Dinner with The Chef

Preamble: I am sworn to secrecy about certain aspects of last night's events, so today's post is necessarily cryptic. Because at least a few of you will know one of the characters below and be able to put the pieces together, I will refer to him, and his associates, with pseudonyms. My apologies. I'll let the cat out of the bag as soon as I'm able.

My hometown friend, whom I'll call The Chef here, went to culinary school and spent the years thereafter slaving away in kitchens under the command of other chefs. His hard work finally paid off about a year and a half ago when he answered, of all things, a Craigslist ad seeking a head chef for a new restaurant in California. He was hired and the restaurant opened its doors several months later. Since then, the restaurant has been receiving rave review from professional food critics and patrons alike. I hadn't seen The Chef in years but had followed his successes on Facebook and was very happy for him.

I was even happier when he sent me a message to say that he'd be in New York and would like to meet up. The "we" in the email turned out not to mean The Chef and his very  nice wife but instead The Chef, The Owner (of the restaurant) and The Pastry Chef. I was eager to catch up with The Chef and meet his coworkers, and we made arrangements to meet at Peasant, a restaurant downtown.

Ed and I arrived at Peasant first to find it looking decidedly closed. The Chef and entourage showed up moments later, and since The Chef, it seemed, had accidentally booked our table for Tuesday instead of Monday night, we altered course. It turns out that The Owner had lived in New York for years and he and Ed had a favorite French restaurant, Lucien, in common.

Lucien

As we walked to Lucien (here comes the secret), The Owner asked The Chef if he'd told us why they were in New York. It turns out that The Chef's restaurant has been chosen by the Bravo network to compete in a TV series called Best New Restaurant (or something like that) that will air in January. Their restaurant and 15 others selected from LA, Miami, Austin, and New York, were selected to compete in a series of challenges. The first taping was done in their restaurant a while ago: cameras filmed the cooks in the kitchen, the service staff delivering the dishes, and The Owner running the show. They'd traveled to New York for the first official challenge and were due to be picked up by a van at their hotel at 8:30 the next morning to be taken to an undisclosed location. There, they were to cook and serve a three-course meal to a panel of judges alongside chefs from another restaurant in the competition. A coin flip would decide who cooked and served first, and they weren't yet sure whom they'd be competing against. They were, however, allowed to plan the menu themselves instead of being made to incorporate bizarre ingredients or do everything in only half an hour like on some cooking competitions. All three were nervous about the outcome, but they said they'd rehearsed everything enough times that they were confident that they'd perform well.

We stayed at Lucien for more than three hours. The Owner ordered several hors d'oeuvres that he shared with everyone, and The Chef ordered a large bowl of mussels that he declared some of the best he'd ever eaten. (I sneaked a piece of baguette into the broth and agreed that it was sublime.) Everyone, even the sweet and soft-spoken Pastry Chef, deemed all three desserts wonderful. We talked and talked and talked about food. The Owner, it seems, knows his way around a plate but has very little input in the decisions that take place in the kitchen. He leaves all that up to The Chef's good judgement. The menu changes about every six weeks and is inspired by seasonal offerings. The Chef visits the local farmers' market and uses whatever fresh ingredients he can. The Pastry Chef referred to The Chef as "Chef'" instead of by his first name (e.g. "Chef tried it and made some suggestions."), which I found rather amusing. The three seemed to have a friendly, functional working relationship and their enthusiasm about their restaurant and food in general was infectious.

By the way, I asked The Chef for the most common mistake home cooks make and he said, after some thought, that it all has to do with salt. Kosher salt, not the little iodized grains, is his seasoning of choice during cooking, and he said that failing to season throughout the cooking process and instead waiting until the end results in flat flavor. Before serving a dish, he likes to add fleur de sel.

I'll be anxious to hear about the results of the first competition, which they'll learn at the end of taping today. If the other restaurant beats them, they'll be eliminated from the competition and go back to running their highly successful restaurant without lights and cameras. If they win, they'll be promoted to the next round. Regardless of how it turns out, Ed and I already have plans to be in their city in a few months from now, and I look forward to plunking myself down in the restaurant and letting The Chef and The Pastry Chef work their magic.