Imagine owning a restaurant and needing to hire a new chef. Ought to be an easy process in this restaurant-happy town, one would think.

Then again …

I recently was one of about 10 diners at a tasting menu by a chef hoping to land the Tosca job. It was a tremendously disappointing experience. Discussing it later, I remember saying, “Man, I’d hate to be judged on only one meal,” and outgoing chef Adam Vickerman quickly said, “I was.”

Resumes, conversations and interviews are important, he said, but “all of that is pointless if the person can’t execute a three-to-five course tasting menu for five to eight people. It’s an important aspect of what should be a significant interview process … probably the most important.”

A couple days later, given the chance to look through more than a dozen applications for the job, I jumped at the chance. That’s when I realized the huge headache the owner faces.

Perhaps it’s par for the course, but a number of things I noticed had me scratching my head.

Though experience and training was wide-ranging, many of the applicants emphasized their organizational ability, menu management,  verseeing inventory, developing kitchen staff, training and mentoring. Proficiency at the computer — Word, Windows, PowerPoint, Excel, Outlook, etc. — seemed to be another highly-regarded ability. Applicants came from around the Twin Cities, Minnesota and neighboring states and up and down the East coast. Think of a popular Twin Cities restaurant, from high end to fast food, and they’ve worked there.

But no one mentioned a favorite cuisine, a dish they were especially proud to make, a chef they particularly admired, one whose cooking they aspired to emulate.

I told Adam that and it surprised him also.

“I make all my applicants send me a letter telling me those exact things… so I can get a good picture of how they may or may not work out in our little environment. It is just as important if not more so than the actual resume.” he said. “You can’t show your managing abilities in your food. You may be a great manager, but if the food is bad, the guest won’t care how well you manage anything but the food.” And, of course, it’s the quality of the food that keeps diners coming back for more. “What is most important,” Adam says, “is making
people happy.”

Finding someone capable of that remains the problem. An impressive resume and a good interview can be a guide, but the stove remains the proving ground. Adam Vickerman’s replacement will have to prove himself there.

It’s 5:45 on a beautiful, late spring Saturday afternoon and the hungry are beginning to stream into Trattoria Tosca, the newest dining jewel in the Linden Hills area. Joined at the hip with The Turtle Bread Company – a bakery and the first of Harvey McLain’s expanding culinary empire – Tosca has been a hit since its doors opened in mid-April. The tables outside are the first to fill, followed by the long narrow dining room that separates Tosca from its parent. Things are moving along smoothly as diners are escorted to their tables. But upstairs, preparations are underway to survive the restaurant equivalent of a perfect storm.

C’mon up and I’ll show you.

. . .

Chef Adam Vickerman is calmly reducing garlic cloves to thin slices with a Japanese mandolin. Five tickets hang above the counter where he works.  Joining Vickerman in the kitchen are three additional cooks:  sous chef Dan Stepaniak is tending to two of the orders, already on the fire; line cook Dan Klein is making a spring green soup; and Dan Schmit, in charge of desserts and salads, is putting together a local farm salad.          

Vickerman is 24 and came over to Tosca from Café Levain with Stepaniak, 30. Klein is 26 and previously worked at Craft in New York under Tom Colicchio, the head judge on Top Chef. Schmit, 22, is working his first job in a restaurant. Young they might be, but after two months, Adam and the Three Dans know what the night has in store for them.

At 6:30, the pace and the noise begin to pick up, with nine tickets hanging above the workstation. At 7:10, the tickets number 17 and the pace becomes urgent: all 10 burners are going, along with the grill plate and the warming oven. Thank God for air-conditioning. The noise is incessant: the hum of the dishwasher, the clatter of pots and pans, the sizzling of food on the fire.

“Coming in, third course, two pork, one steak rare, one chicken,” declares Vickerman. “Hot, hot, hot,” mutters Jorge, the eighty-pounds-when-soaking-wet employee who runs dirty pots and pans to the dishwasher and brings them back, steaming, along with plates and bowls – in his bare hands, you’ll notice. “Hot, hot, hot,” indeed. At 7:15, the tickets number 21, everyone seems to have four hands, and the din hat hit a new high  (“Hot, hot, hot.”). Klein has two dishes going, a risotto and a gnocchi; Stepaniak is back and forth with steaks between the fire and a warming oven (465 to 500 degrees). He is also tossing bucatini in a tomato sauce while watching over a sizzling halibut; Schmit mounds red leaf and romaine lettuces, radishes, arugula, mizuna, ramps and spring vegetables on a plate along with olive puree and breadcrumbs for the farm salad. (“OW!” Jorge crouches down to place pans under a bank of burners, and hits his head on a hot skillet. “You okay, man?” asks Vickerman, a hand consoling Jorge, “You okay?” Jorge scrambles up, crab-like, hand to his head, and makes his way back to the dishwasher. Moments later he’s back, saying “Hot, hot, hot.”).

Seventeen tickets at 7:45 and it’s still crazy. McLain shows up at the rear of the kitchen, looks things over and mutters, “We’re in the weeds.” Vickerman, a tranquil figure in an otherwise stormy sea, begins to prepare the featured chicken dish that includes polenta, watercress, brown butter, lemon and herbs. He wipes a large plate, spoons on the snow-white polenta, and top its with a chicken breast and watercress. Once finished, Vickerman looks up and intones, “Two chickens, two fish, two pork, large buke (bucatini).”

The pace slows momentarily until 8:25, when two parties of four arrive and it’s back to the races. Hot, hot, hot!

www.trattoriatosca.com

I wouldn’t know the taste of a gooseberry if one jumped right into my mouth – but that’s what an old wine reference guide told me expect from a good Sancerre.  However, I’m getting ahead of myself.

I should start with a little background.  I was in Tosca the other night with a friend, polishing off a nice bottle of Chablis.  It was ice cold, dry and full of flavor.  Just as perfect as an introduction to dinner as it was part-way through it. 

As we worked out way through the bottle, however, my friend said he felt like something else.  He was having chicken and polenta.  I was, for the first time in my life, having something that didn’t even have a hint of meat in it:  roasted vegetables.  The Sancerre, he said, would be good with both our meals.

For those of you who are unfamiliar, Sancerre – like Burgundy – refers to a region rather than a grape.  Now, I’ve had Sancerres before, most of which were in the $25 range off the shelf.  They were always good – tart, balanced and mouth-filling.  After all, the French have been doing the Sauvignon Blanc thing for a long time. 

Sancerres aren’t the slap-you-in-the-face, mouth-full-of-just-mown-grass style of the early Cloudy Bays from New Zealand.  To illustrate:  if Cloudy Bay and its hundreds of (often poor) imitators are brass bands, then Sancerres are more like Mozart concertos – but still, I hadn’t had one to sing hosannas about – yet.

Back to the Sancerre my friend and I tried.  Our server brought the bottle to our table and poured a tasting into both of our glasses.  We twirled it, sniffed and sipped.  That’s when I sat up a little straighter in my chair.  “Pay attention, pal,” the glass seemed to say.  “You’re in for a treat.”

The wine was a 2006 Les Monts Damnés from François Cotat.  Cotat and his brother Pascal are two of the most respected wine produces in the Loire Valley, and this particular wine blew the Chablis out of its ice bucket.  Pay attention, indeed.

So we ate, we sipped, we marveled.  But there was a problem.  Each time my friend spotted someone he knew, he called them over to offer them a taste.  And he knew a lot of folks.  And no one refused. 

I could see myself not getting another taste.  Then, as the wine level slowly lowered, he told me that I must take some home to give my wife a taste.  And my fears were realized:  she’d get the last of the bottle.

But before she got home, I went to my wine reference to see what I could see about Sancerre.  Gooseberries, it said – the really good ones often remind you of gooseberries.  Great.

When my wife got home, I told her about my evening and poured her the last of the wine as we stood in the kitchen.  And then I waited.  “Hmmmm”, I heard.  And, moments later, “Hmmmm, that’s delicious.”  “Yes,” I agreed.  “Isn’t it?”  Another moment, another sip.  “It has a lot of character,” she said.  “As if it were experienced.”

And then all I could think was that she should have been writing this instead of me, because she hit the nail on the head.

Try Sancerre for yourself at both Tosca and Levain – and check back soon for more of Bud’s musings on food and wine.