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 ? 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. at top 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 Ham­er­sley 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 , mainly namesake 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, , 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 bouilla­ baisse 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 . 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. signed original — that was tional cuisine and use of apart from the madding See had already earned special.” adventurous combinations crowd. The restaurant is a master’s degree from After graduating, See of flavors paid off in the the brainchild of Boston- Tufts University, where she capitalized on the English creation of Kingfish special-­

Photograph by asia kepka Summer 2009 BOSTONIA 45 the right place at the right time. As an undergrad, he worked five nights a week on the cooking and prep lines in the kitchens of Boston’s legendary L’Espalier and Icarus. After graduation, he set out for places that would expand his palate, most significantly Europe, where, he says, he ate his way through France. The sights and smells in Champagne, Alsace, and Provence were as magnificent as the cuisine. Fields of lavender and gardens of rosemary and thyme made an indelible Geoff sensuous impression. Gardner is After working as sous- inspired by chef at L’Espalier for eight the sights and smells of years, Gardner (SHA’93) and Champagne, the restaurant’s chef-owner, Alsace, and Frank McClelland, opened Provence, in Sel de la Terre on Boston’s France. Long Wharf in 2000. Gard­ ner became part owner and executive chef, and he built a menu that he hoped would celebrate the flavors of the south of France. The restaurant serves rustic country French food, heavy on vegetables and herbs. Gardner relies on simple preparations with creative flavors, such as pan-roasted salmon with vegetable puree and a port blood orange reduction. “There’s a magical way nature provides things that work well together,” he says. ties such as Thai bouilla­ seeing the menus in En­ Geoff Gardner If there’s a little hocus- baisse, which offers an glish’s seafood restaurants Sel de la Terre pocus involved in restaurant Asian spin on a French and traveling with him to partnerships, Gardner’s Most Underrated Spice standard. Her favorite large events, where she Nutmeg mastered that, too: in the dish? See says it may be her serves as his sous-chef. She past two years, he and sous-vide of lobster meat, credits her success to her Most Versatile Meat McClelland have opened Chicken something she created experience looking at the two more Sel de la Terres for a James Beard dinner. fishing industry from every Best Kitchen Tip in Massachusetts — one in “Imagine,” she says, “biting angle — including from the “Assume everything is hot.” Boston’s Mandarin Oriental into a lobster tail that was deck of that Alabama crab Most Popular Dish hotel, where it shares top fully cooked, but was as boat. Truffled Mushroom Soup billing with Gardner’s re­ tender as sole.” “The fish business has a cently relocated launching In 2007, See became lot of unique characters in Even before he graduated pad, L’Espalier, and one in culinary director for Todd it,” she says. “Now I’m on the from BU, Geoff Gardner Natick. Still, Gardner gives a English Enterprises, over­- other end.” had a knack for being in lot of credit to a principle he

46 BOSTONIA Summer 2009 photograph by kathleen dooher learned at SHA: hospitality. cakes. It was, he says, a always change.” where he turns out colorful, “I think people get caught labor of love, and it was At Circle Bistro and Notti multitiered concoctions up in the minutiae of their rewarded with high praise Bianche, the menu changes draped in gilt roses and businesses and don’t see the from publications like the every six to eight weeks to fondant vines. And he was big picture: everything we Washingtonian and the take the best advantage of recently one do is about making guests Washington Post, which the local produce Brett gets of fifteen chefs Web extra happy,” he says. “Know how called his cheesecake the from a nearby organic farm. asked to create BU alumni chefs share to make your customers dreamiest in town. One constant, though, is his a log-cabin- their recipes at happy. I learned that at BU.” Brett’s dessert philoso­ signature chocolate bread themed cake for www.bu.edu/ phy blends the classics — pudding with chocolate last February’s bostonia. Peter Brett such as chocolate — with sorbet — “very creamy and Lincoln Circle Bistro, Notti Bianche whatever is fresh and excit­ light,” he says, “and the Bicentennial celebration ing. “I do one chocolate sorbet is an adult version of at the Lincoln Memorial, Most Underrated Spice Cardamom dessert at each restaurant, a Fudgsicle.” attended by members of but I don’t go overboard,” he Even with taste para­ Congress and the president. Most Versatile Fruit says. “I prefer a fruit dessert mount, art is never far be­ His contribution? A cake Lemon with whatever’s in season. In hind. In 2006, he launched made of red marzipan logs Best Kitchen Tip my profession you never get his own wedding cake busi­- and a blue fondant roof, “Vanilla and lemon are the bored, because the seasons ness, called Peter Bakes, sprinkled with white stars. p salt and pepper of the pastry kitchen.” Most Popular Dish Chocolate Bread Pudding with Chocolate Sorbet

How does a major in graphic design lead to a career as a ? Peter Brett, whose daily Peter Brett’s training at efforts fulfill the sweetest the College dreams of diners at Wash­ of Fine Arts ington, D.C.’s Circle Bistro has helped and Notti Bianche, knows him create that when it comes to des­ desserts that are pleasing to serts, appearances count. the eye. “My art training has helped me make things pleasing to the eye in terms of composition, color, and arrangement,” says Brett (CFA’76). He says he has loved to bake since his childhood in Rhode Island and would have forgone the design detour if he had believed that anyone would pay him to do what he loved. After graduating from L’Academie de Cuisine in 1989, where he studied under White House pastry chef Roland Mesnier, Brett spent the next fifteen years working in hotels, among them the Tabard Inn and Park Hyatt, baking pastries, desserts, even wedding photograph by chris hartlove Summer 2009 BOSTONIA 47