“A chef’s job is so much simpler when the ingredients are good,” Allen Routt, executive chef at Brannan’s Grill in Calistoga, California, at the north end of the Napa Valley, told me in an interview I conducted with him one day. “So much organic produce is fresh, seasonal, and raised well. You can always tell the difference between an ingredient that’s raised well and one that’s mass produced.”
Part of being raised well, Routt says, is the quality of the soil the food plants are grown in. He said that organic ingredients are grown in soil full of the nutrients they need to express their optimum flavor. “A good organic carrot has that golden sweetness,” he says. “By comparison, mass produced carrots are almost bitter. That’s why I say good ingredients simplify my job. I just need to find ways to let their natural goodness come through.” He does that through balance.
“The world of cooking is all about balance,” he says. “To be a good cook you get your palate attuned and then balance textures, tones, and flavors, using contrasts.”
He started learning those lessons early. Most Boy Scouts aren’t spit-roasting game hens on campouts, but that was Routt’s passion at age 10. “My parents had no idea where this was coming from,” said Routt, who grew up in Roanoke, Virginia. “They weren’t exactly gourmets.” He enrolled at the Culinary Institute of America (CIA) at 19. While at the CIA, Routt interned with Bradley Ogden at the recently opened One Market in San Francisco. “The quality and sheer variety of product Bradley was bringing into the kitchen every day boggled my mind. I had never seen so many different varieties of incredible organic and heirloom tomatoes,” says Routt. “He really impressed upon me how important freshness and seasonality are to the end result on the plate.”
After graduating in 1994, Routt landed a spot on the line at Patrick O’Connell’s Inn at Little Washington. From there he took a job with acclaimed chef Jean-Louis Palladin. After a trip abroad in 1998 to eat his way through France, Spain, and Italy, Routt moved to Miami, Florida, to open Mark’s South Beach with chef Mark Militello, a founding member of the “Mango Gang,” along with chefs Allen Susser and Norman Van Aken. This group was at the fore of the South Beach culinary scene, which Routt cites as “one of the strongest markets for technique. Chefs there have been leading the trend away from heavy reductions into different dimensions such as refreshing salsas and purees.”
On the recommendation of friends, Routt then set his sights on California’s wine country. “It’s very similar to Europe here,” he says, “with the access to small local producers and farmers’ markets, and of course the wine!” He landed a position at Kendall-Jackson winery in Sonoma County, which was something of a boot camp for a chef that was new to the wine country. “I would taste different wines in the morning and create a new dish every day with the three acres of organic gardens I had at my disposal,” he says.
Routt uses modern techniques to lighten traditional American dishes for today’s palate. ....read more
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