Beastmaster
WYLIE DUFRESNE
A native of Providence, Rhode Island, Wylie Dufresne studied philosophy at Colby College before enrolling at the French Culinary Institute in New York City. Following graduation, he spent several years working for Jean-Georges Vongerichten, first at Jojo, then at the four-star Jean-Georges, and finally as chef de cuisine of Vongerichten's Prime in Las Vegas. In 1999, he was opening chef at 71 Clinton Fresh Food, where his father was a partner, on New York's Lower East Side, the same neighborhood that plays home to his first restaurant, wd-50. Dufresne was nominated for the James Beard Foundation award for Rising Star Chef in 2000, and in 2001 he was named one of Food & Wine Magazine's Best New Chefs in the country.
I'M A MEMBER of perhaps the last generation of American chefs who considered it essential to spend at least a few weeks cooking in France early in their careers. While many of today's kitchen hopefuls feel they can learn all they need to know here at home in the United States, it was different for me and my contemporaries. Whereas liberal arts students might have taken a postgraduate month to backpack around Europe, culinary school grads went to Europe to cook, usually for little or no money, and to see how things were done in the birthplace of Western cuisine.
I didn't make it to France right out of cooking school. I hadn't even made it there by the time I was twenty-six.
I had my reasons. I had spent the past few years working at Jojo for Jean-Georges Vongerichten, one of the most talented, respected, and influential chefs in the country. Today, Jean-Georges operates restaurants all over the U.S. and the world. But in the mid-90s, he had a mere two, Jojo and Vong, so working at one of them meant working alongside this master. It was an exciting, wonderful, glorious place for a young cook to be, and I made the most of it, spending time at every station in the kitchen.
In 1996, my mentor was putting the finishing touches on what would become his four-star masterpiece, the self-titled Restaurant Jean-Georges, situated in the Trump International Hotel on Columbus Circle in New York City. Though he wasn't fond of moving employees from one place to another, I felt like I had gotten all I was going to get out of Jojo, and asked him if he might consider transferring me to Jean-Georges when it opened. He agreed, offering me the job of saucier.
I then made another request: I wanted to take the month of November, between leaving my position at Jojo and the opening of Jean-Georges, and finally fulfill my long-delayed rite of passage by traveling to France and working in a three-star Michelin kitchen, a learning period of temporary employment commonly referred to as a stage.
Jean-Georges's response blew me away. Not only could I have the time off, but he would arrange for me to work at Alain Passard's Michelin three-star Arpege, his favorite restaurant of the moment. Passard was renowned for minimalist dishes that had just three or four elements on the plate and nothing else. What an amazing place it would be to hone my technique. And to go there with Jean-Georges's seal of approval was just too much. It was going to be the best experience of my life!
At least that's what I, at the time, naively, happily imagined. I never did discover the joys of Arpege because in all the hubbub of running Jojo, on the jam-packed heels of its second three-star review no less, and readying Restaurant Jean-Georges, acting as my overseas agent somehow fell off of Jean-Georges's monumental agenda. At the time I was crestfallen, but now that I'm a chef myself, I must say that I can completely understand how it happened.
Two days before my departure, the team at Jean-Georges scrambled to line up a job for me at Mark Meneau, the eponymous Michelin three-star restaurant of a member of the old guard of French gastronomy, a master chef who had never attained the celebrity of his peers like Paul Bocuse or the Troisgros brothers, but who was very well respected. In his fifties at the time, Meneau was a true scholar of classic French cuisine, who would often refer his cooks to recipes in L'Escof-fier, an early bible of the culinary arts, providing the page number to them from his frighteningly accurate memory.
So, rather than staying in Paris when I got off the plane, I boarded a train at Gare du Nord and traveled deep into the heart of Burgundy. A taxi took me even farther into the region, shuttling me through the pretty French countryside toward the town of Saint-Pere-sous-Vezelay, where I was delivered, at last, to the door of Mark Meneau.
It was everything that I expected it would be: a small restaurant on one side of the narrow road and a large banquet hall—that seemed to have a capacity double the size of the town's modest population—on the other.
Though a bit disheartened that I wasn't in Paris, I was excited to have a crack at the three-star experience. I was also determined to represent myself and Jean-Georges as well as possible. I resolved to be on time every day, and to do my level best to keep pace with what I expected to be my competition: fifteen-year-old French punks who had cooking in their blood and could do everything twice as well and twice as fast as a lowly American like myself.
I needn't have worried about receiving a chilly reception, however. I was warmly taken in by the kitchen staff, who assigned me, not surprisingly, to the garde manger foie (salads and cold appetizers) station, a frequent destination for newcomers to a kitchen because it involves no actual cooking, other than maybe blanching and shocking vegetables, though I was—as feared—working alongside three French teenagers who were also performing a stage.
The kitchen was magnificent, reason enough to have made the long trip. After working in Jojo's functional but necessarily submarinelike quarters in a converted townhouse, it was revelatory to see what a chef would design when space simply wasn't an issue. Meneau's kitchen afforded everyone ease of movement from any point to any other point. There were separate walk-ins (refrigerators) for dairy, meats, and so on. And there was meat hanging everywhere, being dried or aged to just the right effect. It was a model of French efficiency that I meticulously sketched before my two weeks were up. The dining room, too, was attractive and welcoming in a classic, country, Relais & Chateaux kind of way.
The restaurant managers were gracious enough to set me up in a little guesthouse about 100 yards down the road from the restaurant. The closer you got to the house, the more wooded and shadowy the road became. My room was at the end of a short, dark hallway on the second floor, which you reached by a spiral staircase with an old-fashioned banister. The house served as spillover accommodations for guests in the peak season, but it was nearly deserted in November, so much so that I was the only tenant on my floor.
It was at the end of that dark road, at the end of that empty hall, in a little room not much larger than a closet that I turned out the light and went to bed that first night, with urgent thoughts of punctuality occupying my last moment of consciousness. Tossing beneath the scratchy sheets, fighting off sleep, I ran through my morning routine one more time: wake up at eight fifty, leap into the bathroom, shower, towel off, dress, grab my knives and my Carhartt jacket, and make the five-minute walk to the restaurant, arriving at nine o'clock sharp and doing Jean-Georges and my nation proud.
The first couple days went well. I was on time each morning, kept my head down and focused intently on cleaning and slicing every vegetable that crossed my cutting board with the precision of a jeweler.
While I mostly kept to myself I did, however, strike up an acquaintanceship with the restaurant's baker. Or, rather, he struck up an acquaintanceship with me, simply by directing an occasional smile my way or giving me a friendly pat on the back. Though an accomplished baker, he was a bit of an odd duck. He sat alone at lunch, and was the only member of the kitchen staff to drink a glass of wine with the meal. And in stark contrast to the other cooks in the kitchen, who wore immaculate, starched whites, he rolled his pants up as if he were expecting a flood—his sleeves rolled up in similar country-bumpkin fashion.
So passed my first two days at Mark Meneau—not terribly social, but efficient and capable. I was meeting my goals and settling in nicely.
On my third morning, I awoke, showered, dre
ssed, grabbed my knives and my Carhartt, and opened the door to leave.
From out of the darkness of the corridor, a shadowy figure emerged, blindingly fast, and whooshed past me into my room.
"What the fuck was that?" I said aloud, and spun around, following its trajectory.
Sitting there on my bed, eyes blinking as it surveyed my room, was an owl.
I'm a New York City kid, so I've seen my share of mice, pigeons, rats, and other creatures that are indigenous to the island of Manhattan. I imagine there are owls in Central Park, but the only place I had ever seen one was on television, swooping down from the sky to grab some poor fish in its talons on the National Geographic show. I had never met one up close and personal.
Let me tell you something: owls are huge. And they seem even larger when they're parked on your bed in a dorm-room-sized hotel room.
I lost some time adjusting to the situation, but once I recovered, I remembered my vow to never be late to work. While my heart pounded furiously and sweat began pouring down my face, a glance at my watch revealed that I had about three minutes to make the trek.
Not knowing what else to do, I threw open the bedroom window and began gesturing at the owl, waving for it to avail itself of the exit.
Its blinking continued unabated.
I removed my Carhartt and took it in my hands like a bullfighter's cape. With a shooing motion, I tried to guide the owl toward the window, coming up around it from the side.
As I approached, it spread its wings wide like Dracula; in the heat of the moment, they appeared to fill the room. I backed off.
"Shoo," I whispered meekly, then pleaded: "C'mon, shoo."
I'm not sure, but I think the owl yawned. Forget about my wishes; he seemed oblivious to my very existence.
Another glance at my watch: I had two minutes to get to work.
I left the window open, threw on my jacket, flew down the stairs, and sprinted the 100 yards to the restaurant, arriving in the nick of time, panting, my chest sore from sucking in the cold November air.
I worked all morning, preparing vegetables for lunch service. I also performed one of my favorite tasks, taking to the woods and foraging for perfect oak leaves that were laid out on plates at the restaurant, providing a rustically elegant surface on which cheeses were arranged.
After lunch service each day, we had a ninety-minute break. As soon as we were dismissed, I snuck off from the restaurant and made my way back to my little hotel room. I opened the door and was relieved to find that the owl was gone.
Or was he? He was nowhere in sight, but I needed proof. I checked the bathroom and behind the armchair. No owl. Then, more as a nod to what I had seen in the movies than to any real concern, I got on my knees and looked under the bed.
Sure enough, the owl was standing under the bed, blinking away.
This is madness, I thought, as I left the room. I went back to the restaurant and sought out my lone acquaintance, the baker. I found him seated at a table, eating his lunch and drinking his customary glass of wine. He greeted me with a nod.
I spoke to him using the dregs of my high-school French. I was able to communicate rather adroitly about cooking, but I had long forgotten the words and syntax that would enable me to explain the nature show that was going on in my bedroom—if I had ever learned them in the first place.
In French, I said, "J need you. To come. With me. To my room. My room. I need you to come to my room."
He cocked his head like a dog who knew you were giving him a command, but didn't know what it meant.
I began lurching my torso in the general direction of the guesthouse, to help make my point.
"My room. I need you to come to my room. Come with me. With me."
I grabbed his arm, respectfully, to give him a sense of urgency.
"Come with me to my room"
He shrugged, put down his wineglass, and stood up, indicating for me to lead the way.
We made the five-minute walk to the guesthouse in silence. I had no conversational French in my repertoire, and I don't think he was in a talking mood anyway.
Then it was up the stairs, down the dark corridor, and into my room. I gestured to the bed, talking in English now because I had no idea how to explain in French what needed doing.
"My bed. Look under my bed. Under the bed."
He gave me a blank look.
Again, I resorted to physical contact, pulling him toward the bed. From the scowl on his face, I'm pretty sure that he thought I was trying to maneuver him onto the bed for the purposes of a between-meals tryst. But I managed to push him down close enough to the floor that when he looked under the bed, he saw the owl.
The baker stood back up. I threw my hands in the air, as if to say, "How the hell do you deal with a situation like this?"
He gave me a piteous look, took one of the head posts of the bed in each hand, lifted one end of it off the floor, and the owl—as if this were a routine he and the baker did all the time—alighted and flew right out the window.
The baker let the bed fall with a thud, turned on his heel, and left the room, closing the door behind him.
He wasn't quite as friendly to me during my remaining week and a half at Mark Meneau. I did all right, though: in my second week, I was promoted to the hot line to fill in for a vacationing cook, leaving those young French kids in the dust. Then I took two weeks to explore Paris, before heading back home to New York and my new job in what remains one of the best restaurants in the city.
The French word for owl, by the way, is chouette, which also means "cool" or "brilliant."
Yeah, right.
The Curious Case of Tommy Flynn
JONATHAN EISMANN
Jonathan Eismann is the chef-owner of South Beach, Florida's perennially hot Pacific Time restaurant, which has been at the center of the Lincoln Road scene since the restaurant was launched in 1993. A graduate of the Culinary Institute of America, Eismann began working professionally with Fan Asian flavors in New York City in the 1980s as chef of the Acute Cafe on West Broadway, and then at such restaurants as Batons, Fandango, Mondial, and China Grill. In 1994, he became one of the first chefs to receive the Robert Mondavi Award for Culinary Excellence.
THERE ARE MANY differences between a chef and a cook. A chef, in a competitive big-city environment anyway, needs to have vision, create his own dishes, and manage a crew of peripatetic soldiers for hire. He needs to be able to stay calm under pressure, navigate any number of thorny political situations, and be able to recognize and coddle the media.
A cook doesn't have to do all that. A cook has to do one thing: execute, execute, execute—the same dishes, over and over, all day, every day, for months if not years at a time. Some cooks want to be chefs one day, and that's fine. But ambition isn't a job requirement, at least not in my kitchen. I'm looking for guys who can cook well and consistently and are willing to work their butts off.
I've always put a premium on hard work. Back before I owned my own place, you could find me right alongside the contractors, painting, tiling, and woodworking. Even in my own place, I'm happy to come in on, say, Christmas Day, and refinish the floors.
I respond to this work ethic when I encounter it in others. I'm not making any judgments about people who don't have it, but when I see it, I'm drawn to it.
Which is how I came to hire a young line cook named—for this story, anyway—Tommy Flynn.
This was in 1989. I had been the chef at restaurants such as Mondial and Fandango, and most recently China Grill. I was planning to open my own restaurant down in Miami—Pacific Time on Miami Beach—which I eventually did, and from where I'm writing this story. To bide my time, and make a living, I took a low-profile gig as the chef of a ninety-seat Victorian-style cafe way up in nosebleed land in the East Nineties on Madison Avenue.
The restaurant was really a glorified bar typical of the Upper East Side. If you've been to or read about Jim McMullen's or J. G. Mellon's, then you know the kind of place I mean. The menu wa
s perfunctory, but I created and executed it with pride. In fact, we were once written up in Gourmet magazine for our burgers.
Across the street from this restaurant was a small epicurean shop fashioned as a mini-Balducci's: dark wood paneling, fresh fruits and vegetables piled artfully in crates, and lots of imported condiments and delicacies. They also had a sandwich counter from which I often bought my lunch.
This is where I met Tommy, a short, scraggly, pimply, redheaded, working-class Irish kid from Queens. He was about twenty-five years old and an intense worker, especially compared to the preppy but lethargic neighborhood kids alongside whom he worked.
Tommy had great New York sandwich-counter style. He'd slap your sandwich together in record time, always making it exactly the same way—with just the right proportion of meat to cheese to salad to bread—then snap open a paper bag with one hand—I still remember the quick "pop" it made as the air was forced into it—and pack it up for you.
I didn't know Tommy that well. Because of the counter that was always between us, I had actually never seen him from the chest down or even shaken his hand. But I admired his work ethic.
You're constantly losing employees in a restaurant kitchen, so one day I decided to stroll across the street and casually poach young Tommy. Having watched him work for months, I had no doubt that I could teach him what he'd need to know to be a cook in my five-man kitchen.
In return, I thought, I'd earn his loyalty and have a guy on board who wasn't always on the lookout for the next job.
We spoke. He took the job. We set a start date. And I stopped going to that shop for my sandwiches, a small price to pay if my plan held true to form.
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