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“The Chef of the Year (you've probably never heard of, but should know)”

Moving from New York City to pretty much anywhere else is can be adjustment, but it’s probably especially challenging when you end up in Madison, Wisconsin after leaving a job as sous chef at Del Posto. But that’s the path that Derek Rowe, who was the sous chef at Babbo and Del Posto (in addition to Vong in Chicago) took, returning to his wife’s hometown to take to the stoves at a local American farm-to-table restaurant called Harvest. Curiously, it’s a decision that’s turned out pretty well for this father of two.

While living in relative obscurity in a sea of talent in NYC, he’s become the darling of not only the local food press—he was named chef of the year by Madison magazine—but he also wound up on the radar of the editors of Gourmet magazine who added Harvest to their list of America's best farm-to-table restaurants.

Rowe with older son Wally (credit: Dan Bishop)

Rowe talked to the Strong Buzz’s Susan Kane Walkush about opening Del Posto, cooking with local ingredients in the dead of winter, experimenting with boiled ox tongue, and leaving New York for a town filled with early birds.

Strong Buzz: Your past has been very Italian-focused. Didn’t you help develop the menu at Del Posto?

Derek Rowe: Yes, I was one of a group of sous chefs that worked with Mark Ladner developing the concept of the restaurant and its menu. At first, the written menu had no recipes. Mario [Batali] just gave us the list and said make these. Initially, it was going to be high-end Italian American (like chicken cacciatore and meatballs) but it went a different direction after that.

SB: How did you try out the recipes?

DR: We had a 3 person tasting panel – Mario [Batali], Joe [Bastianich], and Jeffrey Steingarten. The cooks would bring the dish out, like a tagliatelle Bolognese, and they would taste it and give feedback. It was very Iron Chef. SB: How are things different at Harvest than at Babbo or Del Posto?DR: After working at Babbo and Del Posto, I didn’t think restaurants were ever not busy. But here, people don’t go out at much when it’s cold, no matter what. Every year mid-January is the same. It’s also different in that 6:30-7:00 is prime time dining – past 8:00 is weird.

SB: What was it like going from sous chef to Executive Chef? How has your life changed from being a sous chef?

DR: Well, now I do everything. I come up with the idea for the menu item, and cook it and train the others to cook it. There are pros and cons of being directly responsible for everything. For instance, I do the schedule of the dishwashers and work with the new hires to execute a dish my way so it will taste the same even when I’m not around. This is something that Mario Batali excels at – his dishes taste the same, even when he is not there all the time. The concept still works. And his dishes even have his personality – they are charming, charismatic, and genuine, so it feels like he’s there.There is the allure of having more control as you work up the ladder in a kitchen, but getting there is humbling because it feels less in control – you have to read and react to restraints (like staff and customers), trying to judge their desires. You can’t cook for yourself anymore.

SB: Tell us a bit about the menu at Harvest, where you are cooking now.

DR: We source local ingredients whenever possible, buying from small farmers in the area. Some things on the current menu that I like are a grilled squid salad with frisee and garbanzo beans and a spicy olive vinaigrette. We also do a dish of steamed manila claims with chorizo and canelli beans with some sherry that’s really good.

SB: Mmmm. It sounds like you are incorporating some Spanish flavors into the menu. How did you develop the menu at Harvest?

DR: We are using some Spanish elements now as well as French-American, which is how the restaurant’s menu was structured before I got here. Harvest was around for at least 6 years before me, so they developed their reputation and image and it makes more sense to go with that and not disappoint the original customer base. I am still doing Italian, like a homemade tagliatelle with rabbit ragout, but the physical space of the restaurant is not set up for the staffing or equipment necessary for a big Italian menu (like where we would make all the pasta in-house).

SB: How do you keep your menu locally sourced at this time of year when so much fresh produce is unavailable?

DR: It’s a balance, trying to keep the menu diverse enough. You can’t just serve root vegetables in winter. We try to work with smaller farmers, but it’s always a balance and consistency and quantity can be a problem. Sometimes we make concessions – for instance, we can’t ever grow lemons in Madison, but we do cook with lemons. We just aren’t going to serve a lot of Mediterranean dishes heavy on the fresh lemon juice.

SB: What would you cook if it was just for you?

DR: When I first got here, I put a couple of favorite dishes on the menu, but they didn’t work and we had to take them off. One was a boiled ox tongue with salsa verde. It’s a smaller town and some people want to try new things and they get excited by it, but most people just want the basics.

SB: So how do you balance the customer’s desires and your own?

DR: Our menu now is still adventurous. Joe Bastianich once told me that all people really want is a steak and a big Caesar salad. (Laughs.) I learned from this. We’ll sell lots of tenderloin, so I try to put an adventurous side with it. People will meet you halfway. The other thing that’s nice about cooking here, as opposed to say, Babbo, is that I have flexibility with the menu. Some places can be so successful that you have to keep certain menu items forever. You can’t take anything off; the menu can only get bigger.

SB: Like the mint love letters at Babbo?

DR: Right, those and the beef cheek ravioli. There’s a balance of trying to maintain consistency and making sure everyone knows how to cook it. There’s comfort for people coming in to know what to expect.

SB: Do you have a favorite cooking tool?

DR: Mortar and pestle. Because of the textures – there’s not a uniform paste but a high and low, a deviation of flavor. It’s representative of how I cook –I’m not a sous vide type of guy. Fancy stuff takes a lot of soul out of it.

SB: What’s your pet peeve in the kitchen?

DR: Substitutions. People treat your restaurant like it’s a pizzeria where they can pick this side, this sauce, this topping. It’s like going to a lawyer to have your will drawn up and then saying you’re going to do it your own way.

SB: Any stories?

DR: There was a guy who came to Babbo and had us puree his meal. The best part is that he came in twice! Evidently, whatever we did the first time was not appalling enough.

SB: Any places you really miss in New York?

DR: So many. As a chef, it’s so exciting to be at these places, getting influenced by them. In Madison, it’s a lot more about pushing yourself to find inspiration.
(After a lot of prodding about specific restaurants he misses.) I’d say Momofuku – Noodle Bar and Ssam Bar. Lupa, Omen. The Frank’s pizza around the corner from my old apartment in Gramercy.

SB: You have an extensive collection of cookbooks and food writing – any favorite piece of food writing?

DR: Honey from a Weed by Patience Gray. She lived in a bunch of places – Catalonia, Apulia. She wrote about her experiences and defined the culture though the food – it’s a philosophy of the simple, soulful food that has integrity and meant something.

SB: Is there a meal that’s the most memorable to you?

DR: A meal we had in Modena at Restaurant Osteria de Giuseppe Giusti. It’s a butcher shop and salumeria in front and the back room has four tables. Our hotel made reservations for us and the most specific they’d say is you have reservations for “tomorrow lunch.” No time or anything, you just go at lunchtime. It feels like you’re eating at somebody’s house. The attention to detail was touching – it was done with care and love.

SB: Have things changed since you were named Chef of the Year?

DR: No! (Laughs). I got recognized a couple of times in a coffee shop where the magazine was on sale, but that’s it. But, I found out about it the same week that our second son, Lou, was born, so it was personally the best week ever.

Harvest Restaurant is located at 21 N Pinckney St, Madison, WI, (608) 255-6075, www.harvest-restaurant.com

—Susan Kane Walkush

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Posted: January 22, 2009

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