San Francisco chef Richie Nakano is as widely known for his opinions as he is for his ramen. An online biography describes the cocksure chef as “the expert of kitchen trash talk”, his regularly updated Twitter feed peppered with sideswipes at everything from local regulations to “Best Of” lists.
It was a last minute trip home, the kind you don’t want to make, the kind you take because someone’s health is failing and visits must be made. Everything from my pre-departure routine to those long hours in a metal tube with wings felt more dismal than usual.
I arrived in this weird Pacific Northwest city back in the early 2000s, settling into a house in Portland’s then-undesirable Northeast neighborhood. I remember being pretty dismayed with the food options in the area, venturing out one night, determined to find a great restaurant nearby. Thankfully, I stumbled upon a dimly lit corner spot on Fremont Avenue, where the menu at Acadia pulled me in, full of seafood and Cajun spices, and I stayed for both dinner and dessert.
The guidance and training a chef receives within the kitchen – particularly during those early years – often dictates the tone of his or her career, from knife skills and spices to business acumen and demeanor.
Chef Greg Grohowski has his hands full managing the high volume kitchens of the Hyatt Regency Maui Resort and Spa. The Midwest native began as many chefs do, on the line through high school and college, cooking with family and friends along the way, apprenticing at the Tippecanoe Restaurant within the historic
Books that cook have really evolved over the last few years. A few – like David Chang’s tale in the Momofuku cookbook of fighting anger and shingles – plunge even deeper into the cooking/storytelling vein, revealing the heart of the kitchen where memoir and measuring cup collide.
The Multnomah Whisk{e}y Library, the long awaited cocktail destination from Alan Davis of Produce Row Cafe, is everything you’ve heard it to be. The selection of over 1500 pours from around the world, handpicked by resident whisk(e)y expert, Tommy Klus, is breathtaking, lining a full wall six shelves high. A rolling ladder is used to access it all, bottles of every color and size flooded with a warm yellow light that draws your attention despite the beauty and detail of the entire room. Every gathering around a table is punctuated with plush and leather seating, couches and chairs, tall custom drink trays awaiting your next choice off the extensive menu.
Oh, those bartenders, those “mixologists”, the ones we write about, the ones we admire from the other side of the bar. They gather regularly, you know. It’s not all tips and ten-hour shifts. Sometimes in New Orleans, sometimes in Kansas City, sometimes in New York. One shining week a year in the heart of Stumptown.
It’s been great fun following the growing careers of Chicago chef Stephanie Izard and NYC’s Sarah Simmons. Izard, a Midwest native, has not only created a perpetually packed collection of goat-themed ventures, including Girl & The Goat and the Little Goat Diner…
I am always in awe of the all-encompassing community feel of Maui. The way the chefs, farmers, producers on the island work in amazing sync, combining their talents to make magic happen, each happily touting the star-worthy skills of the other.
I believe this day will be to our generation what the shooting of JFK was to the previous generation. Even twelve years later, when the anniversary is upon us, you still feel the collective sigh. Everyone who remembers that morning. Everyone who still wonders why.