Culinary and Hospitality

April 19, 2024 – To many a young chef working to ascend to an Executive Chef position and/or participate in a Jeunes Chefs Competition, Chef Jacques Fox has been their knight in shining armor for years, teaching and guiding them to success. But that’s not just a metaphor as in January 2020, Chef Fox became Chevalier de l’Ordre National du Mérite Agricole de la République Française (Knighted as Chevalier of the Agricole National Order of Merit from the French Republic), second in importance only to the Legion of Honour. The high honor caps a lifetime of culinary excellence and commitment, especially to the Chaîne that Chef Fox joined in 1993 as a Professional Member of the Galveston Bailliage. “I remember like it was yesterday. I got very involved very quickly,” Chef Fox, Conseiller Culinaire et des Professionnels des États-Unis Honoraire, said to Chaîne during a March 6, 2024 telephone interview.

Recognizing his talent mentoring young chefs, Robert Epstein, Galveston Bailli and eventually Bailli Provincial Southwest, asked him to manage the 1996 Provincial Jeunes Chefs Rôtisseurs Competition and in 1999, Jacques was named Conseiller Culinaire et des Professionnels des États-Unis, taking on the responsibility of developing the competition manual. “Robert Epstein was a fantastic man,” Jacques said.

Having moved to Houston in 1991 from Louisiana, during these early years while he was forming the model for the Jeunes Chefs competitions he was extremely busy working as the Executive Chef of The Conrad N. Hilton Hotel and teaching at the College of Hotel and Restaurant Management at the University of Houston.

His deep roots in Houston today came via deep roots he established not only in Louisiana but also in Colorado, Paris, a small village in France, and North Africa where he was born in 1957. His father served in the French Foreign Legion stationed in North Africa. At age 4, he moved to France when his father died and North Africa’s geopolitical climate dramatically changed.

Raised in France

Raised by his grandparents in France, their influence on his life and career was immeasurable. Of Polish ancestry, his grandmother perfected Polish cooking by working in Poland but she also excelled in many varieties of international cuisine. Jacques remembers his grandmother’s small kitchen in France with a wood stove that she knew how to regulate manually like the back of her hand. In fact, she used her hand to determine its temperature as she cooked and baked. “She could put her hand in the oven and tell the temperature. Cakes always came out. I’ve never seen that in my life. It was incredible,” Jacques said.

His grandfather retired as a coal miner in the 1960s, enjoying a fulfilling second career as the family gardener, growing the family’s fruits and vegetables in gardens around their home. The Fox family’s garden-to-table focus for a healthy lifestyle predates the farm-to-table movement by a couple of decades. The family enjoyed the fruits of their labor year-round as fall canning followed fall harvest to stock their cellar for the winter. That way of cooking and eating is the only way Jacques has ever known.

Culinary School and Professional Career

“At age 16, I tried to figure out what career I would follow. Since I was doing a lot of cooking with my grandmother, I said, why not culinary? So I went to culinary school,” he said.

While learning new French techniques at Brevet D’Etude in France, his chef instructors told him he was already very good. They readily witnessed the result of his years of experience as an “apprentice” under his grandmother. It’s no surprise today that apprenticeships are finding new advocates.

Upon graduation in 1975 with stellar recommendations and introductions from his instructors, Jacques moved to Paris to work as Chef de Partie at Maison Prunier, a 3-star Michelin restaurant. With a drive to match the fast pace of Paris, quite a change from his small French village where he grew up, he flourished.

He joined La Société des Cuisiniers in Paris that placed chefs for one to a few days at top restaurants throughout France to advance their skills. While conventional thinking is a chef needs 10 to 20 years of experience before becoming an Executive Chef, Chef Fox said the process can be accelerated by working hard. And that’s what he did. He would work from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. at one restaurant and then report for duty at 5 p.m. for a second shift at a different restaurant. His day ended at 11 p.m. and then started over again just eight hours later. “I did that for many years,” he said.

His dedication to learn as much as he could, as fast as he could, eventually paid off.

In 1980, he was named Executive Chef at Elit’air Maxim’s Hotel Valbievre in Jouy-En-Josas where he served meals weekly to French National Sports Teams including soccer, basketball, rugby, and handball.

Move to the United States

In 1983, Club Mediterranean (Club Med) in Paris named him Executive Chef, a position that sent him around the world, including leading the kitchen at Kamarina in Sicily where he would serve 1,600 to 1,800 meals per day. “You have to be very, very organized,” Jacques said. From Sicily, Club Med sent him across the globe directing kitchens in New Caledonia, Haiti, Greece and in 1985, at Copper Mountain in Colorado.

“I came to the United States saying I am a French chef and know everything but I did not,” he said. After just two weeks at Copper Mountain, he introduced some classic French dishes at lunch. “I learned very quickly it was not working.” His general manager took him on a tour of fast food restaurants in the area telling him when people ski, they want to eat burgers and tacos. “It was a little bit crazy for me at the beginning. 1985 was a big eye-opening year for me.”

But Colorado captured his heart. He met his first wife there and decided to stay in the United States, moving to Louisiana, his wife’s home. He secured a job as Executive Chef at Hotel Bentley in Alexandria, a 4-star hotel in central Louisiana that earned a 5-star rating while Chef Fox worked there, the only 5-star hotel in Louisiana at the time. He supervised the hotel’s restaurant.

On his first morning on the job, he walked into the kitchen to find a black skillet with fish smoking. “Oh my god,” he thought. “They do not know how to properly cook fish.” Then he learned about blackened fish and classic Louisiana spices, a step up from his use of mainly pepper while preparing French dishes. “Louisiana is an incredible state – the way they are not very fast paced, enjoy life a lot,” he added.

From Louisiana, he and his wife traveled extensively and then settled in Houston when he was named Executive Chef of the Nassau Bay Hilton.

In 1993, he helped open Moody Gardens in Galveston and also met Robert Epstein who invited him to join the Chaîne.

“I guess I like to move around. Sometimes it’s good for a chef to stay at the same place. But it’s not my case. I like a lot of moving around. I like different challenges. It’s good for me. It keeps me on my toes. I like new things and to have fun,” he said.

Reflecting on his career, he believes the culinary profession has changed in some ways but not at its core. “It’s the same and not the same. You have to work very hard if you want to make it so nothing changes.”

Technological advances have made it easier for chefs to conduct research and advance their skills by watching demonstrations from top chefs on computers and then practicing. At the foundation of any career as a chef is education. He advises students who aim to be an Executive Chef and choose to attend a community college culinary program to grab a backpack after graduation and go to Europe to work with top chefs. In addition, after community college, he advises students to earn a Bachelor’s degree as it will open a lot of doors for their path to an Executive Chef position.

Artisans Restaurant

In 2010, Chef Fox opened Artisans, his own restaurant in Houston. In 2023, he moved Artisans to a stand-alone location closer to the Galleria Luxury Shopping Mall. Designing the restaurant himself, it features “La Table du Chef,” a one-of-a-kind open kitchen concept.

The last few years have certainly been difficult for fine dining restaurants. Jacques laments the many restaurants that were forced to close during and after the pandemic. He believes it could take up to five years for people to return to offices, which is essential for metro fine dining restaurants to thrive.

More than the pandemic though, he candidly speaks about changes in corporate culture over the years that has all but eliminated the business lunch, a tradition for more than 100 years in cities from coast to coast. The two factors combined to transform once bustling downtown business districts at noon to ghost towns. It’s a national phenomenon that many downtown restaurants are closed for lunch service.

Lunch service at Artisans has been difficult as Jacques explains he has to cover costs to serve top quality French eclectic cuisine that requires highly skilled personnel to execute.

However, the hopeful side of the conundrum is human nature with an unbridled desire to share the pleasures of the table with family and friends, the essence of the Chaîne.

With more than 30 years of active involvement in the Chaîne, Chef Fox has ideas on how to sustain the incredible organization as he describes it. To members, he says, “I want them to be more involved. Eat at restaurants. Get involved at city, regional and national levels like I did. Do different things to be able to promote the Society. I don’t want a bunch of members who are sleepy. The more involved the member is going to be, the better it is going to be.”

He points to country clubs as one model to study. Eight to ten years ago, country club membership was decreasing but is currently bouncing back. “Look at how country clubs operate, we can take some ideas from that,” he advised.

Jacques leverages his three years of experience as the Executive Chef of the Miramont Golf Course and Country Club in Bryan, Texas from 2006 to 2009 to credibly create his vision to sustain and expand the Chaîne footprint in the United States. A dab of this and a touch of that from his vast experience and one has the sense his vision for the future is spot on.

From his early footprints in North Africa to his formative years in France to his professional career that has taken him around the world, Chef Fox has made an indelible mark on the culinary profession. He is that knight in shining armor to his guests at Artisans who tell him his French cuisine is better than top-rated restaurants in France. He credits his footprints in Louisiana for inspiring and elevating his cooking. And he remains the knight in shining armor to young chefs who flock to his Chef’s Table at Artisans to learn how to walk in his footsteps, both practically and philosophically.

Ordre du Mérite Agricole (Order of Agricultural Merit)

There is no doubt about his impact, affirmed publicly on July 14, 2021 when French officials pinned the 2020 Ordre du Mérite Agricole (Order of Agricultural Merit) medal to his chest during a ceremony at the residence of the French Consul in Houston.

Established on July 7, 1883 based on a proposition by then Minister of Agriculture Jules Méline, the award sought to adequately reward services to agriculture in view of the maximum number of Legion of Honour recipients who could be awarded yearly. Because more than 18 million Frenchmen made a living directly from the industry and because of its powerful impact on the national economy, Méline believed individuals working in agriculture who were rarely recognized for their talents and contributions should be honored through the new medal.

The present form and statute of the Order of Agricultural Merit were outlined in 1959 and had vital support from then French President Charles de Gaulle.

To be Knighted, a person must be at least 30 years old with 15 years of service/work in the industry. The medal, a star, is made of silver and is surrounded by a narrow blue enamelled band bearing the golden semi-circular inscription, “RÉPUBLIQUE FRANÇAISE.” On the reverse, the inscription on three lines reads: MÉRITE AGRICOLE 1883. The order hangs from a 37 millimeter (mm) wide silk moiré green ribbon with 5mm amaranth vertical stripes located 1mm from the edges.

But Chef Fox is not one to rest on his laurels. He is as busy as ever, operating his restaurant and appearing on local television shows to connect with the public to promote his profession. Burnished by education, hard work, and his grandparents, mentors like no other, Chef Fox is a shining star to more than culinarians. He offers timeless life lessons that can best be summarized by “Un pour tous, tous pour un” or “One for All, All for One.”

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Artisans

March 15, 2024 – Located on 170 acres bounded by cliffs overlooking the Hudson River in Hyde Park, New York, about 90 miles north of New York City, The Culinary Institute of America (CIA) is known worldwide for its stunningly beautiful campus. But its real beauty is what it delivers for students, a life changing educational path to successful culinary careers. Chef Patrick Mitchell, Class of ‘81, is a case in point. After hearing about the school from a friend and visiting, he sealed his future. “I fell in love with the school. Oh my gosh, that’s definitely what I want to do. But how am I going to pay for it. I have no idea,” Chef Patrick Mitchell, CEC, AAC, FWMCS and Chaîne Professional Member, said to Chaîne during a March 1, 2024 telephone interview.

Tough love for tough kids is one thing but tough love for good kids is quite another, one that forges grit, an unwavering determination to persevere to attain a goal. Patrick’s father spent his career in the Air Force, a familial military legacy he carried on by marching in the footsteps of his own father who succumbed from injuries sustained in World War I, when Patrick’s father was a boy. “My father fought for everything he  had so he thought that was the way we should grow up. So we did. I think it made us stronger and better,” Patrick said.

That’s not to say he and his father always saw eye-to-eye but upon reflection, Patrick is thankful for his upbringing in a strict military family that afforded him many unique opportunities only available to other children in their dreams. Even as a preschooler, food made an impression on him. He remembers living in Turkey and returning to the United States via Paris where he ate his first croissant with orange marmalade. He didn’t care for the marmalade’s bitter taste but the culinary experience found a secure spot in his long term memory. “Now I love orange marmalade,” he said.

Even though he lived in multiple cities. he found home base in kitchens as he would gravitate there to play and help his mother cook scrumptious meals for their family, another notch in his long term culinary memory. “My mom was a good cook. When I got into the industry she loved it. She was so proud of the fact that I was a chef. She was on top of the world when I went into cooking,” Patrick said.

Hopscotching from base to base throughout the United States, the family eventually settled in south Jersey upon his father’s final assignment before retirement.

Cutting the cord and fending for himself after high school, Patrick worked as a dishwasher as an introduction to commercial kitchens. “I knew I didn’t like washing dishes. I would get caught up on the dishes, then go over to see what the guys were doing on the line and help out. Dishes would pile up and I’d go back and clean them, then head back to the line and do it all over again. I got hooked,” he said.

The Culinary Institute of America (CIA)

His future became crystal clear after learning that just a few miles up the road, The CIA was training world class chefs and hospitality professionals. The school began in New Haven, Connecticut in 1946 to educate soldiers returning from World War II. From 50 students their first year, by 1969, more than 1,000 students were enrolled. In 1970, the school moved to Hyde Park after purchasing the campus of a Jesuit seminary that closed in 1968.

“The campus is just phenomenal. I got immersed into culinary. I did my fair share of partying off campus, like most college students, but every minute I could, I spent in the resource library looking at videotapes, watching, seeing how to do different techniques. And the instructors were amazing. It was life changing for me,” Patrick said.

To afford tuition, he cobbled together scholarships, grants, and loans, and worked as a short order cook on the weekends at a campus coffee shop that was more like an east coast diner. His girlfriend, now his wife of 42 years, would come up to visit and they would have picnics by the river. “It was a great, great time,” he added.

The CIA’s curriculum cadence is two semesters in classrooms/labs and then one semester of an externship followed by two final semesters on campus. For his externship, Patrick worked at a New Jersey restaurant under a CIA trained chef, an experience Patrick describes as “great.”

New Orleans

As graduation approached, the CIA hosted a job fair at which Patrick interviewed with The Royal Orleans Hotel in the French Quarter. They offered him a job on the spot as their Assistant Garde-Manger so after graduation in February 1981, he packed his bags and drove to New Orleans to start the first chapter of his professional career. It didn’t take long for a baptism by fire.

By the time he arrived in New Orleans, the Garde-Manger chef had quit so the hotel hired a new chef. But after working for the hotel for just one month, they offered the job to Patrick when the new chef did not work out. “I jumped right into the role,” Patrick said. He seized the opportunity by immersing himself in his job and networking with other professionals through the local chefs association.

As a great food city, the culinary scene bustled with talent showcased at times through local competitions. Young and energetic, Chef Mitchell suggested they broaden their reach by hosting an American Culinary Federation (ACF) competition. He respectfully said to the group, “This is New Orleans. Don’t you guys know where you’re at?” The group agreed and gave him the task of organizing it.

Patrick’s willingness to promote his profession beyond the walls of his kitchen paid off many times over. By serendipity, K-Paul’s Louisiana Kitchen, founded by Chef Paul Prudhomme, was a stone’s throw from The Royal Orleans. Chef Prudhomme offered to donate prize money for the competition but wanted to remain anonymous. However, Paul wanted to guide Patrick through the process of the competition so once per week, Patrick met with Paul at K-Paul’s between lunch and dinner. Paul’s staff would bring dishes to taste and approve for service that night. Chef Paul would always have Patrick taste them as well discussing culinary nuances and the upcoming competition. Only a few years from his time washing dishes, Patrick was now meeting professionally with one of the top chefs in the country. “I think now about those times and what a great experience it was. I knew it was great then but I didn’t realize a fraction of the magnitude of it. He was a great, great man,” he said.

Patrick’s interest and involvement in culinary competitions began even before he enrolled in the CIA. When he applied, he was working for a country club in New Jersey. With his acceptance letter in hand and about eight months to go before his first semester, the country club closed. He was out of a job, a serious setback in his plan to finance his education. So he took a job as a waiter at a hotel along the New Jersey Turnpike. Chef Arthur “Artie” Dupre led the kitchen, quickly taking Patrick under his wing after recognizing he was a duck out of water in the front of the house. He brought him into the kitchen taking a personal interest in Patrick’s professional growth. He didn’t hesitate to enter Patrick into a culinary competition in Philadelphia, coaching him how to prepare and present a pork loin. Artie also entered the competition preparing a Grand Buffet by himself while helping Patrick.

Patrick was fortunate to have such a dedicated, talented mentor so early in his career. It surprised Patrick as he took the job strictly for financial reasons but he developed a tremendous amount of respect for Artie and was afraid to tell him he would be leaving soon. When he finally did break the news, Patrick said Artie was “over the top excited for me.”

“The impact those months had on my career are unbelievable when you look back at what Chef Artie exposed me to, introduced me to,” Patrick said.

Dallas

Now in New Orleans channeling Chef Artie and his CIA degree, Patrick flourished. In 1984, a headhunter contacted him about an opening in Orlando. He interviewed and was hired but before he moved to Florida, a former colleague heard he was leaving and told him the Four Seasons Dallas was looking for a Garde-Manger. Encouraged to at least interview for the job, he did. The offer was better than Orlando so Patrick moved west instead of east. “I’m glad I did,” he said. “I’ve never heard from that headhunter again.”

On the job for a couple of years, Marriott bought the Four Seasons giving Patrick a path for promotions to Banquet Chef, Executive Chef and then as their Food and Beverage Director. “I’m glad I went with Marriott,” he said.

Always looking for the next challenge, after 23 years with Marriott, Patrick left to help open a Great Wolf Lodge in Grapevine, Texas and since 2008, has been with Ben E. Keith Foods, first with their Dallas/Fort Worth division and now at their General Office as Corporate Culinary Ambassador. He consults with customers from all 10 of their divisions on a myriad of responsibilities including menu development, kitchen flow, new items, costs and any other need that bubbles up from their customers.

Continuing his innovation for professional outreach that has defined his career from his early days in New Orleans, Patrick is currently helping support chefs in cities where the company does business by organizing “Chefs Luncheons.” The late Chef Willey Rossell started the idea in 1993 with the notion that chefs gather once a month to break bread with one another, just the chefs, a lunch “for the chefs, by the chefs,” Patrick explained. “Chefs get to know each other and talk about things they have in common.”

Ben E. Keith provides the food to one chef who hosts the luncheon. It’s not a sales meeting. Patrick said chefs are hesitant at first thinking the purpose is a sales pitch but once they attend, they think it’s pretty cool to be able to relax and enjoy time with their fellow chefs. Next month he will be in Little Rock, Arkansas and is introducing the Chefs Luncheon event in a number of markets. “It’s such a simple idea but it’s such a powerful idea too,” he said.

Since Chef Artie introduced him to his first competition in Philadelphia more than 30 years ago, Chef Patrick has participated in culinary competitions and cultural exchanges in 12 countries and won numerous awards. In 2015 he was named Texas State Chef of the Year and in early 2016, he won the Central Region competition placing him in the finals of the ACF National Chef of the Year, which he won. And in July 2018, he was one of 20 finalists from over 100 countries and represented the United States in the Global Chefs Challenge in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

No longer competing, Patrick is busier than ever organizing and judging competitions to provide his wings for young professionals to fly under. As Chaine’s Culinaire Provincial for the Southwest Province, he has planned the upcoming regional Jeunes Chefs Rôtisseurs competition to be held at Texas State Technical College (TSTC) in Waco. He recalled a recent conversation he had with a young chef that typifies his commitment to pay it forward. A young chef asked for help quickly rattling off a long list of what he wanted to accomplish including competing internationally for the United States. He wondered if Chef Patrick could help him. “YES,” Patrick told him emphatically. “But let’s take it a step at a time.” That young chef will be one of five chefs competing in Waco.

From his vast experience in culinary competitions, what is the secret sauce to success? Patrick had a straightforward answer: “You have to be open to constructive criticism.” Although his hours upon hours of watching videotapes at the CIA were not that much different from students today accessing online videos to learn techniques, students today have dramatically shortened what they believe is the learning curve to mastery, Patrick said. In fact, there is barely a curve. Many students believe after watching an online video and doing it once or twice, they are good to go. As a judge, Patrick can tell when a student is frustrated by his comments on areas that need improvement. Judges always start and end their comments to young chefs with positive feedback so it’s a bit perplexing to him why students are not open to learn from accomplished chefs.

Patrick advises students to tell judges at the outset of their evaluation that they are interested in learning how to improve. That will go a long way to ensure students maximize benefits of competing.

Even with daunting challenges of young chefs thinking in nanoseconds instead of months and years, Patrick sees a bright future for the industry. In particular, secondary schools are doing a stellar job as feeder schools to more and more affordable post secondary culinary schools.

“It’s just amazing for me to see what’s happening in secondary education, the high school. There are a lot of college and career academies that are popping up in those districts with a career center. We see the results in these ProStart competitions when high school students are coming in and doing work that’s the quality of professionals. And they have very limited resources to work with yet they’re doing these dishes that are just amazing,” Patrick said.

The Chaîne is a vital cog in that wheel and so appreciated by professional chefs. Patrick said, “It’s a great group of people to be around. Their love and passion for food and beverage is equal to none. They also support the young chefs and raise money for scholarships. I see what they give back to the young chefs. I want to help make sure that’s facilitated properly and we find people who can benefit from their generosity. That’s the reason I am doing what I am.”

From his first competition in Philadelphia to the cliffs overlooking the Hudson to the French Quarter and finally to Fort Worth, Patrick has uniquely carved his career at each step along his path to success, a path paved with valuable lessons for young chefs today.

Tough love from a tough, talented chef with a goal to nurture the next generation to greatness is not a bad idea after all. Young chefs today just have a couple of cords to cut!

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Ben E. Keith Foods

Aug. 19, 2023 – The road to reaching the pinnacle of the culinary profession, passing the arduous exam to become a Certified Master Chef (CMC), is not only a long and winding one but also one dotted with detours, construction zones, rest stops to reenergize, and a myriad of exits to explore before arriving at the destination. Even with a virtual navigator guiding the journey, AI will never be the exclusive route to an elite CMC certificate. Master Chefs get their hands dirty, pour their hearts and souls into their profession, and naturally bond with each other. A computer will never be able to replicate a chef’s dogged determination to succeed and their esprit de corps. “I decided I was going to work however long it took, however hard it took, to become a Master Chef,” Chef Gerald Ford, CMC and Chaîne Professional member, said to Chaîne during an Aug. 14, 2023 telephone interview.

Similar to many accomplished chefs, Gerald credits his love of cooking to his family who lived in Dearborn, Michigan. “I was blessed with being born into a German-Polish family. I really came to love food at an early age. That was how our family interacted,” he said.

Describing himself as curious and mischievous, he said he would pester his grandma to let him help her make Perogies and pies. He quickly deduced that since he liked to eat, it would be beneficial for him to learn how to make food that tasted so good.

With a nurturing family, one of his uncles who was an engineer with a passion for food took him under his wing. They started going to food markets together and not just to browse. His uncle tasked Gerald with the job of searching through cookbooks for recipes they could prepare together for family dinners. They would spend the night before prepping what could be made ahead of time, such as filling for stuffed wantons. “I liked to get my hands dirty and always liked to be involved in as much as humanly possible,” he said. “I started there.” Just 12 years old, his uncle – and mom and grandma – poured the strong foundation for Gerald’s future career.

Henry Ford College

As he grew from a curious, mischievous youth to a curious, mischievous teenager, his wise mother enrolled him in weekend cooking classes at Henry Ford College in Dearborn. While the class was primarily for older couples to learn how to cook a variety of foods, Gerald immensely enjoyed the experience because of his instructor. Master Chef Ed Janos who demonstrated how to roast a chicken, make mashed potatoes and the elusive perfect gravy. “It was awesome,” Gerald said. “I love my mom but she knows how to dry out a chicken. I love my grandma but she knows how to make really lumpy, sticky gravy. None of those things happened at the class.” And it was not just the perfect food.

Chef Janos had the “it” factor, which to a 14-year-old teenager was beyond cool. “I remember his swagger. He had that chefly swagger where he was talking about the juices on the cutting board being the tears of the customers who didn’t get to eat them,” Gerald vividly recalls. “That’s where I needed to go. I got the bug.”

As a freshman at Edsel Ford High School, his mother nudged him to enroll in home economics classes even though he thought the path was just for girls. But his mother again wisely guided her son. Even though he did not understand it at the time, it was the correct choice. And he learned to sew in addition to making cookies that he had been making for years at home!

Recognizing his potential, his teachers and counselors placed him in a program that had students split their time between core curriculum classes at Edsel Ford and culinary classes at Fordson High School, the district’s vocational school. Some course credits at the vocational school transferred to credits at Henry Ford Community College so Gerald was well on his way.

Tall for his age, Gerald said he was able to “weasel” his way into doing things he may have otherwise not been able to do. At 16 years old, he began volunteering to work at college events. At one event, the chef from the Ritz Carlton Hotel offered him a job on the spot so his choice for college was an easy one. He enrolled in Henry Ford Community College to earn his associate’s degree and continued working at the Ritz Carlton. Automotive executives from around the world attended events held at the Ritz Carlton so Gerald combined his college courses with real world experience at one of the top hotels in the region. “I was learning at a very accelerated rate and applied that knowledge rapidly,” Gerald said.

Culinary Institute of America (CIA)

Taking stock of his career options in the Detroit area and the path other Michigan Master Chefs had followed, he determined his next move had to be to New York to attend the Culinary Institute of America (CIA). “Early on I realized I needed to get out of Dearborn to expand my culinary career to be successful,” he said. So he mischievously told his mother he was going to New York to visit some friends but in reality, he went for a CIA interview and was accepted.

Humble to his core because of his family and his Midwest roots, Gerald approached his CIA years with a yearning to learn and not a pinch of arrogance about how he already knew his way around a commercial kitchen. Admittedly a tad bit cocky as most 20-year-old young men are, being cocky and humble simultaneously was a perfect combination for him to succeed at the CIA. “It felt like home. It’s the most comfortable I’ve ever been,” he reflected.

While at the CIA, Gerald embraced additional challenges to the rigors of the curriculum by competing in a Chaîne’s Jeunes Chefs Rôtisseurs competition. He won the Northeast Province title and then competed at the national level, learning the concept of “Mise En Place” in real time. The phrase literally translates to “everything in its place” but Gerald explains that it changes as chefs mature. “Mise En Place just graduates as you grow. Competition, for me, helped me look at all of that in snapshots before it was actually time for it to be my full responsibility.” Mise En Place “everything” included how to pack food that could travel and how to write a menu he could produce anywhere. That type of thinking as a young chef has benefits down that long, winding road to master chef certification. “That’s the cool part. It exponentially grows your skills,” he said.

Always up for the next challenge, Gerald also competed in and won the 2001 Les Amis d’Escoffier competition in New York City. Because of this achievement, Gerald was able to spend seven weeks in France working at the three-Michelin-starred Moulin de Mougins in Mougins. He approached his time in France with humility and an open mind as he did entering the CIA. Asking “Qu’est-ce que c’est” (“What is that?”) took him on fun adventures while there. “I’m a big guy. I look like an American. As long as I had the curiosity and willingness to speak French, I was met with nothing but kindness and pleasantness,” he said. He knew he had to go back to France to learn more at some point in his career.

France

That opportunity came after he returned to the CIA where he earned a Bachelor of Science in Hospitality Management. Now armed with a degree from Henry Ford College, two CIA degrees and years of culinary cooking experience in commercial kitchens, he moved to France where he worked for about two years. When asked what he brought back from France after that experience, he said it was a twofold appreciation of first, the French culture that lives for food and second, the highest quality product with a deep respect for it.

“That was the first time I was faced with a duck that needed to be plucked. And getting to eat it was unbelievable,” he said. He learned to handle it in the most respectful manner, a practice he has seen all over the world except in the United States. “If I had to gripe about anything at this point in my career is the fact that most people don’t understand to respect the food that they cook.”

As the Chef at Château Robert in the village of Montgaillard in southwest France, Gerald made many friends. Duck farms proliferate in that region. He recalls a friend’s mom preparing foie gras from a freshly slaughtered duck. He watched as she made a fresh foie gras pie with perfect pastry, an experience he cannot put into words even to this day except to say it was a “life changing” experience. Other meals he shared with friends and their families were “just out of this world.”

“It was food and community and family like I hadn’t experienced since I was a little kid at home but at a whole other level,” he said.

Master Chef Certification

After his two years in France, he returned to the United States where he had to navigate a few detours both personally and professionally. He likes to think of these times as “failing my way forward” in that he was willing to take chances on new adventures and was fine with outcomes he did not expect.

To find his way, he decided to tour the United States to visit “second cities” where culinary culture was in its infancy. His travels took him to Northern California and Seattle in the west where he contemplated opening a restaurant in Napa Valley. It turned out to be a worthwhile exit to explore but did not come to fruition.

Traversing the country back to the east coast, he accepted a job as Chef de Cuisine at the Westchester Country Club in Westchester, New York. It was a logical move as he kept his goal of one day becoming a Master Chef just like Chef Ed Janos back in Dearborn. “The Universe was pushing me towards Westchester. That’s where Master Chefs had been built and where the U.S. Culinary Olympic team had practiced for eight years,” he thought.

Within five years, he was promoted to Assistant Executive Chef but with the Executive Chef firmly in place of an excellent operation, Gerald moved to Florida in 2015 to work under a Master Chef at The Everglades Club to prepare in earnest for the Master Chef exam. He also met Chef Reimund Pitz and tried out for the U.S. Culinary Olympic team, still embracing competition as an excellent way to learn.

By 2017, he was at the exit for the Master Chef exam and didn’t look back. Out of 11 chefs who took the exam with him, four of them, including Gerald, passed. He is currently one of just 84 Master Chefs in the United States.

“It was the single hardest, most complex crucible I ever could have considered in my life and the most enjoyable test I ever could have put myself through. We had an amazing group of chefs there,” he said. It’s not an understatement to say it was a career changing milestone. New avenues with limitless possibilities opened up for Master Chef Ford.

In 2020, he left the day-to-day life of a chef in a commercial kitchen to start his own business. Legit Concepts coaches executive chefs, who seek him out directly, to success by offering them the tools and systems Gerald has developed based on his models of approaching operations, competitions and his quest to conquer the Master Chef exam.

In addition, he finds fulfillment working with high school and college students to nurture the next generation of professional chefs, a philanthropic focus for him now. The industry is definitely in what some may call a seismic transition as new norms replace norms that have been in place for decades. “One of the early skills I had to learn was how to duck sauté pans. It made me quick,” he said but added that it’s no longer an accepted norm. “I consider myself well positioned between generations.”

He nurtures young culinarians by emphasizing the importance of skills that previous generations of chefs learned through the School of Hard Knocks but now need to be taught in new ways. Adjusting to consequences of the pandemic is also important to recognize and address. Gerald has identified the need to help students realize the importance of deadlines, a basic skill that was assumed in prior years but is new to young chefs. Young chefs also have higher expectation for their quality of life.

“The profession is in transition and it’s up to us to make it great. I don’t think there is anything wrong with people taking an occasional Saturday night off,” he said.

When all is said and done, the power of a superb culinary experience is the same today as it was 100 years ago.

“It’s amazing to be able to share the world with people who make hospitality their life and I just wish the world would understand the value of great hospitality because I think we need it more than ever. It’s the ability to sit down at a table and break bread and be able to enjoy company for the sake of enjoying company. Few things can bring people together like a great meal – and a well-made beverage,” he said.

With humility and humor, Master Chef Gerald Ford has paved that culinary road for all to explore. Thank goodness for curiosity and mischief!

LINKS

Legit Concepts

Aug. 4, 2023 – Executive Chef/Owner Elise Wiggins would walk to the ends of the Earth for her clients and staff at Cattivella, her Denver restaurant. Or at the very least, she would drive 1,300 miles in a rented refrigerated truck to the Louisiana Bayou to purchase 3,000 pounds of crawfish and then drive another 1,300 miles home to offer takeout crawfish bowls to her loyal clients during the pandemic. “Crawfish bowls are fun so y’all can come pick it up and go back to your home to have a mini crawfish cookout,” Chef Elise, member of the Denver Bailliage, told her clients during the depths of the pandemic. “Everyone needs to be happy,” she said to Chaîne during a July 30, 2023 telephone interview.

Childhood in Louisiana

Elise traces her strong client-centered, culinary philosophy to her childhood and a batch of chocolate chip cookies she made with her mother. Seared into her memory, she can still see herself sitting on the counter watching her mother transform simple ingredients into cookie dough. “I remember her putting my hands in the cookie dough. I can remember to this day. I can feel the coldness. I can feel the chips. I can feel the grease. She baked the cookies and then my dad, my sister and I had a cookie. I’ll never forget the sensation of eating that cookie, the sugar rush and it was hot out of the oven. It was so good. Everyone was oohing and aahing, just so good. Immediately it clicked with me. Ah-ha! You make really good food, you can make a lot of people happy in a short amount of time. It just hit me like a thunderbolt. I want to do this for a living. I want to be a chef,” Elise said.

Both of her parents were children in military families so they were seasoned world travelers. As her mother grew up, she spent her summers in Italy. Once married, she passed along her love of Italy and Italian food to her children in an ingenious way in her Louisiana home. Elise vividly remembers one dinner. “She turned out the lights, lit candles and she put photos of herself in Italy on the table. She talked about how she learned to make this dish – Carbonara – and the history of the dish. I was hooked,” Elise said.

Her road to a successful culinary career had a few curves although Elise never wavered in her desire to become a chef. How many sisters argue about whether to watch Julia Child or Sesame Street? Elise and her sister did! She was committed to a culinary career. But her parents had other thoughts.

Thinking children normally set their sights on lofty careers that change with the wind and are rarely realized, Elise’s parents told her she would be going to college, not culinary school. So she enrolled in Northeast Louisiana University, now part of the Louisiana State University (LSU) system. She declared a triple major in Psychology, Philosophy and Anthropology. It was not as hard as it sounds, Elise explained. She was very interested in the study of man so she stuck it out and graduated. The years of study were a test of perseverance. “I was just miserable. I really wanted to go to culinary school,” she said. Keeping her fingers in the culinary pie, she worked at restaurants throughout college so she was attending the School of Hard Knocks while also navigating and conquering the ivory tower. It would lay a firm foundation for her life’s work.

After graduation she moved to Dallas where she worked at The Grotto under Chefs Morris Salerno and Karl Houck, two chefs who were part of the first United States Culinary Team to earn a Gold medal at the International Culinary Olympics. “I had the honor of working with these guys in the kitchen. That’s where it really started,” Elise said. As her mentor chefs, they recommended she go to culinary school. Finally, her dream as a young girl was within reach.

Culinary School

The United States was a blank canvas for Elise who could now chart her own course. “I’ve always had this calling to go to Colorado so I took three months to go to Colorado and camp. It’s just so beautiful. I fell in love with Colorado. Just for giggles, I wanted to see if they just happened to have a culinary school,” she said. At the time in the 1980s, options for culinary schools were limited. Culinary schools were not yet a “thing” because the Food Network did not launch until 1993, a major factor in the explosion of interest in culinary careers.

Elise did find a school in Denver, the Colorado Art Institute, and when she found it, the term began in three weeks. So she returned to Louisiana and told her family she was moving to Colorado to attend culinary school. They didn’t believe her. “In the South, you don’t leave your mama,” Elise said with a chuckle. A couple of days before she was to depart, her mother still did not believe she would follow through with it. “You’re really doing this?” her mother asked. “Yeah, I’m really doing this. This is what I’ve wanted my whole life. So I did it. I moved to Denver,” Elise said.

Just as she did in college, she worked in restaurants during her two years in culinary school. She also studied in Italy. “Just as I had a calling for Colorado, I had a calling for Italy,” she said. She started in Florence where she attended school to learn classic Italian cuisine but had a desire to learn dishes unknown to Americans so she could expand palates beyond lasagna and ravioli. During these years, she would travel to Italy twice a year to visit each region to immerse herself in the cuisine and culture. Her scheduled visit in 2020 would have been her 30th annual trip to Italy but was canceled due to the pandemic.

After graduating from culinary school in 1994, she spent the next year traveling and learning throughout Mexico and Central America. The Wyndam Rio Mar Hotel in Puerto Rico recruited her to be the Executive Chef of Palio, their Four-Star Diamond restaurant, the island’s only Italian restaurant. She moved to Puerto Rico. Well on her way to a successful career, in 2002, the Peabody Hotel in Memphis recruited her to launch their new Italian restaurant, Capriccio. Back in the United States, her love of Colorado and stellar reputation would soon draw her west again.

Planting Roots in Denver

In 2004, Panzano in Denver hired Elise as their Executive Chef. Panzano’s management had recruited her years before as she was finishing culinary school and they were building their restaurant. She knew it was going to be a beautiful venue but decided she needed to spread her wings before settling down. Now back in Denver with years of travel and experience to bring to her new position, she planted her roots in the Mile High City that remain to this day.

For the next 12 years, she crushed it at Panzano, building a loyal clientele and a jet black bottom line that increased significantly each year. An experience in management early in her career as a chef informed her management style.

That experience came courtesy of the School of Hard Knocks. In most commercial kitchens years ago, executive chefs would degrade neophyte chefs who had to learn to duck when plates were thrown at them to make a point. Elise endured the humiliation thinking it was just the way things were done in the intense atmosphere to extract top performance. But she didn’t like it. Once she ascended to managing a kitchen staff, she followed in those harsh footsteps. But one night changed her management style forever.

“I had literally three cooks from a five-man team walk off the line because I told them I could cook all of their positions for them and they didn’t do it right. That night was the hardest night ever,” she said. “I learned. I knew better before I did that because I didn’t like it. From that day forward, I’m never going to do this again. I’m going to inspire people and not degrade them. I’m not going to lead that way.”

Instead of criticism, she began teaching and mentoring young chefs and cooks. Her instincts were correct. One of her chefs was with her for 18 years and just left to start his own business. Others have been with her for a decade or longer. “I’m becoming an old dog now,” Elise quipped.

Cattivella

With Elise excelling at all aspects of running a restaurant, in 2016 she felt she was ready to take the deep dive into culinary entrepreneurship.

A building in her Denver neighborhood became available so she stopped into the bank down the street from Panzano and told the bankers she wanted a loan to open a restaurant. They knew her. They ate her food. She then shared with them balance sheets showing she grew annual revenue at Panzano from $3.1 million when she started to $9.3 million for a 33 percent year-over-year growth. That growth is unheard of in the restaurant industry as many are thrilled to realize a five percent annual growth. It turns out the way to a bank’s vault sometimes goes through bankers’ stomachs! They approved a $1.5 million loan for Elise and are glad they did as even with the pandemic, Elise has less than 10 percent of the loan left on her balance sheet.

When she went to sign the lease for her building space, leasing company personnel asked her who her investors were. Elise replied she did not have investors. She and the bank were the only two principals. They didn’t believe her so they asked to meet with her bankers. Yes, it was just the bank and Elise, the bankers assured them. In their 30 years of writing leases, the leasing company had never seen a bank do a deal with an individual chef.

In designing her restaurant, Elise knew she wanted her kitchen staff to really connect with her clients. Italians are very welcoming people as she learned from her many trips to Italy. “I would be pulled in as family. I wanted to create an open environment where people would be treated as family as I had been treated in Italy,” she said. With seating for 200 inside, her clients can see what everyone is doing in the kitchen. She has 26 seats around the Chef’s Counter so people have a bird’s eye view of her chefs as they create their masterpieces. And Elise included an open Pasta Table and Butcher’s Corner where prep work becomes performance art for all to see and enjoy. The open environment is a two-way street. “The other side is chefs get immediately rewarded when they see people love their food,” she added. With almost 100 seats outdoors on the patio, Elise manages a staff of 35 at her busy restaurant that is open for dinner only.

When choosing a name, she wanted something unique although with thousands of Italian restaurants, that was a difficult order. Then she remembered a chef with whom she had studied in Italy who would affectionately call her Cattivella, the Italian word for “naughty,” because she was always playing pranks on him. She contacted him to make sure the word did not have a more negative connotation. With his assurance it was appropriate, the more she thought about it, the more she liked it. She describes herself as mischievous and a bit of a rule breaker, two traits that give entrepreneurs confidence to take risks, large and small. She had a vision to break the norms of Italian restaurants in the United States by not offering classic dishes. And she still recalls as a young girl sneaking chocolates from her mama’s chocolate box. Cattivella it was!

First time clients are still surprised today when they don’t recognize anything on the menu. In a perfect New York accent, during the interview Elise repeated a question she hears often from Big Apple visitors. That is, “Where is your Sunday gravy sauce?” Once they taste her food, the issue is moot. They are in Italy eating and learning about Italian cuisine. “They end up loving it because I tell them the story and the history behind the dishes, where I learned it. People end up absolutely loving it,” she said.

As an example, Elise chose to include Pasticcio on her menu to expand her clients’ palates and pay tribute to Catherine di Medici (1519-1559), born in Florence, who was served the dish on her birthday.

Elise keeps a keen eye on food publications with widespread readership. Just before the pandemic, a major food magazine featured an article on Focaccia di Recco, an item on her menu. Soon many restaurants would likely be offering the dish so she took it off her menu. “I’m that competitive,” she laughed.

Imagine the interesting conversations at Denver Bailliage events as members tap into Elise’s expertise. In reflecting about the Chaîne, Elise said: “We are soul connected in the love and passion for food and wine. Cattivella truly epitomizes everything a Chaîne member wants and desires through their membership, which is learning about and tasting amazing food and fantastic wine.”

With her love of the history behind her food, many years ago her clients asked her to take them to Italy so they could immerse themselves in Italian cuisine and culture guided by an expert who knows every corner of the boot. So Elise’s Tour of Italy excursions became a reality. Each year she visits a different region for a one-of-a-kind experience. When touring northern Italy, Elise takes the group to meet a winemaker in the Piedmont region that is famous for its Nebbiolo grape. Before harvest in October, fog from the ocean bathes the vines, infusing the grape with added minerality and giving the class of Barolo wines their distinctive notes. “These are the things that are so cool that I geek out on and that people learn from me. It’s very cool,” she said.

After a break due to the pandemic, she will return to Italy in October with two, seven-day, back-to-back tours for 14 people each week. When she posted the tours earlier this year, both weeks sold out in three days. In addition to her tours, Elise offers regular classes, including one in late August on foraging to learn about edible plants.

Elise has a sign at Cattivella that says it all. “Come in as friends, you’re leaving as family.” From years of living and loving her profession, Elise has a very large family but it’s no surprise. Her clients will now walk to the ends of the Earth for the Cattivella experience, naughty in name only and simply bellissimo!

NOTE: On Thursday, October 5, Cattivella is a Dine-Around location at the National Grand Chapitre in Denver and on Friday, October 6, Elise will conduct a White Truffle Cooking Class and Lunch at Cattivella. For more information, view the National Grand Chapitre brochure.

LINKS
Cattivella