The Story Of My Life

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Me at 16 years old.

I grew up in a suburb of Cleveland, Ohio called Parma Heights.  Food was a big part of my life, my dad was raised on a farm in Pennsylvania and he would spend his free time tending to our garden.  We had many weekends of preserving everything from strawberry  jam, beets, tomatoes, beans and even crock pickles just to name a few.   My mom only added to this mix by cooking up a storm with items like pierogie (sometimes when she comes to town she makes a batch and I freeze them.  I know I can cook, but mom just makes them better!) stuffed cabbages, kolachkis, chicken paprikash and so much more.  We had many big family meals with my sisters, grandparents and extended family.  It seems like everything we did together involved food somehow.

As a kid I played a lot of ice hockey, which was my life.  I was fortunate to have my mom and dad allow me to travel up and down the east coast and Canada to play hockey.  I love the smell of the ice, the calmness of a rink before a 6 am practice and the sound of the blades cutting through the ice.  I tried baseball, god that is one boring sport.  Football ehhh, start, stop, start, stop and basketball simply isn’t rough enough.  I’d watch the NBA if it was more physical, come on full contact basketball!  The only other sport I love is golf, so in the off season from hockey it was off to the links.  I still love golfing today, I don’t play as much as I should but when I’m out there it’s almost the same Zen spot as a 6 am hockey practice. 

The question everyone asks, “When did you know you wanted to be a chef?”  When I was 12, because for my 13^th birthday I asked for a wok.  I was cooking a lot after school and after hockey practice or games.  My parents still had things to do around the house or with my sisters so it became my thing to make dinner.  Thinking back what 13 year old kid reads bon appetite or gourmet magazine; yep this one!  I would try recipes or just shoot from the hip.  There is a time in everyone’s life that they have to ask the big question…” Mom, Dad I’m turning 16…I need a car”.  Like many parents the answer I received was “well then it’s time for you to start working”.  I had to make some decisions quick, hockey season was starting in about 2 months, how would I work and play hockey at the same time and what would I do?  I hopped on my skateboard and headed up to a local restaurant called Marcal’s, I walked in and asked for a job.  Poppie one of the owners gave me a bus boy job on the spot, I started the next day.  I worked my butt off, anything to help the crew in the front of the house but when I wasn’t busy I would hang with the cooks in the back.  I’d ask questions and try to learn from them anything I could; I even started coming in early or on my day off to help in the kitchen.  Eventually I moved into the kitchen full time and never looked back.  I still own my first car, 1972 Volkwagen Super Beetle, named Estel.  I am in the process of restoring her , hopefully in the next decade I’ll have her back together and running around Chicago with her!

My junior and senior year of high school I went to a vocational school called Polaris Career Center for cooking; that is how serious I was about cooking.  3-4 hours a day I spent in class learning the basics the right way, thanks Mrs. P!  We would compete locally in cooking challenges and take a class trip every year to Chicago for the National Restaurant Show.  The show has changed so much over the years, back then I would spend hours taking photos of the creations in the culinary showcase, now it doesn’t even exist anymore.  During my time at school a classmate suggested I come and work at his restaurant, so off I went to Dons Pomeroy House.  I worked my way through the kitchen up until the time I left for the C.I.A.

 I attended the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York for my associates’ degree in Culinary Arts.  I still believe to this day that there is no place better then the C.I.A.  I had the world at my fingertips; I had so many cookbooks, videos and chefs to ask questions it was a bit of culinary information overload.  The Hudson Valley area of New York is absolutely amazing; it has its own small culinary community.  I remember going to a local organic farm and having them tell me to go down the street to this farm and pick up the house made goats milk cheese.  You have to eat it with this bread, drink it with that wine because the 3 different families that ran the various farms/wineries worked together on creating foods that went together so they all had delicious local foods to eat.

On the weekends I would take the train into Manhattan, what started as a weekend getaway became a regular weekend thing.  I would stage (work for free) in as many restaurants as possible just to get experience.  It didn’t matter what I was doing, I always watched how the chefs interacted with the kitchen and the staff.  Back then there were many tyrants, screaming, pan throwing chefs running kitchens.  Yes I had to take it, sometimes I didn’t even know what I was being yelled at for but the response was always the same “oui chef”.  I learned a ton and would do it again; I think more cooks should give up their day off to learn more about the business.

Part of the education process at C.I.A. is completing and extern, I chose to work at the Waldorf~Astoria Hotel.  The kitchen was massive, one full NYC city block for the main kitchen complete with separate poultry and non poultry butchering rooms, a soup and stock room with the coolest refrigerated ice baths to chill food down.  The pastry shop had the largest deck ovens I had ever seen, plus there still were 14 more kitchens in the hotel.  During my time at the Waldorf I met a lot of great people; one of them was Evan Deluty the Pastry Chef of Peacock Alley.  He invited me to stage in the kitchen, of course I did.  This became a regular thing, I would work in the morning for my externship and then the evening I spent working in Peacock Alley.  The Waldorf~Astoria was an amazing experience, it reinforced everything I was learning at school and provided me with a true working foundation.  I had to return to school to finish up so I could graduate and get on with my career.

I decided to stay on at the C.I.A. for a fellowship, basically I was a sous chef for the American Bounty Restaurant for 6 months.  This was the last class for students before graduation, this experience taught me about motivation.  If you think about it I had a kitchen full of people who just started working for me but already gave their notice.   During my fellowship C.I.A. launched the Bachelors program; I had to help with one of the classes because it was held in the bounty kitchen.  The instructors and chefs at school are the best in the world; I’m happy and proud to be one of the C.I.A. family!

It was time for me to leave C.I.A. and I had my heart set on working for Andre Soltner at the famed Lutece Restaurant in New York, I had staged there, and I remember getting the call to come into the city to discuss the position.  When I arrived he showed me upstairs to the office and another Chef was sitting in his chair at his desk.  I took a seat and he explained to me that after 30 plus years he has decided to sell the restaurant and this was the new chef.  My heart sank; I was crushed, my dream gone.  The new chef started talking with me; let’s just say he wasn’t Chef Soltner!  I said goodbye to Lutece never to step foot in it again.  When the restaurant received its 1 star review under the new chef I actually secretly  cheered, no one could replace Chef Soltner.  I don’t remember how long the new company attempted to operate but Lutece officially closed, and every few trips back to NYC I stop by, look at the building and think where my life may have gone.

At that time another Chef I had worked for invited me down to Florida to work with him; this is where youth kicks in.  I didn’t check it out first; I took his word and headed south.  OH MY GOD, I’m working in the tallest building in Jacksonville, Florida, all 35 floors high.  I should have just turned around and headed back  north.  Coming from the hustle and bustle of NY to Jacksonville is like driving 100 miles an hour and just throwing the car into reverse!  I really hated the 5 months I spent in Florida, I was so bored.  I was living with my girlfriend at the time and we were trying to find jobs to get out of there, Chicago here I come.

I started at Trio in Evanston just after Shawn McClain took over the operation.  Trio was an experience of a lifetime; we made everything from scratch 100%.  We were a team, we were a family and we helped each other no matter what.  We created great food and cooked our hearts and souls out.  How could this restaurant not be amazing, Shawn was the Chef, Bill Kim was the Sous Chef, Della Gossett was the Pastry Chef and Pauly Haney was the Pastry Sous Chef.  Everyone one of them has moved onto great things in the business.

I decided after a year to try the Nikko Hotel, my experience at Trio pushed me into traditional Japanese cooking.  The Nikko hotel had the best fine dining Japanese restaurant in town, so off I went.  Day one all employee meeting, the topic:  the hotel has been sold and ben kay is closing.  UGGHHHH!  Time to look for something else,  I was struggling with the Chicago isn’t NY thing in my head.  Truly it wasn’t, back then restaurants didn’t exist like they do today.  Only a handful cooked great food, Chicago didn’t hit its culinary boom yet.

I moved over to Tsunami to help revamp the menu a bit, I was only there a short time and I got the call to help a friend back in Cleveland open up a place.  I packed my bags and headed home, the goal was to stick it out for a few months get the restaurant open and head back to NYC.  I returned to Cleveland, my mom so happy to have her son home but it wouldn’t last long, after about 9 months it was time to go.  My fiancé at the time was originally from Chicago and I was pulled back to the Windy City.

I started helping a friend at Green Dolphin Street because they were short a few cooks, I worked one weekend and the owners fired the chef, everyone moved up a spot in the kitchen and they asked me to be banquet chef.  Three months later I was the Executive Sous Chef and five months later I was named Executive Chef.  My first chef spot, I threw myself into the work, we were a hot and happening place.  Every night the restaurant was busy, the weekends were insane and the club was always jumping.  I was winning awards, in the press all the time and even cooking at the James Beard House for a rising chef dinner.  It was a great run, I even got married during all of this, but it was time for me to challenge myself again. 

I accepted the job at the Wyndham Hotel featuring Caliterra restaurant, working for a corporation took some time to adjust.  We were a busy restaurant and hotel banquets were running at top speed.  I eventually became the Regional Executive Chef and had to watch over 9 hotels.  During this time I competed for the Bocuse D’Or USA, I took first place in the semifinals and 3^rd in the finals.  It was a lot of work but so much fun; I knew I had to do this again in a few more years.  The writing was on the wall at the hotel, we are producing exactly what corporate wanted and there are too many visitors walking around the hotel, yep we are being sold.  Not once but twice in a year and half, and the second time I was definitely leaving.  There was no way I was having my name on the restaurant that the new owners wanted to have, we didn’t see eye to eye on anything. 

A boy has to pay his bills, so I accepted a job recommended by a friend of mine at the Saddle & Cycle Club on the north side of Chicago.  It’s a beautiful place with a small golf course, tennis courts, platform tennis courts, a pool and an indoor ice rink!  Yeah free ice time!!  Anytime you move into something new it takes up more time and energy in the beginning, I had the Bocuse D’Or USA just around the corner.  It was a mad dash to be prepared, more long days and nights trying to figure everything out, practice and organize for the competition.   I don’t remember what place I finished, it was either 2^nd or 3^rd, I had to get back to work because summer is really busy at the club.   Then winter came and it is super slow,  the only busy place is the upscale concession stand.  How did I get here?  The main restaurant did 40 covers a week, where is the motivation in that?  I couldn’t bring in any great product because it would spoil with no business.  Most of the club members were great, but some were complete (well you fill in the rest, it all fits).  The basic fact is that the membership itself was in a struggle as to what they wanted, some wanted refined food, some wanted basic food, and some just wanted a fruit plate with cottage cheese.  It was very rough; the environment of not really having any direction to go in is depressing.  If you do one thing to make one member happy it upsets another, I’m in the business of pleasing people and in this environment I felt there was no pleasing. 

Then I received a phone call from a friend named Patrick Hatton, he was the GM of this hip cool place called The James Hotel.  The opening chef of David Burkes Primehouse was leaving and he needed someone to take the bull by the horns and really own it.  I was reluctant at first, me at a steakhouse?  I don’t even eat out at steakhouses, I like refinement, I want craft not just steak on a plate.   If you don’t know Patrick let me tell you he is one persistent dude, he had his mind set on me being the chef.  I accepted the job and never looked back.

There is more to my job at David Burkes Primehouse and The James then just cooking.  I have to be super creative for all the “crazy” promotions, I think more now about marketing than ever before.  I have to inspire not only the kitchen team and the front of house team, but also the family of people it takes to run a hotel from housekeeping, engineering and the front desk, I touch everyone one of them.  I take my crew to farms, to make cheese, to shop at markets.  We buy whole animals, make our own sausages, we hold internal competitions where cooks can challenge each other.  We set goals internally to always be a better restaurant, the whole time I’m traveling to promote across the country.  I helped open our sister property in Washington D.C. featuring Art & Soul, an Art Smith restaurant.  We are a very busy place; we always have something going on and I love that. 

The last of the nitty gritty details, I’m no longer married.  I have many great hobbies like gardening, woodworking, restoring Estel, home brewing, home canning/preserving and playing with my 3 kids.  They are hairy little guys, they walk and talk funny but they are my boys!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mr. Peabody

 

Bentley

 

Ozwald

 Thanks for reading, Happy Cooking!

RG