Chefs Common Gordon Hamersley Olive Oil, and Rubbed It on Ingredient Hamersley’S Bistro the Chicken

TopFive culinary masters with one Chefs common gordon hamersley olive oil, and rubbed it on ingredient Hamersley’s Bistro the chicken. They roasted it slowly to keep the juices Most Underrated Spice Cinnamon in and stuck it under the broiler just before serving Most Versatile Meat to make it crisp. A year later, What are the essential Pork elements of a great chef? Hamersley (CGS’71, SED’74) Best Kitchen Tip was named one of the Best “Don’t open the oven door.” As these snapshots of five New Chefs by Food & Wine great chefs illustrate, the Most Popular Dish magazine. He is still serving answers run from soup Roast Chicken the chicken dish today. to nuts, or when it comes People who lived in gordon Hamersley Boston in the 1980s know to fields of study, from knows that every bistro that Hamersley’s Bistro was education to graphic arts. needs a chicken dish. But one of the first restaurants Their common ingredient: hours before the grand to put Boston on the map for Boston University, which opening of Hamersley’s destination dining. And it has been cooking up Bistro in Boston’s South all started when Hamersley End, he was still scrambling was studying education at culinary talent for decades, to concoct one. As the BU and worked part-time sometimes in unexpected clock ticked toward the washing dishes at the small corners. The culinary arts opening hour, Hamersley but formidable French program, started with help did something he would restaurant Autre Chose in from America’s first top do many times over his Cambridge. next twenty-two years in “I got out from behind chef, Julia Child (Hon.’76), the restaurant business. the dishwasher on one lucky has been the launch pad He recalled the tastes of night and kind of never for many successes, and France — specifically, in looked back,” Hamersley the School of Hospitality this case, the taste of a says. particularly crispy chicken After his experience at Administration has he had enjoyed at L’Ami Autre Chose, Hamersley prepared many more Louis in Paris. Then he went on to do “self-imposed for rewarding careers and sous-chef Jody Adams apprenticeships” at several in the big leagues of the (who later launched Rialto restaurants, including restaurant business. in Cambridge) created a Wolfgang Puck’s Ma Maison mixture of garlic, lemon, in Los Angeles. It was there How does it work? Five and parsley, put it in a food that Julia Child wandered of BU’s best-known chefs processor, then added into the kitchen one night to tell us how they got from mustard, shallots, herbes de casually chat with the cooks, here to there. Provence, salt, pepper, and thus beginning a decades- BY Jennifer BlAise KrAmer 42 BOSTONIA Summer 2009 PHOTograph by leah fASTEN Gordon Hamersley’s South End restaurant helped put Boston on the map for destination dining. long friendship. Hamersley that and did it in an unpre insists that he’s not an went on to study in Paris and says it was Child who urged tentious setting. Taking awards guy. cook at top New York hotels. him to open a restaurant in another cue from bistros “You won’t see any of that In 1988, with ten years of Boston, because she thought in France, Hamersley crap on our walls,” he says. cooking under his belt, he the city opened a large window “My James Beard Award is decided that a more formal Web extra needed a between his kitchen and somewhere in my office, but education would serve him Watch a video good bistro dining room. it would take me twenty-five well in the increasingly of chef Gordon more than “Most people think our minutes to find it.” competitive restaurant Ham er sley Los Angeles, kitchen is open to put us on A New York native who business. The School of at work at his first display,” he says. “In fact, it’s arrived at BU with the Hospitality Administration www.bu.edu/ bostonia. choice. The the opposite. I opened it up intention of becoming a offered him an accelerated equally so I could see my customers. teacher, Hamersley teaches two-year program, and he powerful influences of I want my cooks to see who every day now, he says, took it. Child and extended travel they’re cooking for.” working as he does with DiSpirito emerged as in France persuaded Although Hamersley’s young chefs. a presence in the foodie Hamersley that the recipe has been a James Beard “We’ve been doing the universe in 1997, when he for a winning restaurant Award semifinalist for the same thing for twenty opened Union Pacific in was good, simple food that best restaurant in the coun- years,” he says. “The biggest Gramercy, and New York celebrated local ingredients try, and local publications challenge is trying to make Times food critic Ruth and was reasonably priced. routinely deliver annual this place better. It makes Reichl gave the restaurant Hamersley’s Bistro did Best Of plaques, the chef me sharpen my skills every three stars. It also won night.” praise from Gourmet, Food & Wine, and People, which in rocco disPirito 2002 dubbed DiSpirito the Union Pacific (Closed Sexiest Chef Alive. DiSpirito December 2004) was known for his fearless “focus on flavor,” evident Most Underrated Spice Salt in dishes like scallops and sea urchin with essence of Most Versatile Meat tomato and mustard oil, Chicken halibut braised in goose Best Kitchen Tip fat with ginger, and mango “Taste your food incessantly.” and papaya carpaccio with Most Popular Dish pineapple sherbet and Miso Chicken candied cilantro. In 2003, he went from as rocco DiSpirito tells foodie darling to household it, he started cooking when name when cameras cap- he was an eleven-year- tured the opening of his old kid in Queens, mainly namesake New York City because his mother refused eatery for the reality series to give him any spending The Restaurant. The show money. His first job, at aired for two seasons, Sal’s Pizzeria, made him an documenting kitchen expert at opening tomato dramas, romances, and cans, grating cheese, and tantrums, and the chef-star Rocco dispirito filling sodas and paid $30 a rose to national fame. Then wants home week. he fell. In 2004, the series cooks to have “I knew immediately I fizzled and DiSpirito’s two fun and to loved the restaurant world,” restaurants closed. Critics worry less about having says DiSpirito (SHA’90). accused him of selling out a high-end “Every job I had after his considerable talent for dining that was in the restaurant the glamour of TV stardom. experience. business.” These days, DiSpirito is At age sixteen, DiSpirito settled comfortably between enrolled in the Culinary the two: writing cookbooks Institute of America, then and appearing regularly 44 BOSTONIA Summer 2009 PHOTograph by Trae PATTon/NBCU PHOTOBANK on The Biggest Loser, Top Chef, Rachael Ray, and his Katherine Dewitt own cooking program on see’s use of A&E, Rocco Gets Real. He adventurous was even a contestant on flavors has led Dancing with the Stars, to dishes like which the Ironman triath- Thai bouillabaisse and lete says was one of the most sous-vide of physically demanding things lobster meat. he’s ever done. Today DiSpirito says he has no plans to return to the restaurant world. He is happily writing his sixth cookbook, doing charity work at food banks, and serving his mama’s meatballs to friends at home in Manhattan. His current mission, he says, is preaching the “gospel of the reformed gourmet,” which encourages cooks to worry more about having fun than having a high-end dining experience. DiSpirito wants everyone to know that it’s OK if home cooks cheat a little and pull together a quick meal. The real goal, he says, should be getting everyone around the dinner table. “No one wants to eat alone,” DiSpirito says. “It’s our last daily ritual.” katherine deWitt see based celebrity chef Todd studied agriculture and food, connection she’d made at Kingfish Hall English, who is known for by the time she decided BU, applying for a job in the his surprising twists on to meld her professional chef’s expanding empire and Most Underrated Spice Cumin traditional dishes, such interests and her passion swapping her substantial as flatbread pizza with for cooking. In 2000, she business salary for a $10- Most Versatile Fish prosciutto and figs. While a enrolled in BU’s Certificate an-hour job as a line cook Snapper Fillets guest teacher at BU, English Program in the Culinary at Olives, his restaurant Best Kitchen Tip met Katherine DeWitt See, Arts. in Charlestown. She was “Think bacon.” whose broad experience in “I was part of the last quickly promoted to sous- Most Popular Dish the seafood industry (from class that got to cook at Julia chef, and in 2005 became Thai Bouillabaisse working a crab boat off the Child’s house with Jacques executive chef at Kingfish Alabama coast to upgrading Pépin,” she recalls. “And Hall, a position that made in Boston’s tourist- technology in a shellfish I was one of three chosen good use of her knowledge of trafficked Faneuil Hall, processing plant in Maine) to cook. Jacques Pépin reputable seafood purveyors the seafood restaurant won her a Future Leader designed and illustrated and the seasonality of fish. Kingfish Hall has earned award from the National the menus and gave me the See’s knowledge of interna- a reputation that sets it Fisheries Institute.

Load more