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Foodservice News
Top 25 Chefs
Nominated by their
peers
Bundled with
this issue of Foodservice News is our book containing profiles
and recipes from a peer-nominated group of the Top 25 Chefs in
Minnesota. Take that, Food & Wine magazine, and your puny
top 10 list. Here at Foodservice News, our loyal readers who
peruse these pages know we cover THE ENTIRE INDUSTRY. And we
know that there are many talented chefs out there—not only in
restaurants—who deserve recognition.
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Deciding how to deliver that
recognition is no easy thing. The “top 10” is commonplace, and
the number inadequate to corral a group of chefs from across
the various professional kitchens. And how to determine the
top 25? In 2005 when FSN published a list of the top 10
restaurant chefs in the Twin Cities, I assembled a group of
local food journalists—some contributed anonymously—to gather
opinions and fret about who should be included. But this year,
for the top 25 across the industry, who better to vote for the
best than the industry itself? Yes. It was all on you, not us.
We sent out a series of e-mail blasts beginning in July to
chefs, restaurant owners and selected industry types (and a
few food journalists who were game to the rules) to pick who
they thought deserved to be among a list of 25 top executive
chefs in Minnesota. We also distributed the survey at our
Restaurant Business Conference in September for attendees to
fill out and return at the end of the day.
Here’s a
summary of the survey:
• The chefs could be visionaries
blazing new culinary trails, or those turning out great food
day after day—both the well known and the unsung. The chefs
could be in restaurants or country clubs, private schools or
corporations.
• Each respondent could nominate four
executive chefs, two of whom they thought are the top chefs
working in Minnesota, and two they believed operate below the
radar and deserve more recognition for their skills. These
chefs could be working in restaurants, country clubs, hotels,
a corporation or other settings.
• If the respondent
was a chef, they could not nominate themselves, or anyone they
employed. If the respondent was a restaurant owner or
employee, they couldn’t nominate anyone on their staff.
Respondents could submit any comments about the
chefs.
So, that was it. And here are the results. The
listings as they appear aren’t a ranking. There are many of
the usual suspects who populate any top chef list printed in
consumer publications, but there are also many new names,
including those who work out of the general public’s
awareness. Many other chefs were right on the margin of being
included on this list—what was most encouraging about the
survey is how many chefs are being recognized by their peers
for the their hard work.
Thanks to all who participated
in the survey, and to the nominated chefs who took the time to
be interviewed and submit a recipe. Conversations with those
chefs was wide ranging, and what follows is a few more
interesting tidbits from those conversations. Feedback is, of
course, welcome. Contact me via e-mail at
mmitchelson@foodservicenews.net.
—Mike
Mitchelson,
editor, Foodservice
News
Minikahda Club
Executive Chef Ferris Schiffer, on ethnic dining in
the Twin Cities:
I was just recently at Barrio (in
Minneapolis), and it’s a wonderful bar and restaurant. There’s
great ethnic cooking everywhere in town. Maybe it’s not at the
same level (as the coasts), but the flavors are there, and
that’s what makes it fun. People are attempting to make a
difference. I just had dim sum at Jun Bo (in Richfield) and it
was wonderful. The attention to detail isn’t quite what the
great dim sum houses of New York or San Francisco are, but the
flavors were there, and it was
close.
Stewart Woodman, Heidi’s chef and
co-owner, on the Heidi’s concept and fine dining in
the Twin Cities:
I loved this idea, this concept for
many years. Wylie (Dufresne, chef and owner of the restaurant
wd-50 in New York City, which is at the forefront of molecular
gastronomy) had this restaurant called 71 Clinton: Fresh Food.
In terms of fine-dining guys opening casual places, it was one
of the first, and I always loved it. …People (in the Twin
Cities), it seems to me, don’t like as much the experience of
the super intimidating environment in some of the heady
restaurants on the east and west coasts—the Michelin star
restaurants. So I think the casualness of (Heidi’s) is
definitely important in this market. People don’t want to feel
like they’re walking into a place that’s actively trying to
intimidate them. …
We’re open about a year now, and
basically we’re trying to improve the concept, so that the
service, the food and the atmosphere really mesh. I think it’s
good, but I think it can be a lot better. And I’m having so
much fun doing it right now.
Filippo Caffari, executive chef at I Nonni,
on maintaining standards
in a lean economy:
We just had a big conversation with
the owner, (Frank Marchionda and family). We can’t adjust
much; I don’t want to cheat my customer. I give you the best
quality, and I have to charge you for it. So, we try to
contain the prices. If you look on the menu, our prices are
not out of this world. For $36 you have a 20-ounce ribeye, and
that’s not an inflation. We don’t cut on ounces, we don’t cut
on quality, because we believe in payback in the long
run.
Scott Pampuch, chef and owner of
Corner Table, on new opportunities and spreading the
word:
We’ve been doing this for almost five years now,
and I set a personal deadline for myself—at five years I’m
going to know if this is what I want to do or not. And what
I’m finding is that, albeit the restaurant is very important
to me—the food, Friday night dinner service and being a line
cook and being involved in a restaurant—I love it all, but yet
it’s not getting the message out (about sustainable and
locally produced foods) as much as we could. I’ve been using
the phrase of late, “We have to stop preaching to the choir,
because the choir already gets it.”
That’s where these
other opportunities have come, in that people are really
starting to pay attention and listen. That is where I see I
want to go. That’s where the State Fair (demonstrations) came
about, and when I helped host the radio show (Local Food Hero
on 950 AM), when its co-host Brett Olson was out of town. We
did interviews, we were able to have conversations with
different people—there’s a few more people that we can
reach.
The restaurant is doing well, I could probably
sit here and do this and affect 100 people on both Friday and
Saturday night, and 50 on the week nights. But there’s this
other side of it, and it’s the reason I put up the blog on the
Web site, is that’s where people are going, spending time
reading about these things.
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