Scott Foster; Pier 500, etc.
By Mike Mitchelson

Is Scott Foster becoming one of the more influential chefs and restaurateurs in the Twin Cities area?

He doesn’t think so, but the trail of restaurants that have his name attached to them either as co-owner, executive chef or consultant (Redstone, Hazellewood Grill & Tap Room, two Joey Nova’s Pizzeria Delicatessens and, most recently, Pier 500 in Hudson, Wis.) might suggest otherwise. Add that he and Hazellewood/Joey Nova’s business partner Pat Woodring are developing a full service restaurant and a third Joey Nova’s in Rochester, and one might conclude a Foster movement is underway statewide.

And that’s without mentioning Foster’s Tommy Bahama gig. He conducts R&D and designs the tropical-themed menus and for that company’s nine high-end restaurants within vacation properties across the south and West Coast. “I’ve done a lot of projects and was really blessed with a lot of confidence with people,” Foster said. “I kept very busy.”

If there is a movement, fortunately it found its way across the border to Hudson and Pier 500 last year. The space in which the restaurant sits is a prime riverfront location, but previous restaurants never developed the character or menu to last long-term.

When Hudson resident and Pier 500 co-owner Andy Kron saw the opportunity to move on the space, he wanted help developing a successful concept. Fortunately, a friend at U.S. Foodservice was also a friend of Foster. “I needed someone who could be consulting chef on this venture, and asked, ‘Who would you recommend?’” Kron said. “And he said, hands down, Scott Foster is the best.”

The two met and had “great rapport,” Kron said. A consulting job quickly became a partnership. “(Foster) is very talented when it comes to the restaurant as a whole,” Kron said. “To walk out of meetings with him it’s refreshing, fun and he’s got great ideas. He’s passionate about what he’s doing, and it shows whenever you speak with him. He’s a great guy to have around, and on top of that he’s a great chef.”

Foster brought his full restaurant team of front- and back-of-the house trainers to Pier 500, including Laurie Frazier, who trained employees at Redstone and Hazellewood. “She’s my right hand gal when we open concepts,” Foster said. “And Andy is just a wonderful guy and great partner in that location. … Andy really is the managing partner there.” With the restaurant running smoothly, Foster said he’s there now only two to four times per month.

With creating the restaurant’s menu, Kron said he gave Foster a “broad direction,” but recognizable food for Hudson residents, cooked from scratch. “Great, familiar food that had a little extra on it,” he said. “French cuisine in downtown Hudson—it’s not a fit for down here.”

Foster developed all the recipes on the menu, which includes a variety of salads, soups and classic American entrees such as grilled pork chops, steaks and fish. “My food style that I really honed with Redstone, is meant to appeal to a broad range of people,” Foster said.

In his Mpls./St.Paul magazine column last November, Andrew Zimmern called Redstone “a nearly flawless concept,” but lamented the similar menus at many Twin Cities restaurants, and noted Foster’s and chef/menu consultant Tobie Nidetz’s influence helping restaurants be successful with less risky menus.

Foster understands the argument, and took no offense at the article. “It can get redundant,” he said. “But I try not to get redundant, and you don’t have to. There’s tens of thousands of things you can do with food.”

And, Foster noted, at Pier 500, “chef driven” meals show up on the specials menu with items like seared ahi tuna or a pork chop stuffed with smoked gouda and prosciutto that wouldn’t be a consistent seller on the standard menu.

More regular diners are ordering from the specials menu, however, Kron noted. “They’re ordering from that specials card because we’ve developed a good reputation from our regular menu.”


Developing familiar style with substance

Foster’s kitchen career was spurred by a particular motivation: “I needed money,” he said. “I started as a dishwasher in 1976 at the Sunshine Factory in New Hope. I lied about my age. …Then I became a prep cook, and sort of followed that.”

After high school, he enrolled at the University of Minnesota for a short time, but soon landed a kitchen manager position at the restaurant Winfield Potter’s. “In 1984, when you’re a starving student at the U, and someone offers you $19,200, that’s like you’ve hit pay dirt. So I never looked back.”

His early career took him to the fine dining restaurant the Aurora Room in the former Radisson South hotel, where he soaked in Chef Tim Connors’ lessons on the foundations of French cooking. He worked at the original Tejas in Minneapolis’ Conservatory when it opened in 1987 and picked up Southwestern cooking. “Whoever was cooking something, and I didn’t know what it was, I wanted to be a part of it,” he said.

On the path to becoming a restaurateur, however, his stint with Lettuce Entertain You Enterprises in Chicago was the most influential. Foster became executive chef for three years for one of the company’s restaurants called The Eccentric, which was co-owned by Oprah Winfrey. “It definitely was eccentric,” Foster said. “Working for Lettuce Entertain You gave me the tools, the systems and the business acumen to be a decent restaurateur. …You’ve got to have the systems to make money.”

And while he became a student of systems, Foster insists he’s still “a cook at heart,” and takes considerable pride in his menus being enjoyed by the greater dining population. “There’s a lot of people out there that, in my opinion, keep wanting to cook to their egos—and that’s fine,” he said. “Or they want to be the most innovative, or a Food & Wine (magazine) Best New Chef. There’s very few people that can pull that off, especially in a community like Minneapolis—you’ve got Isaac (Becker at 112 Eatery), you’ve got Tim McKee (at La Belle Vie), those guys are doing it and they’re doing it very well.”

But some chefs are “not appreciating, at the end of the day, what this is really about: Serving great food and taking care of people,” Foster said, adding that he travels regularly and keeps up with all the trends on the East and West Coasts, but takes care to translate those trends on a “broader view” to the Midwest. “Not everybody is going to want to go out and eat beet-infused olive oil on their lettuce,” he said. “You’re not going to see any lobster foam on my menus. You’re going to see stuff that you can read and be pleased with reading it, then what I really concentrate on is the recipes, from-scratch cooking, and what people tell me is that my food has layers of flavor.

“It may be meatloaf, but that meatloaf is hopefully going to be one of the best you’ve had in your life, and it comes presented in a really cool way.”