump it into a bowl, and you’ll never be the same.

—MM


Jim Lund
ACF Chef of the Year

Background: Lund rang in 2004 as the Chef of the Year for the American Culinary Federation’s Minneapolis chapter and earned his certification as an ACF-certified executive chef. At the end of November, he left the kitchens of Maple Grove’s Rush Creek Golf Club, where he was executive chef for the past five and a half years. His accomplishments are far from his college days of boiling ramen noodles while he studied computer science at North Dakota State University. After a few months working in a pancake house, he realized cooking gave him more gratification than a string of zeroes and ones.

Is it stressful to plan the ACF’s annual awards dinner, knowing you’re cooking for the choir? “I haven’t worried the past couple of years, but this year is a little bit different because we had special guests coming to town from the national ACF and the Food Network.” He hedged his bet by preparing a beef tenderloin for the main course—the recipe won him a gold medal at the 2003 UP Show.

Plans for 2005? A new restaurant or club, consulting work, and teaching are all possibilities.

Best part of belonging to the ACF? The camaraderie. Through good times like winning Chef of the Year, and now when I’m looking for something new, they’re supporting me and giving me new venues to source out.

To what do you attribute your success, so far? Hard work, long hours and staying focused on my goal.

What does the ACF Chef of the Year mean to you? Has it changed how you do your job? It means a ton. To receive an award like that from my peers in the chapter is a huge honor for me, and I was completely shocked to get it. As far as what I do, it doesn’t change anything—it’s an award I received for the hard work that I did along the day. I’d say it reinforces what I’ve been doing.

Favorite place in town to eat? I’m always looking for something new. If I was going to pick a spot, I’d say Goodfellow’s, because I know they’ll have top-quality food and excellent service. At home, I love to grill.

—Jacob Bunge


Tim McKee
Solera, La Belle Vie

Background: Chef Tim McKee is co-owner of Solera and La Belle Vie restaurants in Minneapolis and Stillwater, respectively, but he didn’t get serious about cooking until 1990, while working at Azur in the Gaviidae Common. Then he won a Top 10 New Chefs award from Food & Wine magazine in 1997, which really gave him the reason to believe in what he was doing with his pots and pans.

In 1998, he and Josh Thoma opened La Belle Vie in Stillwater. The restaurant, specializing in French Mediterranean cuisine has remained one of the Twin Cities’ best places to eat. In 2003 they opened Solera. The tapas restaurant was recently listed as one of the 10 best restaurants in the country by Food & Wine magazine.

Schooling? Working at Azur. I did an awful lot of reading.

Philosophy: Freshness and simplicity are keys to a good dish. If you have good quality ingredients, you let them work (for you).

How did the Food & Wine Award affect you? It raised my profile, for sure. It just showed that people really did like what I was doing.

How much stock do you take in the critics and awards? A lot of critics wouldn’t be where they are if they didn’t have a certain knowledge. But you hear a lot of things, so it’s not always something you pay attention to religiously. It’s nice to hear when people like what you’re doing, and disappointing to hear when they don’t.

Do you analyze weaknesses that might come from a review? Absolutely. I think it’s constructive when you hear things that aren’t glowing.

Favorite place to eat in town? I enjoy Japanese cuisine quite a bit. I really like Origami. I like a lot of the smaller ethnic Mexican places around town, and the Quang Deli for Vietnamese.

Guilty pleasure food: I’m a big fan of Chicago dogs. But I don’t love the neon green relish.

The life outside the restaurant: I like to spend it with my kids, and in the summer I like to spend it out on the St. Croix boating.

—MM


Jason Robinson
Goodfellow’s

Background: Before joining Goodfellow’s over the summer, Jason Robinson was chef de cuisine at Chicago’s famed Tru. His culinary education took place entirely in the kitchen, beginning nine years ago at Fog City Diner in Las Vegas as a prep cook. At Goodfellow’s, Robinson is bringing his own particular flair to American cooking, incorporating what he learned working with Tru’s award-winning Chef Rick Tramonto.

What’s in store for diners at Goodfellow’s? A six-course tasting menu, which means you leave it up to me. A group of four might try up to 30 dishes—appetizers, main courses, fish and cold courses and dessert.

How did you decide to embark on your career? I was working at 7-Eleven, and I was debating whether to go to culinary school. My dad said, “Why don’t you get a job in a kitchen and make sure you like it,” and I’ve just never looked back from there. I’ve always cooked at home and always loved it.

On earning the critics praises: Maintaining a high level across the board, whether it be cleaning or ordering—do everything the best that you can—that in itself reflects in the food. I demand a lot out of my cooks, but I also like to have a good time when I cook.

How do you interpret reviews? I definitely appreciate feedback regardless if it’s good or bad. It always keeps you on your toes.

Guilty pleasure food: I’ve got to have a Whopper at least once a month.

Life outside the kitchen: I’ve got a 14 month-old baby girl, so she takes up a lot of time when I’m not at work. My wife and I are new to the area so we’re doing a lot of home projects and meeting neighbors. I try to spend as much time with my family because work does take a lot of time.

—MM


Lenny Russo
Heartland

Background: Chef Lenny Russo was the executive chef at W.A. Frost, a corporate chef for U.S. Restaurants and Aveda, worked at the Loring Café and Faegre’s—all before opening his Heartland restaurant in St. Paul. Not bad for a man whose formal education was in philosophy, literature and clinical psychology. His training in the kitchen was entirely on the job, working his way through college.

How did you train to be a chef? Find the best chef I could—many of them Le Cordon Bleu-trained in France—and start from the bottom up to the top, and then quit. Then do it again. The challenge is to see how much can be learned.

Heartland’s rave reviews always mention your use of local ingredients. What are your thoughts on this? The Midwest is comparable to any place in the world. My general philosophy is to source out the best possible local ingredients. I have to be able to talk to the person growing them.

Who do you buy from? The small family farmer who employs sensible environmental precautions on the farm, such as crop rotation and is truly organic.

What about the critics? It’s hard for me to think the way a critic would think. And it’s hard for me to objectively evaluate my work—I cook to what tastes good to me. It’s hard for me to say I’m better than someone else because it’s my taste. It’s so subjective. It’s always nice to have someone pat you on the back, but if there weren’t financial reasons for loving what the critics said about you, you probably wouldn’t care what they said at all.

You’re a trained psychologist. Does it help with your business? I’m a good listener. I think my staff appreciates that when they have concern they’re at least going to have an open ear, and that I’m going to take time to think about what they say. You’re working in a high pressure environment, so there are things that happen that sometime need to be sorted through.

Your favorite place in town to eat: No favorites, but I have a lot of friends who are chefs in town, and it really comes down to what my wife and I are in the mood for. But I give a lot respect for my peers here, I think the men and women in town are doing a great job.

Guilty pleasure/comfort food: I’m Italian. It’s not really guilty, but I like pasta. I like eating it and it’s really comforting to me to put some in my mouth.

—MM


Don Saunders
A Rebours

Background: At 28 years old, Saunders might not have the years of experience other chefs in the Top 10 list might have, but his skills are being recognized around town nonetheless. A Rebours, less than a year old, is already being hailed as one of the best Twin Cities restaurants, largely because of Saunders’ classic French training.

Saunders went to the University of Wisconsin-Stout for hotel and restaurant management. After college, he trained at Le Cordon Bleu in London, England, and interned at Chez Bruce before returning stateside. He then worked as sous chef at Vincent: a Restaurant for two years, then at La Belle Vie in Stillwater for a year before starting at A Rebours. He’s been fortunate, he said, to have worked for “very good, intense chefs” from the start of his young career.

If you owned a place: If I were to open my own place, I’d move toward even more classic French. There’s something about French food, the history of it, of bringing back classics and putting a twist on it. The ingredients really do the talking, the vegetables—everything—is cooked to perfection.

The key to achieving a great meal: I think the most important thing is following techniques that work. The majority of my time spent with my cooks is on technique.

The transition from sous chef to executive: Before, all the planning was done for me. Now, I’m in charge, I plan, and make up my own way of keeping track of food costs, and I have to hire my staff.

Where do you enjoy eating around town? I’m a huge sushi fan, so I go to Faji-Ya and Sushi Tango. There’s also Vincent.

Guilty pleasure food: Ben & Jerry’s ice cream. Chubby Hubby.

The life outside work: I love horse racing. During the summer, I go every Sunday to Canterbury Park. I also love baseball.


John Schiltz
Lake Elmo Inn

Background: Schiltz owns the restaurant he washed dishes in when he was 16. After high school, he enrolled in St. Paul Technical College’s culinary program. “It was a perfect fit,” he said.

He then went on to work in hotel kitchens in Colorado Springs and San Francisco. His break came when he was hired at the Hyatt in San Francisco, and helped open other Hyatts in Kansas City, Fort Worth, and, in 1981, Minneapolis.

You went from high school to culinary school. What other interests did you have? I was also interested in woodworking. But my idea of that and the reality of my job in a cabinet factory were very different. Cooking came very easy to me. I work long hours, but it’s still a joy to me.

What’s the story behind purchasing the Lake Elmo Inn from your former employer, Ben Gorka? I returned home for a friend’s wedding in 1983 and that day found out that Gorka was putting the Inn up for sale. Gorka initially did not want to sell to me because, being 27, he thought I was too young. But his wife was listening in the background, and she told him to give me a chance. I opened as the Lake Elmo Inn on December 1, 1983.

Cooking philosophy? The simpler the better. Salt and pepper are my main seasoning ingredients. I might keep some margarine around for a guests needs, but otherwise there’s no MSG and things like that. I think that’s where a lot of health problems begin. If you stick with what mother nature gives you, you’re in pretty good shape.

The critics: Some of the criticisms I take more to heart, because sometimes you need someone else’s eyes to set you right. And the praises, I’m very grateful, but I’m not going to walk around and high-five everybody. It’s a team effort.

Life outside the kitchen: I’m an avid golfer, and I love to travel to big cities, like Rio, Sydney, Hong Kong or Paris.

Guilty pleasure food: Foie gras. I don’t carry it at the Inn, which is a good thing, because I’d eat all of it and clog my arteries in one sitting. That and Häagen Dazs chocolate chocolate chip ice cream.

—MM


Lucia Watson
Lucia’s

Background: A native Minnesotan, Watson graduated from the University of Minnesota with a degree in French. She always loved to cook—learning from her grandmother—but didn’t catch the restaurant “bug” until she worked as a waitress in a bistro in Virginia. “I always bugged the chef,” she said. “So finally he said, ‘O.K., come on back and start.’” She returned to Minnesota, ran a catering company, and opened Lucia’s in 1985. Watson was recently nominated for a James Beard Award—Best Chef in the Midwest for 2004.

Despite the praises she’s earned with her restaurant, Lucia’s, in Minneapolis’ Uptown neighborhood, Watson sometimes wishes she went to culinary school to get that “formal training and knowledge.” But being thrown into the kitchen is also a good way to learn, she said, because you learn speed.

The key to her success: A small menu, which changes weekly. We try to really create a menu limited in size that’s well-executed with flavor and balance.

What are you particularly proud of: My work in the local food arena. All our ingredients come from area growers, which fit with my seasonal approach to the menu. Midwestern appetites are really driven by the seasons.

The critics’ praises: I like to think that although the menu changes every week, we have consistent, strong food and a consistent level of service. I hope that’s why we’ve been praised. I like to be accessible to our neighbors for a cup of soup and a glass of wine, or those that want to make a night of it. The customers here know what I’m about. They don’t have preconceptions, and they’re important to me.

Thoughts on the business: It’s extremely demanding. You are only as good as the food you serve that night. You can never let your guard down.

Favorite food: I love grilling in the summer, and I am an ice cream fanatic.

The life outside the restaurant: I practice yoga, I have two dogs, a mutt and a Lab, and I co-own a home in France. I also hope to write another cookbook. I wrote one with Beth Dooley, “Savoring the Seasons,” which was just released in paperback.

—MM