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Overview
Chefs are the new rockstars. They live large, have television shows, and their fans travel across the globe to taste what they’ve cooked. One of these superstars is Grant Achatz, who has been described by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist David Shaw as an intellectual adventure in food and a great culinary experience. How does one become such a great chef?
Achatz started working as a chef when he was 20. Before that, he worked in the front of the house at restaurants to learn about service and how customers react to food. He gradually moved up from bussing tables, washing dishes, prepping ingredients for cooking and finally becoming a cook himself. Achatz had an accident that gave him an unusual problem with his sense of taste due to nerve damage in his face. The restaurant critic Ruth Reichl told him not to give up on cooking after this accident happened because she said that it would be difficult but not impossible without taste buds. Thomas Keller is also one of the influences who encouraged Achatz’s career by hiring him as sous-chef at The French Laundry, which made Achatz feel like more than just a hired hand and allowed him some creative freedom. At Alinea, where Achatz is currently co-owner executive chef, he creates new recipes every day according to what’s fresh in season or available from local farmers’ markets instead of using recipes written down by someone else..
Big Idea #1: Grant grew up working at his family’s restaurant before moving on to culinary school.
At the age of five, Grant Achatz was already cooking. He might not have been preparing a full-course meal, but he certainly had an interest in food.
Grant Achatz grew up in a family that owned restaurants. The first one was the Achatz Cafe, and he helped out there when he was young. As time went on, his responsibilities increased as well. He started by washing dishes and peeling vegetables; then at age ten he began cooking eggs for customers during breakfast hours. In March of 1983, the family upgraded to the Achatz Family Restaurant which had a bigger capacity than their previous restaurant. Grant continued to work at this new restaurant as well and by the time he turned fourteen years old, he worked as a line cook preparing food for opening shifts of customers each day.
So, when Grant left Michigan to attend the Culinary Institute of America (CIA) in New York City, he was more experienced than most students. Grant took CIA’s eighteen-month associate degree program and part of that required an internship at a restaurant. The only place that responded to his letters was Cygnus Restaurant at the Amway Hotel in Cedar Rapids, Michigan.
Fortunately, Cygnus had a kind head chef named Jeff Kerr who showed Grant some basic cooking techniques. He told him how to break down game birds, fish and entire pigs into prosciutto.
After three months of working in the kitchen, Grant showed great promise. His boss noticed his hard work and introduced him to a new way of doing things that would change his life forever.
Big Idea #2: Grant’s first experience working for someone he greatly admired was terrible.
A chef named Kerr told Grant about a cookbook by Charlie Trotter, a famous Chicago chef. The book was an amazing mix of complex yet easy-to-prepare meals. Grant studied the book every night until he knew it by heart and then sent his resume to Trotter with a cover letter. Weeks went by before he heard back from him, but when he did get called in for an interview, they hired him on the spot because of his knowledge of the book and love for cooking.
Grant was excited to work at Charlie Trotter’s, but it wasn’t what he hoped for. The kitchen environment wasn’t friendly and the hours were long. He had to clean grease from the stove hoods with a chemical spray that made his eyes burn.
