My job is to go out and eat at restaurants in New York and then curate which restaurants are going to make my show. The kids at Battersby in Brooklyn are doing amazing stuff. Two restaurants that opened up in the lower East side: Fung Tu, run by Jonathan Wu, a Chinese-American guy who worked for Thomas Keller at Per Se, is reinventing a Chinese-American cuisine. It’s this little hole in the wall. On Orchard Street, by Canal, there are two chefs called Contra and Wildair on the Lower East Side, doing downtown casual. There are so many great spots these days, it’s crazy.
There is a whole generation of chefs who are just absolutely killing it. The ingredients are the best. The wines coming to America are from around the world. My friends come in from France, and we’ll go out to dinner. They’re in the business, and they’re like: How did this wine end up here? I can’t buy this wine in France, and I live in Paris. There is so much interest in good wine and so many good importers … producers with small allocations who want to be in New York City, and San Francisco, and Chicago …
The wine scene, the food scene—the whole thing just keeps getting better. There’s never been a better time. Back to men like Roland Henin and Jean-Jacques Rachou: we stand on those guys’ shoulders. That’s the legacy. This is the history of how we got here. Let’s not forget it.
Edward Brown
Chef Innovator, Restaurant Associates for NYC
Even being a young kid, I recognized that these people were just wasting energy on complaining, instead of absorbing the lesson being taught.
EDWARD: Roland is one of the most important mentors in my life. Although we’ve stayed in touch all these years, I only spent, literally, three weeks of my life with him. He was my instructor back in 1982 or ’83, toward the end of our time at the CIA, followed by a final blast in the American Bounty. He had a big reputation for being a real hard-ass. It was a difficult class, famous for making people want to quit, cry, or any combination of these, but having said that, everyone thought he was the best chef in the school.
When our class arrived, I went in with the attitude: I want to make this the best experience I can. He was aggressive, direct, and firm. Prior to going into the kitchen, we would have our class meeting. Henin would rattle off the prep and work assignments and expect you to get it. If you had intelligent questions, you could ask them and he’d respond. Once we’d left that classroom, he’d expect that we all got it. When you get down there, you better be on the money or you’re going to hear about it. And hear about it you did—I mean, he’s not afraid to scream and yell, not afraid to give people a hard time. I thought it was okay, because first of all, I didn’t get too much of it, so that was good. It wasn’t that he was attacking anyone personally. It was about the job. He would put them under pressure for real-life situations to make them feel like, Listen. You’re about to go out in the real world, and you need to know what it’s going to feel like. I felt like I was working in a high-end, high-pressure restaurant. We were responsible for serving great food, to a lot of guests, in a short period of time, under pressure.
I still have my notes from his class, including the sweeping schedule of when it was most efficient to sweep the kitchen and sweeping at the end of service. He drew a diagram that included instruction: start here; follow the arrows, etc. Sweeping is as important as any other task. Those are the kind of details that I got from Chef: how you start the fish; how you clean the fish; the sauce you make for the fish. Every element is as important as the other, and it all comes back to being disciplined, organized, and prepared.
I was in charge of the fish station, which it happened, remained throughout my entire career. He demanded that if you are in charge of the station, then you owned it. This was not an experiment; this was the real deal. You need to do your research the night before, to know as much as possible about the product in your station that you’re cooking. You’re part of a team, and you contribute to making this service happen. A restaurant doesn’t live on just one station. It lives on several stations, and you contribute to the whole picture.
One night, there was a guy who was serving butter sauce with one of the dishes, and he ran out. Chef calls out for the sauce, and the student says, “I’m out.”
Henin says, “You’re out. So, what? You’re out. What do you want me to do? Go out to the dining room and tell the guests, ‘We’re out?’ How could you be out and not have a plan?”
Chef jumps behind the stove and makes the sauce. It was a sauce that required a longer process, but he made a shorter version of it on the fly, which was real-world experience. I will never forget him doing that. It made me think that there are ways to do things, and there are ways to do things when you have to. It’s about serving our guests and never having to say no to them.
Within the first fifteen minutes of our class meeting him, he informed us: Most of you will get the absolute minimum grade to pass this class—69.5. Quite a few of you will not be here on the last day. You will fail. That’s how it went. That was the starting point. I like to call that Henin’s welcome speech.
SUSAN: So, that was how he started the class? Wow! What was your response?
EDWARD: I loved it. It made me so excited, because in my mind I’m saying, I’m not gonna be the guy who fails, and I’m not gonna be the one who gets 69.5. This thing is gonna be about who does the best work. It’s not about who studies more, or who writes a good paper … it’s gonna be about the guy who acts the most like a chef. I picked up on that right away. You were in for something different than anything else that you had already done. It was gonna go one of two ways: sideways or great. Everybody, from that first welcome speech, had the same chance. I saw an opportunity, a time to step up. I was absolutely inspired. I’m proud to tell you that I got a 90. There was another student, Lou Piuggi, who also received a 90 or even a 94. [When we asked Chef Lou, he said, “I wish I could say that I remember the numeric grade, but I’d love a 94, if you’re handing them out!”]
Henin was a controversial chef at that school. A lot of people were unhappy about how he treated students and how he conducted himself. Even from my vantage point as a student, and being a young kid, I recognized that these people were just wasting energy on complaining, instead of absorbing the lesson being taught. One of my absolute best moments at the CIA was that class. I took a lot of what I learned there and what I had prior to coming there, and I thought, Shit, I might actually be able to become a real chef!
SUSAN: Did you want a career in fish at the time?
EDWARD: To some degree. Having grown up at the Jersey shore, being at the ocean, fishing had been a big part of my life. I worked at seafood restaurants before going to the CIA, and I realized then, there was so much more in the way of finesse and technique with fish. Remember, we’re going way back to the early eighties. There was little opportunity for someone to say, “Fish is my thing.” Two-and-a-half extra minutes on the grill with a steak, and it’s still pretty good. But two-and-a-half extra minutes on a piece of turbot, and it’s burnt. I also realized that, in those days, everything on a meat plate was basically brown, yet on a fish plate, there could be five different colors on one dish. I saw the opportunity to be a craftsman as well as somebody who delivers “edible art,” if you will.
SUSAN: Did he know any of this, when you were in the E-Room?
EDWARD: No. We have become good friends, but I pride myself on the fact that I was not his friend at the time. We didn’t have any kind of relationship, outside of the hours spent in the class. It was, “Yes, Chef.” Otherwise, I had my head down, working.
In my time at the CIA, Fish Kitchen hadn’t been developed yet. I feel like I missed out. I would have loved to have been in the Fish Kitchen with him. But, I had a micro-version of that, being the “Fish Guy” in the Escoffier Room. In those times, the early eighties, you graduated with a great job. You could have gone anywhere in the country. The market was so hungry for American cooks. Chef placed me in my job, after graduation. He was consulting for a restaurant—a wealthy couple
in Nashville, Tennessee, of all places. They traveled the world and spent a lot of time in New York. Basically, they wanted to recreate Lutèce, in Nashville. That was their model, and they bought a free-standing house in the middle of the city. They traveled to France, found a European chef, and got this restaurant going. The only problem was, their chef would take a certain period of time off every year. They would be stuck, because Nashville did not have people who could do what he was doing. The owners thought, Where are we going to find the best of the best? They got in touch with the CIA and Chef Henin. He may have even gone down there to cover for that chef. When I graduated, he said, “This is a great opportunity. I’d like to send you down there. It’s a small French restaurant, Julian’s, a super boutique French restaurant, in a small house in Nashville.”
I worked with the great Dijon-born chef, Sylvain Le Coguic. We came in early, baked bread, did the mise en place, all the sauces and preparations, took a break and returned to do the dinner service, with a maximum of seventy covers. Everything was scratch cooking, done the right way. You work hard, but it would be like learning in a few different restaurants in one location. He said, “It doesn’t matter where on the planet you work; this is the right place for you.” So, that’s where I went.
I stayed there for about one and a half years. At that time, Lou Piuggi was working at Maurice, in the Hotel Parker Meridien, in NYC. They were looking for a fish cook and wondered if I would consider returning to New York. It was time to keep moving, and this was a huge opportunity. In the early eighties, New York was the mecca of French dining. This was the right moment for me to be working with one of the stars of the moment, Christian Delouvrier, Executive Chef. Alain Senderens was the consulting chef from Paris (Lucas Carton Restaurant). It was an opportunity to move up the ladder, so I did it.
When I went to Nashville, Chef and I stayed in touch, with occasional calls and a letter … obviously, we weren’t emailing at that time. It’s so different now. Today, if you have a mentor, you could be sending him an email once a week to check in. Back then, you had to call or write a letter. The interesting part is, the communication channels were so much less than they are now, but I feel like I never disconnected from him. There are few people in my life that are like that, and he’s one.
We stayed in touch over the years. When Chef Keller received some huge honor and invited Roland to be there, he invited me into town and we had breakfast. Again, we went right into talking about what I was doing, does it make me happy, is it important for me … no bullshit, no how’s the weather kind of thing. Listen, I’m a successful guy, I’m not afraid to say, but we immediately fall into our roles. He’s the teacher, and I’m the student. I don’t mind that, and I don’t give that up for a lot of people. We all need teachers and we never stop learning. He has my respect in that I’m not beyond listening to anything he’s got to tell me, even today.
I saw him at a job fair at the CIA. Our company was there, and he was there representing Delaware North. It was an unexpected pleasure for us both. He immediately called me by the nickname he gave me—Rattlesnake. In letters I’ve sent to him, I would sign, “Sincerely, Rattlesnake.” If I spoke to him on the phone, I’d say, “Hello, Chef, this is Rattlesnake.” I don’t even know why he called me this! You could picture him saying this: “Aah, Raahtlaahsnaayke!”
SUSAN: Better than Shoemaker.
EDWARD: Better than Shoemaker. He called plenty of people Shoemaker. Clearly, we have a good relationship, so it was a good connotation, but … I thought it was funny. It was from the E-Room. For some reason, one day, he says to me, “AAAAh, zeez eez ze Rattlesnake.” And that was it. From then on, it was Rattlesnake. That’s who I was. It was clear that most of the others were called Shoemaker, preceded by Fucking.
There are many people out there who thought Henin was the worst experience of their career. Those people probably haven’t done much with their careers. Honestly, he never did it because he was a nasty dirtball. He had a mission, and that was his style of getting you to your endgame as a winner. He believed in it. He does what he believes in, period. I would say that this philosophy has helped me, as well. I also live by that. If I don’t feel right about doing something, I won’t do it. At times, it’s been difficult, but mostly, it has worked out.
SUSAN: How has Chef impacted your life?
EDWARD: We’ve had a nice relationship over all these many years, but the whole thing is based off of spending not even three weeks together. I would still call him out as one of the top three mentors in my life, just because that formation was so important to me: it was a combination of the things that he taught me and the awakening of my own self, finding my own way. I made it through the CIA and did well, but, you’re with a group of people, and everyone’s caught up in, Who got an A? Who got a B? When we got to his class, it was a level playing field where he basically said, You’re all going to come close to failing or just make it. You’re all on the same playing field, and the strong will survive. Stand up and be strong. Show me who you are. I got to stand out in that moment, and I’ve never looked back. It awakened that in me. I was never passive or lazy, but it was like the bell was ringing. His voice was that bell and now was the time. Sometimes it takes that spark to awaken that thing inside you. I was always ambitious and very motivated. I always wanted to work, but we’re talking about a whole other level.
You went there the same time as me. We were in the generation of respected American cooks, hoping to be chefs. The generation or two prior to us were still blue-collar cooks. I mean, look what we’ve seen, just in our time. Then we have this opportunity … and what’s happened from then until now is crazy!
It annoys the crap out of Henin to see these TV-level rock star chefs. It annoys him to no end, but he is as much a rock star in his own right. Yet, he also realizes that they serve a purpose. If you are a chef on television, you are furthering the public awareness about cooking and what we do, which helps garner more respect for all chefs. Some of us use it in the right way, and some of us don’t. And, by the way … I don’t mind being forward in saying all this love fest is for Roland Henin. He is not the most humble guy in the world. He likes the attention.
He came to visit me while I was in Nashville. When the chef was away, Chef Henin and I would work together. What a small kitchen it was … just two other guys in the heat of service. I’m looking over and here I am, standing next to my instructor, chef, and mentor who, just several weeks ago, was the guy giving me terrifying looks. Now here I am standing next to him, cooking. It was great.
Anyway, I brought my girlfriend to meet him—this guy who was my mentor, my chef at school, how I got here … the whole thing. Chef reaches out to take her hand. You know how someone takes a woman’s hand, to plant a kiss? He grabs her hand, pulls it toward him, kisses his own hand, and says, “It’s a pleasure for you to meet me.” I mean, is that him, or what?
SUSAN: [Laughs] No one has told me that one before!
EDWARD: That’s why I am the Rattlesnake. We both absolutely share a passion for the opposite sex. I would say, he’s a tamed lion at this point.
SUSAN: What is your mentoring style?
EDWARD: It’s the same. I help expose my chefs to what their direction is—not by preaching, but by sharing my experiences and leading by example. When they tell me what they want to do, I ask questions nobody else has asked them: You want to be the chef of this hotel. Why? What’s so great or different about that hotel? Make them spell it out. Tell me what intrigues you about it. Maybe it’s not such a great choice, and I’m not afraid to expose that. I want to be the devil’s advocate. That’s a good mentor.
The other good part about being a mentor is expanding that person’s network to be in places where they might not be exposed. I’ll introduce them to people who might be able to help them in the direction that they are heading. When a guy is doing a great job, with great attitude, going as far as he can go on his own, I want to help get him even further. I wish everyone I talk to
had that attitude and talent, but the truth is, they don’t. A chef came to see me last week. I had blocked off forty-five minutes, and we stayed there for two and a half hours. The conversation was so rich that I would have stayed there all day. If he or she wants it, and we have a connection, I have all the time in the world.
SUSAN: My, you sound an awful lot like somebody we know …
EDWARD: That may well be the best compliment that I get.
Author’s note, in response to Chef Ed Brown’s “Rattlesnake” story: My nickname was “Slash,” earned on the first day of Skills Development. I slashed open a fellow student’s hand while we both reached for a bowl (with my French knife still in my hand). Poor guy was out of school for months (sorry, Martin). Also, referring to Rattlesnake’s “69.5” story, I am proud to tell you that I received an 81 in Chef Henin’s Fish Kitchen. Slash ain’t no Shoemaker.
Lou Piuggi
SRVP Culinary-Executive Chef, Patina Restaurant Group
I owe him everything, because he saw me.
LOU: I first met Chef Roland as a student at the CIA. I graduated in August 1983 and had him in Escoffier Room. For his class, I chose to work the saucier station. He wasn’t a Master Chef yet, but he had the reputation for being severe—throwing knives in the garbage if not sharp, etc. There was a lot of trepidation among the student body before entering his class. The Escoffier Room unit was defined as a “real” restaurant experience, a place where you would be treated like a serious cook. A lot of my classmates shifted to the a.m. group, thinking it would be easier to get a better grade in a less demanding environment. So, we entered the kitchen with only seven students—just enough to cover each station.
Roland G. Henin: 50 Years of Mentoring Great American Chefs Page 9