What drew you to the industry and why become a Chef?
Many chefs start out where it’s a family thing and they start young because of being exposed to it young. Well, my mom used to do all the menus for Victoria Station, remember that restaurant chain in the railroad boxcars? That’s about as close as I got to being in the industry from a young age. But I was born and raised in San Francisco so I had odd jobs in restaurants growing up, washing pots, pouring coffee at Café International, but nothing serious.
Then in 1988, when I was 18 and had struggled academically because of being terribly dyslectic my dad confronted me on what I was going to make of myself. I had a buddy Chris Dandavitch who went to culinary school, so fearing for my life in this confrontation with my father I blurted out that I wanted to go to culinary school in an attempt to avoid getting killed! Well, how pleasant that when I did get to culinary school, the California Culinary Academy in San Francisco, that this career choice fit in well with all aspects of my personality- It had structure, creativity, I’m a workaholic by nature so it had that! So for lack of a better answer this choice was just a very fortunate guess on my part and I graduated in 1990.
If I never had that fight with my dad I would have probably have done something with my hands, my grandfathers and uncles were tradesmen so I would have done something similar I think. I mean that’s how I see it being a chef, some compare it to being an artist but I really feel it’s a trade like the other trades be it carpentry, masonry, etc… I really feel like the artistry found in nature and the work of the farmer is the true artistry, chefs are basically technicians. We take the beautiful natural product and restructure it, just like a carpenter would take a nice piece of oak and turn it into a beautiful table.
Chef Lars Kronmark, one of my instructors at the CCA who is now with CIA Greystone, got me on with Hubert Keller at Fleur De Lys. I was a commis there, which is where I think every cook should start. Look, this was before the Food Network started to dangle the “Celebrity Chef” carrot in front of every cook coming out of culinary school. We understood back then that there was a long road ahead to just become a Chef not to even mention “Celebrity Chef”! I picked up shifts all over town plus going to school- I worked and schooled about 18 hours a day through this process!
Roland Passot was Hubert Keller’s friend and Hubert got me on with Roland at La Folie. It’s funny because this was a diametrically opposed kitchen to Fleur De Lys. Hubert’s kitchen was like a metronome, quiet, methodically organized and then to work with Chef Passot it was passionately fiery and intense- but it was all good because you learn different styles, you know? I graduated CCA and my garde manger teacher, Klaus Momberg, left and opened up a place called Jarbo’s in Manzanita, Oregon. I helped him open it and now I was in this small kitchen at 20 years of age on the Oregon coast. This was a cool venue but socially I went crazy- I mean from a highly cosmopolitan city like San Francisco to the middle of nowhere!
I had a friend who lived in Seattle so I moved up there and took a job at the Alexis Hotel because I wanted to get into pastry and did that for 3 years and I think that was good for me. Sometimes pastry gets glossed over if you’re focus is on cuisine but I think it’s a good thing for a cuisine chef to do pastry because not only the technique but also the approach is different in pastry; there is more of a gentle hand that is needed and that gives you another dimension even going back to cuisine. I did not stay in pastry because of two things- 1) I was younger at the time and pastry was a little too methodical and structured for me and 2) unfortunately my body reacts to flour in the air like pollen and I have a terrible allergic reaction to it. I used to go into uncontrollable sneezing fits and finally the pastry chef said to me you know I just don’t think this is going to work for you. Back to cuisine I went! I worked a various places around Seattle like Lampreia, Scott Carsberg’s place who garnered 2 Michelin stars in Italy and received a long deserved James Beard award just recently. In 1993 he opened the place in the middle of a derelict neighborhood and started doing Michelin worthy food and now the area is like restaurant row. Seattle at the time had a few good restaurants but nothing really major to speak of but then little by little it’s to where it’s at today as a city looked at nation wide with a serious food scene. Actually, Seattle back then reminded me a lot of what Sacramento is like right now, and I think we’re heading in the right direction. I left Lampreia and went to work for Chef Emily Moore and then Christine Keff stole me away to be her chef de cuisine at Flying Fish and I was there a couple years, we garnered a James Beard award and got best new restaurant- this was like 1995, 1996. It’s funny but even though Portland is a smaller town than Seattle it’s gotten so much recognition I think because every cook I’ve met in Portland is like super passionate unlike any town I’ve seen, I mean guys having the word FOOD tattooed across their stomach!
I had completely burned out by 1999. Because of my work load my wife and I split up, I had worked like 10 years straight without a real vacation or anything and I was just toast- so I walked away from everything for two months- sold my house, got on a plane with no real plan and flew to Central America. I just did nothing but travel around a regroup.
When I came back my folks moved to Sonoma so I thought that the wine country would be a great place to work. The market was a little dry at the time but Todd Humphries was at CIA Greystone running their restaurant and so hired me as their sous chef for a couple years, then he opened Martini House and brought me over as his chef de cuisine and we actually designed the place from the ground up! We did great things there including getting a Michelin star. Consistency on a daily basis and building a solid team that can execute that is probably the single most important job a chef can do- Michelin star or no Michelin star you are only as good as your last plate. You need to inspire people by executing on your own end. I then got an offer from Rubicon Estate Winery to start a culinary program. Great job but then the economy turned and there was a 50% cut across the board for the company, so I was looking again. That’s when the Selland family found me and at first I thought ‘Hey, Sacramento- there’s nothing out there’, but then looking around it was reminiscent of Seattle in the mid nineties to me as far as the potential, then what the Selland family wanted to do with their property was progressive and I was won over. Hey, when I first started people said you need to back off certain things; they won’t sell because this is Sacramento. Well, we’re doing roasted bone marrow, shad roe, hamachi crudo, and folks are just eating it up! I think there is this strong undercurrent in this town for change and it’s exciting!
Culinary highlights:
#1. It was the second or third month working at Lampreia for Scott. I had some knowledge and some experience, but nothing that brought it all together. I remember coming into work and having this flashpoint, a moment of utter clarity, in which I truly began to realize an understanding and delicate approach to food. It involved a caring and attention to detail that I had somehow been unable to see up to that point.....from that moment on.....my cooking was changed.
#2. Just a funny story......but one of the many. While working at the CIA for Todd, we were preparing for a large event at the Wine Spectator restaurant. We were attempting to make Duck Consommé in the two large steam kettles upstairs on the third floor, so we proceeded with a large amount of very gelatinous duck stock....I mean Jell-O consistency, and a great deal of ground duck meat. We preheated the steam kettles for a while then, after a bit we went to "pour" the duck stock in. The stock fell from the cambro in one solid mass.........ran down the side of the warm steam kettle and flew out the other side, as if from a ski jump. It launched into the air in one solid 5 gallon cube, and hung there for what seemed like forever.......we both were silent!! It eventually came to a landing on the tiled floor, where it exploded into a million little Jell-O pieces!! We both looked at each other and proceeded to laugh quite a bit.....for me it's one of those moments that reflects the daily lunacy that we deal with.
#3. I think it's the feeling of walking out the back door of the kitchen everyday......your head filled with what has been done, what can be done better, and where to go from here. That euphoric feeling of just being done with service and walking away from a dining room with content guests that continues to be one of the best culinary highlights.
How would you define your style?
Casual restraint. Although I appreciate its sensibilities I am not a molecular gastronomist. Those kinds of things don’t appeal to me. What does appeal to me is getting the perfect ingredients and showing great restraint in putting a spin on them so that it can be defined as cuisine but allowing the ingredients to shine for what they are, like a perfectly ripe tomato, bringing out the best of that ingredient without contriving it. I never like reading a menu to be a laborious venture so that is where the casual factor would come in, keeping it refined yet approachable.
What do you like most/least about being the boss?
MOST: I feel rewarded that many cooks that have worked with me have gone off and have had careers that have blossomed. The best part of being the boss for me is to see these ones move forward and become successful.
LEAST: Well, being the boss. I mean the buck stops here right? You have to inspire but also be the heavy. It takes a while to strike that balance. I think there is a misconception that a chef has to be a screamer and I honestly don’t think that does anything to inspire anyone. But even when you’ve done your best there are some that are just not going to cut it and then it’s the boss’ responsibility to make that decision to let them go. It is still a business and needs to be run responsibly.
What chefs influenced you the most?
- Scott Carsberg at Lampreia
- Todd Humphries at Martini House
- Tetsuya – amazing Chef yet humble, quiet, polite
If you could keep only 3 culinary books, what would they be?
- Fergus Henderson’s Nose to Tail Eating
- The Escoffier Cookbook
- The Shunju cookbook
Favorite kitchen gadget:
Vitaprep blender
Culinary trends that bug you/ trends you like:
BUG: I do not like molecular gastronomy. To me it implies too much pretension in the food. I remember before Ferran Adria hit it big with El Bulli he was doing really good Spanish cuisine and then became all the rave, now he is closing down for two years and doesn’t know exactly what he will reopen as- but what impressed me is that they asked him what his most memorable dining experience was and it was like eating fresh grilled shrimp down by the water and sucking on the heads and drinking wine out of a carafe, I mean super simple. I think we are going back to that simplicity, not necessarily dumbing it down but excellent ingredients, keeping it fresh and simple and that’s what I try and do at Ella.
LIKE: Simple rustic approachable food that people really want to eat.
An ingredient that you’re attached to:
Salt. I find a lot of people misuse salt. When you add it, what type, etc… I think it needs to be used correctly and but it’s essential.
Most memorable dining experience:
I was in Japan with sommelier Larry Stone and met a gentleman at the Tsukiji fish market who had a lot of clout there. We went to his sushi restaurant in Tokyo and ate some of the most amazing sushi that I ever had in my life. I mean there were little river fish, and we ate live baby eels and sea snails- I did not want the meal to stop! That meal and also St. John’s in England, perhaps two of the finest meals of my life.
Favorite ‘elbows on the table hole in the wall’:
Yuet Lee in San Francisco. I love KRU here in town, although it's more refined than a 'hole in the wall'.
A food item you hate to admit to liking:
I like Cheez-its and my mom’s tuna casserole that I make once a year with potato chips, peas, cream of mushroom soup, cheddar cheese- I’ll eat the whole pan!
Three things in fridge right now:
Empty pizza boxes, half a six pack of beer, Bloody Mary mix
Secret junk food indulgence:
In–N-Out Burger, and It’s It
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Kelly McCown on Preferred Meats:
"For me what I appreciate about Preferred, that you don’t get from a lot of meat companies, is having the specs that I need executed correctly and getting the product the way I want it." -Kelly McCown, Executive Chef de Cuisine, Ella Dining Room & Bar, Sacramento, CA
  
Navarin of PURE Lamb Woodfire Roasted Marrow Bones Crispy Confit of Artisan Duck
Preferred is proud to serve Chef McCown at Ella's.
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