Archive for the ‘New American’ Category
I’ve always wanted to go to culinary school. But Prince Charming wasn’t so keen on the idea knowing it was one more excuse for me to stay out late eating and drinking while he was at home with the kiddies. And really, I have a decent culinary acumen having grown up with a mother and grandmother who’s hearts were in the kitchen. With food, the learning starts at home. Thus, SCRATCH that off my bucket list.
But then I had this nutty idea to follow a chef around for a day so I could fulfill my dream of working in a professional kitchen. I asked Chef John des Rosiers of Inovasi located in Lake Bluff, IL if he would mind me tagging along in his kitchen. A date was set and I already had questions. What time does he get there? How does the prep start for the day? How does he write his ever-changing menu? I wanted to be inside the fish bowl rather than the dining table.
I arrived at 8.30 am at Inovasi to meet up with Chef John. Let me preface this post with the fact that I arrived slightly hungover, starving and somewhat disheveled, not the best way to start your day in a busy kitchen. Luckily, my good friend at Eater texted ahead with an official warning and order. Chef John surprised me with the best breakfast sandwich of eggs, homemade bacon, arugula and cheese.
We first sat down, over coffee and my hangover treat, to chat about his menu, new ventures and his philosophy. We then hung out in the kitchen for a couple of hours prepping and taste-testing some items and later headed to the roof to start his rooftop garden. It was a full morning of pro-kitchen activities. Not to mention I left with muddy paws after pitching in to plant some lettuce.
Chef John trained at CIA in New York and returned to Chicago to work under some of the best, Chef Gabriel Viti and Chef Charlie Trotter. He left those kitchens with a sense of structure but desire to create outside the traditional kitchen. Patrons of Inovasi get it and are thrilled to have a forward thinking chef outside the city. John changes the menu every six weeks. There are no recipes for the kitchen staff to follow. He creates, he shows them, and everyone needs to catch on quick. The majority of his staff has been with him since he opened and he will only hire people based on friends or family recommendations. The menu changes are just a small part of their day considering John has branched out with his gourmet to-go Wisma locations, Lake Bluff and Libertyville, with more on the way throughout Chicagoland.
The staff arrives at 6.30 am to start prepping for Wisma by making huge batches of everything on the menu. It’s then bagged and moved to each Wisma where the staff there packages everything. The concept is to feed customers high quality meals at great pricing. I can’t help but compare Wisma to Trotters To Go but with a whimsical, carefree environment. That probably comes from the design team behind Wisma, Robert Silton and Jenny Sweeney. While the notion is “to go”, it’s a place you will want to hang out. It breathes, “hanging with the cool the kids”. John’s philosophy of Wisma exudes his passion as a chef. It’s hard not to get wrapped up in conversation with him and it’s clear he has an edge about the industry based on experience.
Part of that edge comes from the fact that he went out on a limb and opened a cutting-edge restaurant outside the city limits. Whereas most chefs of his pedigree would try to open a place in the city, he knows he took a risk by debuting in Lake Bluff. But he still wants credit, rightly so, for an exceptionally composed menu. Michelin wouldn’t come out that far of Chicago to review it and most publications don’t regularly feature Inovasi which I’m sure has to do with location. With 22 - 25 dishes and nothing staying on the menu for very long, Inovasi is a quite a production. They just celebrated their two year anniversary and John is going strong. Like most chefs these days, he buys mostly from local purveyors and only uses good sustainable sources. The kitchen is stocked more than most because of the frequent changes. The menu shows his personal side rather than listing dishes from a traditional category. Categories like: MUSIC, ON THE LINE, TRADITION OF COOKERY, CHILDHOOD + FAMILY and THE INGREDIENT ITSELF. This is a very small representation of John’s creativity. For example in MUSIC, he has a dish called BLACK AND GOLD, BY SAM SPARRO. It’s a Florida Panhandle Porgie, English cracker crust, Bolivian white quinoa, saffron-vanilla bean sauce. While this is long gone off the menu, it’s a great indication of where his head is in the culinary game. And the entire menu reads outside the box. Inovasi is a place to go to experience food in another context, it’s a not a place to go to just eat. The few times I’ve been able to hang out with John, I realized that cooking isn’t just about what ends up on the plate. It’s just as much about how it got there. He has this contagious passion for creating an out-of-this-world dining experience. John has figured out how to keep customers coming back for more.
He also offers a blind course that not even the server knows what’s coming out. The dish is listed on the menu as: FISH SWIMMING YESTERDAY which basically translates to freshly caught yesterday and on your plate today. If you order it, it’s different every time for every diner. No two alike. It’s John’s way of saying, “trust me”.
In the works is a cookbook based on foundation. It will address all levels of cooking and includes purchasing guidelines and relays common sense for cooking. The book won’t be about traditional recipes…go figure! John wants to give you a playbook for your kitchen and he promises by the end of the book, you will be a better chef.
For more information on Inovasi, click here.
For more information on Wisma, click here.
After meeting with the new chef in town, Jason Harrison at the Four Seasons, I wandered across the street to meet Chef Kelly Liken of her namesake restaurant. Not gonna lie, I was a little nervous. But within the first few minutes, I realized we had a similar energy and passion about the very same thing…FOOD. Here in Vail, she is a celebrity after competing in season 7 of Top Chef: DC. It worked out well that I was able to interview her before we dined in the restaurant which made me appreciate her menu even more.
Kelly has an interesting background and rise in the culinary world which is understandable once you’ve tasted her food. I realized from the get-go that she is on a mission to teach kids to eat healthier (through cooking and gardening) and she founded an organization with her husband, Rick, called Sowing Seeds in the elementary schools in Colorado…a similar goal I have been involved in for years in the mid-west. This notion of utilizing local farmers was instilled in her while interning with Patrick O’Connell at The Inn at Little Washington in Virginia back in 2001. Kelly credits O’Connell with not only educating her on fine dining early in her career but sparking her interest in the search for the best local products. She told me how farmers would just show up at the back door with bushels of produce they would take into the kitchen and create an exquisite dish. From there her passion grew and when she opened her restaurant in Vail 7 years ago, she made sure to include a tag line under her name: “Seasonal American Cooking.” This tag line now defines Kelly Liken and her career. People thought she was nuts, however. How would she manage to cook seasonal food in a town that had long winters and short summers and springs? Kelly Liken has succeeded and brought Vail to a relevant culinary standard. Thus, she started out buying whatever the markets had but soon farmers were coming to her asking what she wanted to cook with for the season. They were eager to grow more products and saw it as an opportunity to expand their business as well. Being that it’s a resort town with a “high season” to consider, Kelly says, “for all the reasons I love doing business and living in Vail, it’s equally frustrating.” She chooses to stay open during the low season which most restaurants in Vail don’t. She believes strongly in Vail as a year-round destination and staying open is her way of supporting the town. She also believes the restaurant scene in Vail is small but strong and it’s an emerging market. Other chefs have really stepped it up. It’s clear to me that Kelly is part of the reason Vail has arrived on the culinary scene after her stint on Top Chef. She’s twice been nominated for Best Chef Southwest for the James Beard Award. In 2008, she was featured as one of six female chefs to watch in the article, “Women Chefs: The Next Generation” by Bon Appetit Magazine. Ask anyone about Vail and their first response is “Kelly Liken…you must go.”
Recently, First Lady Michelle Obama dined at Kelly Liken with a few friends while visiting Vail. She had asked White House chef Sam Kass, a judge on Top Chef, for restaurant recommendations when Kass advised the First Lady not to miss Kelly’s place. Shortly thereafter, Kelly Liken’s short ribs where the talk of the town which spawned nasty comments from right-wing chatter box Rush Limbaugh. His critical comments on Obama’s weight didn’t go unnoticed by Kelly who kept her comments professional but states that cooking for the First Lady, her idol, has been the highlight of her career. When asked what her true signature dish is, without skipping a beat, Kelly replied, “the Potato crusted Rocky Mountain Trout.” It’s the only dish that never leaves the menu.
Like every chef, she is anxiously awaiting the arrival of spring. No surprise here, she can’t wait for ramps! Or the asparagus she gets that are grown at a farm at the highest altitude in Colorado. It’s 8300 feet above sea level and she says, “The plants are so strong that the flavor is amazing.” Again, it’s clear she is passionate about the her industry and that she lives in a state where the food is very produce driven and literally, falls of the back of a truck!
Our meal was truly one of the best I’ve had…ever. The sweet potato agnolotti with duck confit in a brown butter sauce kept me up all night wondering how she did it. I then decided to go for an underdog dish instead of her signature: my entree was the Pan Roasted Black Cod with house made merguez studded sweet potato hash, maitake broth, and pickled onion salad. My only complaint? Not enough merguez, one of my favorite sausages. But, I completely understand the subtlety of the dish and only complain out of love. Prince Charming was completely taken with the special starter featuring seared Foie Gras and couldn’t resist the Colorado Rack of Lamb with truffled cauliflower-leek gratin, sautéed spinach, carnival cauliflower puree, and shaved Oregon black truffles. For dessert, we didn't skip the highly recommended Caramel Apple Napoleon with walnut phyllo layers, vanilla custard, caramel mousse, and poached apples. My kids were treated to a four-course menu, as well, which they loved and made them feel like grown-ups. It’s this small detail that made a big difference for our meal…our kids were quiet and eating while we were!
Hopefully, Kelly will make it to Chicago soon as her aunt lives here. Then, I had to ask…who are her favorites chefs in Chicago or where does she dine. Tru and Avec are on the top of her list but completely blushing, she confided that her professional crush is, none other, than Rick Bayless. I get it. Who in Chicago doesn’t love XOCO or the “man of hot peppers”?
A reservation at Kelly Liken is the hardest one to get in Vail. So, headed out west?
Call 970.479.0175 or visit www.kellyliken.com
Let’s face it, staying in a Four Seasons, anywhere in the world, is the ultimate vacation. Heck, I even stay in Chicago Four Seasons just for a break if I get the chance. I practically live in the lounge noshing on sliders from Chef BF. And if I’m being really honest, I’ll run up to the bathrooms just to wash my hands and powder my nose during a shopping break at Bloomindales. So, when we booked the newly opened Four Seasons Vail for spring break, the first thing I did was email the concierge about dining reservations. No surprise to all you Beauties. I’m so predictable when it comes to food.
The night we arrived in Vail we ate at Flame, the restaurant in the hotel. A few days later, I was able to sit down with the executive chef Jason Harrison for an interview. I was eager to hear about his experience of being the new chef in resort town which is so very different from a big city like Chicago or New York. Chef Harrison recently moved from Las Vegas where he was the chef and head of catering at The Bellagio serving eighty-thousand meals a month. I have a lot of nerve complaining about cooking dinner for four kids and Prince Charming every night! For Harrison, life is settling in nicely at the Four Seasons Vail where he is now able to meet the diners, understand their likes and get back to his roots of fine dining. With roughly 400 covers a month at Flame, his new gig isn’t just about cooking, it’s about the local markets and local suppliers. Making friends with Kelly Liken, whose restaurant is right across the street, he was able to find and build relationships with local growers. He told me that being in a smaller town has enabled him to feel a part of a community as well as build his identity better. There is a real sense of community among chefs here. In general, people in Vail are more at ease. They live their lives based on the environment. That’s a far cry from recycled air being pumped into casinos!
Prince Charming and I made sure to taste several dishes on Chef Harrison’s menu at Flame. With a section of the menu devoted to showcasing the 1800 degree oven, there was no doubt we were ordering a steak. For a starter, I had the Seared Scallops, Parsnips, Blackberries and Citrus Cream. I can’t lie. I would have never thought to put blackberries with scallops but I loved the combo.
Looking back, we should have ordered the top-selling dish, the bison rib-eye, but we agreed on the bone-in filet. With an oven of 1800 degrees, Harrison said it takes 4 -5 minutes to cook a 6 oz filet and it comes out with the perfect charred crust sealing in the flavor. We also made sure to try one of his specialities, the braised short ribs. I mean really, who doesn’t love meat that falls of the bone? I decided not to share the short rib after tasting it.
For now, he is working on spring menu items. I was curious about their local fare like elk and venison. Considering it’s not a seasonal item, Harrison said it’s about being creative and deciding how to use it to reflect the time of year. He wouldn’t say how he was changing the menu, but he did say he was working on a new venison dish and elk dish which comes down to how he accompanies the meat inspired by seasonal produce.
Oddly enough, I asked what he thought his speciality was when he told me a suckling pig. I laughed and told him I was excited to get away from pig-crazy Chicago for a week! He had offered a whole suckling pig during the winter on Saturdays and was completely sold out every week. Well, yeah, who else is suckling a pig in Vail?
I wanted more info about the local scene and what he’s learned since arriving. He offered up a venison jerky guy and the mushroom foragers. Once the ground thaws people are big into mushroom picking with their secret spots on the mountain sides. And the fly fishing is the same, they all have a secret spot. He seemed mostly happy that people here have a genuine respect for food which is what I have fallen in love with as well.
Flame restaurant is located on the third floor of the Four Seasons.