Chefs to Watch. A very general-sounding category, you say. But these five chefs are far from generalists. Each has made—or is making—some noise in the restaurant community, each has undergone some dramatic changes in the recent past, and each, we think, will impact the restaurant and foodservice community in unique ways in 2007.
—Mike Mitchelson, editor
Eric “Big E” Austin
In 2002, Chef Eric Austin opened the tiny, 15-seat Big E’s Soul Food, and won much acclaim for his ambitious “neo-soul food” menu, with rave reviews in every local publication.
But after his lender forced a business partnership on him, which caused a personal and management-style rift, Austin walked out of his namesake restaurant in 2004 and entered the restaurant and bar next door, then called Soul City Supper Club. Austin struck up a partnership with the owner, and changed the name to Chef E’s Soul Food. Big E’s continued to operate without Austin. Big E’s closed quickly, however, once customers realized the chef had moved next door.
“I had one party of 10 walk in (to Chef E’s) and they said, ‘We’re waiting for six other people,’” Austin recalled, laughing. “And the six others were sitting next door (in Big E’s). A gentleman in the party stepped outside and poked his head in (at Big E’s) and said simply to his party, ‘You’re at the wrong E’s, Chef E is over here,’ and the entire restaurant stood up, emptied out and went over to Chef E’s. Subsequently, (Big E’s) closed the next day.”
But at Chef E’s, Austin and his partner’s relationship also soured. The final straw was when the partner fired his kitchen staff and replaced it with family relatives, Austin said. “They figured if they had the recipes, they could do the same thing,” Austin said. “And I said, ‘You guys really got to come up with a new script, because that really doesn’t work. While I’ve taught you everything that you know, I have not taught you everything that I know.”
Austin then left that restaurant, alerted the StarTribune that he did so, and Chef E’s closed in about a week.
Follow that?
Austin admits it’s a bit of a comedy. But he felt it necessary to leave both restaurants to protect his unique brand of restaurant and food—and protect it he has, by keeping his name active in the press, creating a Web site and blog, conducting cooking classes and catering events around the Twin Cities. He’s also kept busy filming episodes for two cable television cooking series, Kitchen Rescue and Soul Kitchen. Both are being marketed to Food Network and other cable networks.
While Austin remains active, there’s a big hole left in Twin Cities cuisine with his talents on the sideline—but that might be about to change. Austin has been carefully meeting with potential investors. “My first go round, everyone that stuck up a dollar, I was like ‘great!’” Austin said. “Now it’s, ‘Let’s examine this dollar a little more closely.’ Every dollar is not a good dollar.”
He has two investors on board, and hopes to open a new restaurant in the spring of 2007. And with the continued feedback he gets when he’s out about town and from his blog from people yearning for his old restaurants, he’s confident his customers will return. No one doubts his culinary chops, which includes training at the Culinary Institute of America in New York, cooking in restaurants in Europe and then in the Twin Cities at top restaurants like café un deux trois and Aquavit.
Most importantly, Austin got his name back. “I just had a district court judge give me my name and title back,” he said. “So on paper, I am now officially Big E and Chef E again.”
Included in the decision was all the original artwork he and his wife, Melanie, created for the walls of their original Big E’s restaurant.
Austin has two Minneapolis locations in mind, in the Nicollet Mall/Hennepin Avenue area downtown. “We want to come back with a real restaurant,” he said. “The same kind of mom-and-pop quality, but we want to start playing with the big boys now that we’re pretty well regarded in town.”
David Fhima
It’s been an interesting year for David Fhima. Or, as he phrased it, “It’s been a humbling year all around.”
Fhima’s well-publicized restaurant endeavors included, at the start of 2006, fhima’s and LoTo in St. Paul and Louis XIII in Edina’s Southdale Mall. Then in June, a front page story in the Pioneer Press revealed a list of financial and legal problems plaguing Fhima’s restaurant company, totaling about $900,000.
Rather than withdrawing into the fetal position, however, Fhima didn’t hide from the press and focused on righting his ship. That included closing the financially draining Louis XIII (“I made the mistake of not cutting it loose anytime sooner,” Fhima told FSN in August) and bringing on board a new business partner to handle the financial side of the business. Finally, Fhima got himself back in the kitchen.
What a difference six months can make. Now, rumors are swirling about other restaurant deals involving Fhima. Mpls./St.Paul Magazine food critic Andrew Zimmern gabs on his blog (http://msp.blogs.com/chowandagain/) about a possible deal with LifeTime Fitness CEO Bahram Akradi.
To those rumors, Fhima had no comment. With more time now to spend in his restaurants instead of managing the books, he’s taking advantage of it. “I’m actually sitting down with vendors again, and tasting products, and developing menus,” he said. “I haven’t done that in a long time.”
Chris Dwyer
After 10 years teaching at Le Cordon Bleu and Minneapolis Community and Technical College, Chef Chris Dwyer, who is also the outgoing president of the American Culinary Federation’s Minneapolis Chapter, this past summer thought it was time to get back in the kitchen. “I saw so many of my students doing so well out there, I thought I’d better show them I can still do it.”
The place was DoubleTree Hotel Minneapolis-Park Place in St. Louis Park, which recently underwent an $8.5 million renovation, including a thorough revamp of its restaurant, Dover. Dwyer’s task is to roll out a new menu for every aspect of the hotel’s foodservice operations.
One priority is to re-establish the hotel as the go-to destination to hold kosher banquet events in the Twin Cities. The hotel has a separate glatt kosher kitchen (the term “glatt” technically refers to meat coming from animals with smooth or defect-free lungs), and is devoted to the meticulous kosher preparations—which includes guidelines for equipment use—supervised by the Twin Cities Rabbinical Council under Rabbi Simon Perez. The kitchen also does not use dairy products. But that doesn’t translate into limitations, only opportunities, for Dwyer. “We’re showing what we can do,” he said. Dwyer held last month a tasting of new kosher menu items he developed, which drew many Jewish community members.
The changes have already attracted attention, that previous weekend previous to the tasting, they hosted a bar mitzvah for 100, and another event for 250.
“We’re happy Chris is here,” said Food and Beverage Director Bert Couch. “He’s a great teacher and that’s what we wanted here for the kitchen staff.”
Tim Kersten, the hotel’s director of catering, agreed. “With Chris here we’re in real good position to re-establish DoubleTree as the only choice for Kosher Events (in the area).”
Dwyer is quick to return any compliments. “I’ve got the best food and beverage director and catering director anyone could work with,” he said. “I’ve never had that before. And Sandy (Buonanni), the general manager, he’s a former chef—I have an outlet to bounce ideas off.”
The restaurant, Dover, which is not kosher, was completely renovated, adding seating capacity and lighting the space more effectively, giving it an ambiance distinct from the hotel. A large display bar highlights the space, and the walls are adorned with black and white photographs of decades-ago Minnesota scenes. “We need to treat ourselves as a free-standing restaurant and draw people in,” said Joseph Zajicek, the restaurant’s manager.
Dwyer introduces his menu at the restaurant in January, which will probably include an eight course, fixed price meal. His staff will have input on the menu. “I want all of them to have ownership,” he said.
Will he miss the classroom? “Yes,” Dwyer said. “I was getting burnt out, but I thought about what more I could do at the school,” he said. His list of students working in Twin Cities kitchens is long, and includes Nicollet Island Inn executive chef Erick Harcey, Emma’s Restaurant & Lounge chef and owner Emily Streeter, and Foodservice News columnist Julie Brown-Micko.
“It’s great to see all of them having success. That’s what it’s all about for me, that they are successful.” Before stepping into the classroom, Dwyer, originally from New Hampshire, opened Peppers Grill in Eden Prairie, worked at Lafayette Club, and became executive chef at Rolling Green (now Medina) Country Club, and was executive chef at the Wild’s Golf Club in Prior Lake.
“Fifteen years ago, I was very tough-nosed in the kitchen, ‘my way or the highway’ type of thing,” Dwyer said. “But teaching made me a better chef, opened me up.”
At 43, with five knee surgeries and both hips replaced due to old football injuries, Dwyer, who is an ACF-Certified Executive Chef, is approaching his return to the kitchen with youthful attitude. “I was initially worried when I did this, but I haven’t slowed a bit. ...The only time (the injuries) bother me is when I sit for a long time.”
Joe Gentile
When The View in Minneapolis opened earlier this year in the old Dixie’s on Calhoun space, there was a familiar face in the kitchen: Chef Joe Gentile stayed on in as the kitchen’s top toque, and he had specific goals in mind. One was to introduce a healthier menu to diners. “And I hate the term ‘healthy,’” Gentile said, the connotation being flavorless meals devoid of any fat whatsoever.
That’s not his version of healthy. Healthy to Gentile means reasonable portion sizes and more reduction sauces rather than massive meals laden with heavy sauces. And a reasonable portion doesn’t mean “miniscule,” he said. “The way our menu is set up, with an appetizer and entrée, there’s still room for dessert,” he said. “With Dixie’s, I went through hundreds of to-go boxes. Now I don’t. And I sell more desserts than I ever did.”
The desserts are just as decadent as anywhere else, but built to share. The “chocolate dreams” is a four-part sharing dessert, and the cheesecake comes with four forks. For entrees, Gentile is pushing more grilled meats and fish, and he had done away with trans fats a while ago. “We go with what people wanted; they want lighter, healthier food that’s creative and fresh, and not going to sit (in their stomach) for four hours.” For example, The View’s Buffalo wings are marinated, grilled and finished in the oven instead of deep-fried. “Our customers are people who want to take care of themselves, who want an experience.”
Gentile is an authoritative voice on reasonable portions—his career in the kitchen caused significant weight gain. Then, about a year and a half ago, an accidental late payment on a health insurance policy forced him to the doctor’s office for a physical to renew. “I thought I was in good health,” he said. “The doctors found I was borderline for Type 2 diabetes; I was 310 pounds. I could go on drugs, or I could try to fix it with my diet.”
He opted for the latter, and began watching his portion sizes and sugar intake. And the pounds—112 of them—began melting away. “If I would have known how easy it was, I would have done it years ago,” he said, adding, “I don’t think anybody should be on a diet. But now we have a meal, and then another one two hours later. …We didn’t used to have the ability to eat all the time.”
In and around a professional kitchen for about 33 years, Chef Joe Gentile’s first professional cooking career began at the Pfister Hotel in Milwaukee. “I learned from four old German chefs, one of whom was in Hitler’s SS army as a cook—he had to be good, otherwise he’d be shot.”
He then went to the Carribean islands to work, where all the fresh fish left an impression. “We’d go down to the dock, picked fish out of the boat, and that would be the special that night.”
He arrived in the Twin Cities about 20 years ago, working for the catering company Apples Associates. Gentile started his own company, Pastabilities, where he mixed up made-to-order pastas for area restaurants, including a chocolate angel hair for the old Blue Horse restaurant. The timing of these excursions was perfect. “It got me out of the kitchen while my kids were growing up,” he said.
He also worked for a concessions company for the city of Bloomington, Rudolph’s in Minnetonka, and became the morning sauté cook at the Decathlon Club. But he wanted to return to the life of an executive chef, and the opportunity arrived at Dixie’s. “This is what I’m good at, this is what I like doing,” he said. “Would I like the hours to be better? Sure. But my wife understands. …I’ve got 20 years yet in my cooking career, and once in a while I’ll go play golf.”
Stewart Woodman
Who knows. By the time you read this, the answer might already have been revealed. The question? Where will the acclaimed, New York City-trained chef Stewart Woodman, named one of Food & Wine’s Top New Chefs in the country in 2006 and then removed from his position at his restaurant shortly thereafter, land?
Woodman and his Minnesota-born wife Heidi, also a highly regarded chef, moved to the state to start a family. They opened Restaurant Levain in the back of Harvey McClain’s Turtle Bread Company in Minneapolis, then left to start their own restaurant with a group of investors in the old Fifth Precinct building in Minneapolis, titled, appropriately, Five Restaurant & Street Lounge.
Reviews ranged widely, from brilliant to bad, the spectrum used often within the same multi-course meal. Still, no one disputed Stewart’s talent in the kitchen, but that wasn’t enough to keep him employed. The rumors have spun for the exact causes, from the investors’ panic caused by a less-than-stellar first year, to poor restaurant design to Stewart’s uncompromising culinary vision and moodiness.
Stewart politely declined an interview for this issue of Foodservice News at this time. But he did tell the Pioneer Press, “We’re really proud of what we did. I don’t know what’s next, but I don’t want to be out of the kitchen for too long.”
Five under the Woodmans tenure may have been flawed, but the blame can be spread to the entire ownership group. One thing everyone can agree on: with the Woodmans, Five was certainly ambitious and they probably won’t be out of a kitchen for long. The Twin Cities can only hope they stay in town.
