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What
drew you to the industry and why become a
Chef?
It was an
accident really. My family lived in Yvoire on the French
side of Lake Geneva for a year when I was 15. I went to
French public school and fell in love with the area and
the people. When it was time for my family to go home I
asked them if I could stay for the summer with the
friends I had made in the village. They said I could if
I got a job. So I did, that afternoon, as a dishwasher.
I did so well in the dish pit (I happen to like working
hard) that they moved me into the kitchen as a commis.
At the time, I had no intention of being a chef, it was
just work. I had fun, made some money, started learning
to cook and ate well.
My
grandfather ran a butcher shop when I was growing up. He
was born and raised on a farm that ultimately became
downtown Burbank. In fact, some of my extended family
started the dairy that became Alta-Dena dairy today. My
grandfather was into refrigeration and owned a giant
cold storage locker, Eagle Rock Frosty Foods, where
folks stored their meat. That’s how he ended up a
butcher. He also loved to cook and made candy with me,
and flapjacks –a pancake that is flipped without a
spatula, up in the air, of which he was a master. He was
an inventor, a cook, a tinkerer and always curious. His
name was Bill Annin, I thought he was incredible and was
a great inspiration to me with his creativity and love
of life. I definitely take after him. He could fix
anything and instilled that in me. I love fixing stuff.
I’d say that’s how my grandfather inspired me, by
encouraging my curiosity.
I went back
to France to the same village again on summer break
between my junior and senior year of high school and
instead of washing pots I was hired on to cook. Then in
my senior year of high school I worked evenings after
school as a pantry cook for $2.25 an hour in the finest
French restaurant in Pasadena at the time called Chez
Paul. The chef, Ernest Didier, was a Meilleur Ouvrier de
France (MOF) who had come out of retirement. I was just
a pantry cook but it was my first real taste of world
class cooking. His talent and skill got me thinking that
a great chef was something really cool.
Cooking was
never really supposed to be a career option for me.
Growing up in the mid 60’s and 70’s, it just wasn’t
looked upon as a viable career in America. Unlike being
a scientist, engineer, doctor, etc. it just didn’t carry
any importance with it. I enrolled in Pre-Med at UC
Irvine and got a line cook job at a place in Newport
Beach called Ambrosia.
It only took
a few more months before I finally realized that this
was my passion, not just a job to pay for school, but
what I was going to do. I took a “leave of absence” from
school and started working at places that mattered. I
guess I’m still on leave because I never looked back!
I’m lucky, very young I fell into a career that
came pretty easily to me, that I still enjoy. If it had
been just a couple of years earlier, it would have never
happened, I would be doing something completely
different. I had the good fortune to start cooking
simultaneously with the awakening of good food in this
country.
The mid
seventies was a time when Italian restaurants were still
serving spaghetti and garlic bread, sushi was just
coming on the horizon, and French restaurants were king
with expensive, snooty menus in French. But the good
ones were very, very good and that is where I learned.
One of the biggest early influences on me was Fredy
Girardet because he was so good, and self taught. I read
an article in the New Yorker about this incredible
Swiss chef and eventually got to visit his
restaurant in Switzerland. In L.A. the best chef of the
time was Jean Bertranou. I spent a year working
under one of his sous-chefs at La Chaumiere, just after
Chef Bertranou had left to open his ground breaking
L’Ermitage. He was the first to advance nouvelle cuisine
in California, a real pioneer. He single handedly
pointed L.A. in the right direction cuisine wise. I was
19 at the time and we became good friends. He gave me
lots of good advice and sadly he passed away a few years
later from brain cancer.
In 1977 I
got a job as Chef at a new restaurant called La
Guillotine, it was my first Chef position, my first
menu, and I was just 21. It was a huge responsibility.
Two of the dishes I put on the menu were entirely my
creations, and I stuck to what I had learned from Jean
Bertranou, fresh, fresh, fresh and seasonal. Everything
“a la minute”. I got to ride the first wave of what
cuisine has become today. Great timing! We had great
reviews from the L.A. Times and New West magazine, my
sous-chef was a French guy that came from Michel Guerard
and I was a 21 year old kid running the show. I was
outspoken, naive, made some enemies, drove a really nice
car and my ego got pretty big. We were open for about
four months before the owners got greedy and wanted to
turn too many tables, which compromised the food
quality. With the integrity of my cuisine on the line, I
told them I’d walk if they didn’t change their ways.
They didn’t believe me, and I did. Nine weeks later the
restaurant closed. I went back to France to explore and
worked at a few more places around L.A. before accepting
the job as opening chef at Michael’s in Santa Monica.
I mean this is how far we’re going back- I hired
Jonathan Waxman as my sous-chef and Mark Peel as my
broiler cook!
In
retrospect, if I had to do it over again I would have
kept my ego in check and worked under experienced chefs
a few years longer. I was only 23 when I opened the
original La Toque on Sunset Blvd in 1979. We had a good
fifteen year run. After it closed, I went to work for
Isaac Tigrett developing The House of Blues. I opened
the New Orleans club and then did the first Foundation
Room at the club in LA. It was a blast but it wasn’t my
future. After a year there, I moved next door and opened
Fenix at the Argyle in what is now the Sunset Tower
Hotel. Three years later, when the hotel was sold, I was
ready to make a move. I had an offer to bring La Toque
back, but in the Wine Country and that’s how I ended up
in Rutherford in 1998. This is now the 3rd incarnation
of La Toque, but that’s how long I’ve held the reigns!
Looking back
though, 23 is obviously far too young to open a
restaurant. I was the youngest person on the crew, the
boss and a jerk. Then just a year later I ended up in
the hospital with Guillan Barre syndrome and almost lost
the restaurant. It was a huge learning experience and
although I didn’t completely shed my ego, boy did I grow
up quick! I’m able to look back on it now as character
building. A chef still needs enough ego to put something
worth eating on a plate but hardship made me a nicer
person. It took some time, but I’m glad it gave me a new
direction as far as who I have become.
Culinary
highlights:
- Cooking in
my first kitchen in France and
actually understanding that mayonnaise and salad
dressing did not have to come out of a jar- you could
make it! Even eating in French public school was eye
opening.
- Making
breakfast with my grandfather on Saturday mornings.
He taught
me that everyone should learn how to cook, because
then you will eat well.
- Having
Michelin recognize American restaurants
and
knowing I played a small part at beginning of the
birth of American cuisine renaissance in the 70’s.
Then to have Michelin give my restaurant a star, well
to a jaded guy in his 50’s that’s still pretty
significant!
What
do you like most/least about being the
boss?
I like the
freedom, and really since my early twenties that has
been the case. The least? Well, letting people go is
never easy nor is it fun, but this is a business and
sometimes those types of things need to be done and no
one will make these decisions for me.
How
did you keep your education going since you became an
exec at such a young age?
I read books
and talked to customers constantly. In my earlier years
I didn’t eat out as much as I should have because I was
literally working all the time, but I think that is
extremely important in order to broaden your scope. I do
quite a bit now.
What
chefs influenced you the
most?
- Jean
Bertranou ( He
wouldn’t settle for less than the best
ingredients)
- Fredy
Girardet (He is
self taught and impossibly good)
- Michel
Guerard (He showed
that you could break the mold, follow your own
instincts and succeed)
If
you could keep only 3 culinary books, what would they
be?
- Food
Lover’s Companion
- New York
Times Cookbook
- Mushrooms
Demystified
Favorite
kitchen gadget:
The German
Truffle shaver I found In Florence.
Culinary
trends that bug you/ trends you
like:
I really
like the continuing emphasis on better and better
products, local if possible but quality being the main
focus. What I don’t like is creativity for the sake of
creativity, shock value type of stuff. There are new
things that are fascinating, but honestly if it doesn’t
add or make the dish any better, then using “molecular”
techniques just because you can is pointless. For
example, when I was in Spain recently I had this
incredible foie gras “sponge” that dissolved on the
tongue and tasted like a foie gras milkshake- very
provocative, amazing really. But, the best foie gras we
had on the trip was simply a locally raised artisan foie
gras terrine with grilled bread, that’s it. Best
ingredients, minimal manipulation.
Stellar!
An
ingredient that you’re attached
to:
Really good
toro.
Most
memorable dining experience:
Matsu Name
in Tokyo. You have to be with someone who knows the
Sushi master and has his cell to get in. It’s by
referral only, like a private club. $600 a head to eat
there, cash. You show up, sit down and he puts this
incredible seafood in front of you. Absolutely the best
seafood I have ever eaten, I was utterly blown away.
Best slice of tuna ever, the most incredible sake
braised abalone. I can usually figure out European
dishes even at the three star level of execution. With
this level of Japanese cooking I wouldn’t know where to
start to replicate what I was presented. His simple
perfection was just awe inspiring.
Favorite
‘elbows on the table hole in the
wall’:
La Luna in
Rutherford, across from the old La Toque – best tacos in
Napa Valley. Also, any really good BBQ joint, not a
restaurant- a joint.
A
food item you hate to admit to
liking:
There are
very few things I won’t eat but I’ll tell you what I
don’t like. After having the unpasteurized fresh rich
sweet milk in France still warm from the cow, I just
can’t swallow the milk in this country. It literally
gags me to drink a straight glass of cold pasteurized
milk as a beverage.
Three
things in fridge right now:
Beer,
home-made jam, backyard eggs
Secret
junk food indulgence:
BBQ potato
chips
____________________________________________________________________________________
The Chef Speaks on
Mary's Chicken:
“We are
blessed in California to have a great chicken industry
as it is, but to have free range chicken and free range
Organic chicken as good as a Mary’s, readily available,
always consistent, and at that quality level is just
fantastic. That’s why we use Mary’s chickens. It is the
best quality chicken and you can always count on
it.”
Ken
Frank
Executive
Chef/Owner
La
Toque, NAPA
 
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