The restaurant is open, thriving and grosses 2+ million annually, however the owner is ready to retire and hand the reins over to an enthusiastic, passionate culinarian.

The kitchen is ready to go with all the equipment you need to turn out Michelin star quality food. Thanks to its 2019 renovation, all electrics and plumbing are modern and within code.

There’s grand visibility, indoor and outdoor seating, and plenty of parking. There’s 40+ parking spaces plus room for more. This is the perfect restaurant for Asheville, NC.

This is your opportunity to acquire a beautiful restaurant on prized real estate in one of the fastest-growing regions in the Southeast. The Asheville and the Western North Carolina (Hendersonville, Flat Rock, Black Mountain, Waynesville, etc) market attract an enviable mix of locals, second-home owners, and year-round tourists and that means a steady flow of diners for your restaurant.

We have a strategic location, strong finances, and a superb investment that includes valuable acreage. What more could you be looking for? Call or email me to learn more about this gorgeous restaurant, with land, for sale in Asheville, NC. This property is valued at 3.7 million.

I’m a broker with National Restaurant Properties and a Hospitality Consultant that’s helped lots of F & B establishments find succcess. The majority of our inventory are operating, successful restaurants and our process is confidential. If you’re truly interested in this listing we will need an NDA and authentication of your financial picture before proceeding.

Call or email me today: 864.616.7171

chefjohnmalik@gmail.com

~ John

The post Asheville Area Restaurant for Sale appeared first on Chef John Malik.

When I was in high school, most of us guys were interested in hot rods and quarter mile drag cars. The parking lot of our Winn Dixie routinely hosted Dodge Challenger R/Ts, Boss 302 Mustangs, Plymouth Chargers, and Chevrolet Chevelles, one with a 396 and cold-air induction. Our town had a drag strip, LaPlace Drag Strip, that annually hosted the big boys and girls at the NHRA Cajun Nationals. The sound of those alcohol-burning monsters could be heard throughout our little town and across the Mississippi. Yet somehow, I was following Formula 1 and Indy cars. No one in my family, on my street, or in my circle of friends cared about road racing yet somehow, I found it and was enamored with it. Mario Andretti, Dan Gurney, Colin Chapman, Gilles Villeneuve, and Jim Clark were my automotive heroes.  I bought Clark’s book, At The Wheel, and was reading it in a class with a few upperclassmen. One of them saw it, yanked it out of my hands and the words that dimwitted jock hurled at me were truly fighting words. (Albert if you’re still around, name the time and place.) High school led to college, led to culinary school in New Orleans and eventually I landed as Chef at Greenville’s Augusta Grill.

In 1999 and 2000, I was Food Network’s Flavor of the Month. I’d spent a few years chasing TV glory and when it came, I embraced it with both hands.  Our owner and host Buddy Clay would often come into the kitchen on a Friday late afternoon and announce, “Malik, some damn producer from Food Network wants to talk to you” and he’d hand me the phone. When I questioned producer Mark Dissin as to why he would call at the busiest afternoon of the week, his answer was, “Because I know exactly where you are.” That was life before cell phones.

At the time Food Network had a show titled Food Fantasy. It was a mediocre show that offered to make a guest’s “food fantasy” come true.  I caught a bit of it on TV and a light went on. Maybe this show could get me to a racetrack? I then emailed my pal Bob Tuschman at Food Network and received a quick reply that I should reach out to Banyan Productions, the people that created Food Fantasy. I did so with a cryptic “I have an idea for the show.”  Banyan responded the next day and asked me to write a summary of what I had in mind. I wanted to cook for Chip Ganassi IndyCar team and specifically 1996 IndyCar champion, Jimmy Vasser. Vasser was California cool, a gentleman on TV and a gifted, smooth driver on track and in 2000 he was teamed with future F1 star Juan Montoya. I wrote a 500-word essay on why I loved open-wheel racing, why I respected Jimmy Vasser, and how I envisioned my day would go, and ideally this would occur at Mid-Ohio race track. Mid-Ohio is set in the lush, rolling hills of Lexington and a track I hadn’t yet visited.  24 hours later I heard back from Banyan. They loved the idea and would reach out to the Ganassi team. Late the following night, maybe 11:30, I was walking up the stairs to our bedroom and I called out to Amy because it sounded like she was on the computer in our office. When our eyes met she looked angry.

“You’re going to be on Food Fantasy?”

“I am?”

It was at this point I realized I hadn’t told her about my latest foray with the network. At the time it was understood that I would get another phone call and have another opportunity. And I didn’t want to talk about anything until it felt certain. Apparently, this one was now certain. But somehow this one wasn’t sitting well with my wife because she was definitely upset.

“You’re going to be on Food Fantasy, on my birthday, and you’re taking me to a, to a …damn car race!? Why aren’t we going to Paris?”

I brushed her, and her disappointment aside to read the email. The Ganassi team was all in but they wanted to film at Chicago which was their main sponsor’s (Target) headquarters. Chicago meant a 1.5 mile oval racetrack, a track better suited for stock cars. And that race would take place on Amy’s birthday weekend in late July. I turned to her and managed an awkward, conciliatory smile.

“But we love Chicago, right honey?”

I had to go outside, walk down the street to shout my hallelujahs. I would spend a race weekend cooking with the Ganassi IndyCar team. The next day at the Grill, Buddy had to listen to me offer another “Guess what I’m going to do?” story with a Food Network ending.

A couple of months later I met the Banyan crew at Chicagoland speedway. We would film on Friday, during timed practice. That meant just a few hundred fans and few VIPs, but all the teams were there getting the cars ready for Saturday’s qualifying and Sunday’s race. I met Ganassi’s chef, Jon Wheeler, who was equally excited about his TV debut. Chef Wheeler cooked out of a tight kitchen built into the back half of a 53-foot tractor-trailer. He was a gearhead from an early age, and we shared quite a few stories of kitchen life. We planned our meal then he took me through the paddock and under the rope for an up-close tour of the team’s cars. That season, Ganassi cars were powered a 2.65 liter Toyota turbocharged V8 with (gulp!) 45 inches of boost, fueled with methanol and screaming to 13,500 revolutions per minute. Even when the cars idled, they sounded angry, furious. As Jon and I toured the paddock, all seven members of the Banyan crew with their cameras, lights, and mics in tow, the entire IndyCar paddock was wondering “who’s this guy?” And who would appear but Mario Andretti. He stopped in front of us, put his hands on his hips and asked Chef Wheeler what was up. I introduced myself and when I told him what we were doing he laughed.

“What are you cooking for the Ganassi crew for? Chip doesn’t know good food from a flat tire. You should be cooking with my team.”

“Next time, Mario, we’re all yours.”

Mario had somewhere to be and we had a schedule. But damn! Mario Andretti had just shook my hand and shared a joke with me. Chef Wheeler pinched me and said “I have to do that all the time because when I was a kid, Mario was the man,1978 Formula One champion, Indy 500 champion, Daytona, LeMans. I mean come on, it’s Mario. And now he nods and calls me chef.”

Several team members walked past and waved to Chef Wheeler and one rubbed his hair and hollered “There’s our next TV star.”  Then Bobby Rahal, the 1986 Indy 500 champion was there, he pointed at Chef Wheeler and said, “I heard you’re gonna be a TV star this weekend.”  All too soon we had to return to the kitchen and get to work. The cars would be on track from 10:00 am until 12:00 noon and then the team and VIPs would have lunch. At 2:00 pm the cars would return to the track. With 12 engineers, 2 drivers, maybe 24 mechanics and 40ish VIPs to feed we had a real job ahead of us and Chef Wheeler was very happy to have help in the kitchen. We prepared lasagna and Caesar salad for the mechanics, a mustard glazed grouper with a variety of sides for the VIPs, and for the drivers, poached chicken breast with penne pasta, a touch of butter, and Parmesan cheese. The drivers ate the same exact thing at every race weekend. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner, at every race, the same thing. Jon told me they didn’t want anything unfamiliar in their stomach, and certainly nothing too aromatic, or spicy, or sweet. Racing at their level required every ounce of concentration and even a bit of indigestion could be detrimental. While the Banyan production crew tried their best to blend in, we set up the VIP buffet, then plated up the chicken pasta for Juan and Jimmy. It was then I asked Chef Wheeler, “Hey they know we’re here, right?” The “we” was me and the seven-person squad from Banyan. The Ganassi PR gal had just walked in and heard my query. She exclaimed, “I’ll go give the guys a heads up” and dashed off in front of us. For some reason that set off my spidey sense.

“Jon, they do know we’re here, correct?”

Chef Wheeler just shrugged his shoulders and said, “We’ll find out.”

I had two plates of chicken pasta with two rolls of tableware, two camera guys, two guys with boom mics, an audio engineer, a director, and another guy with a large bounce light. And we were about to interrupt the inner workings of an IndyCar team during the middle of a test session. We trotted past the mechanics enjoying their lasagna and salad and I watched as the PR gal opened the door to the engineering room. A room where the drivers, engineers, and team manager would never expect to be interrupted by TV cameras.

“Heads up guys, there’s a crew from Food Network here.”

Chef Wheeler told me to go in and I took one step up and there was about 12 members of the Ganassi team sitting around a conference table with printouts, binders, and graphs. Team manager Mike Hull looked at me, shook his head and tried to hide his disgust. A couple of the engineers mumbled something under their breath and one guy put his head in his hands and I never felt more unwanted and out of place in my life. I held the plates out to Juan and Jimmy, mumbled an introduction, and tried to back out of the doorway but the director had her hand on my back and likely sensed everything going south, but she wouldn’t let me move.

“Ask them how’s the food” she whispered.

Juan took his plate without looking at me or saying anything and I was stuck waiting for Jimmy to take his food. Somehow, Vasser realized what was happening and he stood up, took the plate, removed the tinfoil, had a big inhale and said with a smile, “Wow, this smells amazing. I’m sure it’s going to be delicious.” And just like that I felt the pressure come off my back. We stepped out, the door closed, and I could breathe again. We turned and were amongst the mechanics and they’re all on their second serving and joking and smiling and loving the lasagna. I got lots of thumbs up and high fives from them then we were off to check on the VIPs. They were also very happy with the food. Jon and I chuckled a bit for the cameras and laughed about the earlier tension. Then who walked up but Jimmy Vasser, the 1996 IndyCar champion and he offered me a California handshake, looked into the camera and said, “The food was wonderful.” I responded with “thanks for putting up with us.” And he laughed and handed me a Ganassi shirt, a couple of autographed hats, and two tickets to the race on Sunday. An hour later, when the cars were back on track, I stood at the pit wall and got covered in burning rubber and methanol fumes while the team practiced their pit stops and Jimmy did what he does best.

How often have you heard that phrase “Never meet your heroes”?  I don’t consider Jimmy my hero because I’ve always believed a hero is someone that risks their life to save someone else’s. I admired Jimmy’s style, competitiveness, and skill level because he succeeded at reaching the very top of his, and my sport. And for a brief moment he recognized my distress and offered me a hand. That’s pure class.

Thanks to the politics of competing sanctioning bodies, Jimmy Vasser didn’t get the chance to shine at the Indianapolis 500. With his Vasser/Sullivan IMSA team he still races, just not behind the wheel.  Amy had a marvelous birthday dinner in Chicago at Gale Gand’s (her favorite pastry chef) Tru Restaurant. All’s well that ends well.

~ John

The post The Class of The Field appeared first on Chef John Malik.

Amy and I met in culinary school in New Orleans and by providence we ended up working at the same restaurant. We became teammates, then friends, then lovers and at some point, we discussed our future. Cooking on a high level, a chef’s life, was what we desired. Amy has a degree in studio art, mine is in literature and our new medium would be in food. When we were young newlyweds we often discussed our own restaurant. What would it look like? What would we serve?

I knew going in that restaurant life would be tough but that was what I found attractive. It was a culture that valued strength, determination, stamina, and art. It bordered on an athletic endeavor. The first couple of chefs I worked under had one critical rule, my way or the highway. They were French, had grown up in Paris and had thrived in hospitality under the austere conditions of post-World War II France. One of my early lessons centered around profiteroles, those airy delights we know as cream puffs. Profiteroles are made from pate a choux, the dough also used to make eclairs. As the new cook, I was subjected to Chef Roland’s (pronounced: roe-lahnd) continual barrage of insults (“your mother fed you too much Jello as a child” or “you know what your problem is, you are totally stupid and know nothing about cooking”) meant to find my weak point. He was certain I would soon crack and find a new career, until the day he showed me how to make profiteroles. This was four months into my 18 months with him and that day he glared at me and with his hard Parisian accent announced, “We will make profiteroles.” While he stood over me and directed with a rubber spatula, I boiled a gallon of water, added several pounds of whole butter and stirred while it melted, then added what felt like five pounds of flour and stirred the warm dough vigorously while Chef berated me.

“Faster monsieur and always the same direction. Clockwise. And do not slow down.  Come on, faster.”

Then I stirred in the eggs, lots of eggs. One at a time, with a wooden spoon. Always with a wooden spoon. The whole process took a good thirty minutes and was done by hand. Then we stuffed that warm batter into a pastry bag and Roland showed me how to pipe them out and bake them in a hot oven, then cool oven to achieve that traditional look of a tiny cabbage. When he was satisfied with the result, he complimented me with a nonchalant shrug of the shoulders and, “we will use them” then he smacked me, hard, on the side of the head with his rubber spatula. When I protested with “What the hell, Chef!?”  He stuck that spatula in my face and declared “Now you will remember this lesson for the rest of your life!”

To Roland, those ingredients, flour, water, butter, eggs were precious and they were to be treated with respect. A proper cook could turn those humble ingredients into something delicious, and artistic. We made our own vanilla ice cream, placed a small scoop inside a trio of profiteroles, and served them with a very warm dark chocolate sauce. Simple, beautiful, delicious.

That night at Camp, while I watched Sous Chef Flynn and his cooks quietly, deftly managing the flow of tickets, I overheard the older gentleman tell Amy that our 33 Liberty was one of his favorite restaurants they’d ever dined in. He bragged about the cities, near and far, they had visited and repeated that our restaurant was near the top of their list.

“I sure do miss your restaurant.”

And all I could think of was Chef Roland smacking me with his rubber spatula. Have I let him down?

Before we left, I thanked the gentleman for his kind words, and we headed off to our concert. The next morning, I told Amy that his words left me hollow. I felt as if I had let him and many others down because I had abandoned my pursuit of fine cuisine. It was an odd feeling and probably one that many chefs have felt. The pursuit of culinary excellence has a high cost, so much so that I cautioned my own children against that life. Yet it is incredibly rewarding and satisfying on so many levels.

Today most of my work helps chefs, and restaurants be profitable. It’s all behind the scenes stuff that centers around cost control and inventory management and it’s something I didn’t dream of doing when I was a young cook getting smacked around by a French chef, yet it’s something I’m really good at and naturally it’s critical to a restaurant’s survival. But life has a way of guiding us to where we are needed and I’m grateful to still play a (very small) part of this town’s culinary scene. The artistic expression of pretty plates of food with carefully constructed ingredients timed with the season’s best, now that is something I dearly miss.

The post Life After Art appeared first on Chef John Malik.

Virginia Baylor was born in 1933 and raised in Durango, Mexico. Her parents were professional cattle ranchers, and granddaddy was known to his Mexican caballeros as Big Tom. As kids we visited the ranch in Durango several times and while there we helped gather eggs from the chickens, make bread or tortillas, dig potatoes, peel mangoes, or whatever Mom and Grandma needed. As a teenager I gravitated to Mom’s south Louisiana kitchen. Our neighborhood was crowded with men that hunted and fished and women that cooked gumbos, jambalayas, etouffees, and court bouillons. Our house was the outlier because Mom preferred to cook tamales, tacos, enchiladas or chicken en mole and for whatever reason, I was the one that gravitated to her side when it was time to cook. Perhaps it was because I was the middle child of five? Whatever the reason, I learned a lot about cooking from her. Dinner at our house had to happen quickly. Mom was an OR Nurse and would arrive home about 5:00 pm and dinner for seven was almost a nightly affair. From her I learned about timing (one cannot start cooking green beans before the chicken is cooked), complimentary proteins, the basics of soups and stews, why certain cuts of beef should be braised, the dangers of overmixing mashed potatoes, and how to choose fresh vegetables. She often made fresh bread, and her biscuits were sublime.

All through college, culinary school, and my time cooking in several glorious New Orleans restaurants, it was her lessons that carried me through. At that time, I just didn’t know or realize it.

Cooking is a craft and although the end result can occasionally be artistic, it isn’t an art form. Much of it cannot be learned by watching and copying. You have to get in there and try, and fail, and try again. Start with the simple lessons and work your way up to the more complex. I probably spent at least ten years, probably more, undeservedly being called “Chef.” That’s because I just happened to be in charge of a kitchen and while the food my crew turned out may have been delicious, it was also nothing to write home about. By the time Amy and I opened 33 Liberty, much about my food and my understanding of the title Chef had changed. I can thank my Mom for that change. Our lessons we learn as kids often take years to gel and somewhere in my early 40s I began to teach, to coddle, to mentor my young cooks. They were there to learn and learning is what kept them engaged. About a year after we opened 33 Liberty, young cooks were knocking on our door because they heard this was the place to learn. We changed our menu weekly, we shopped at the farmer’s market twice a week, we had farmers bringing us fresh fruits and vegetables because they heard we wanted the best. We were careful, intentional about our plate design, our sauces, our garnish, and our wine list. All of those things Mom taught me now came full circle and again, I just didn’t realize it at the time.

One of those young cooks was Joe Cash of Scoundrel. I believe Joe was 19 at the time, right out of high school and with stars in his eyes. When our dishwasher called out sick he took over with a smile. When it was time to bake bread, he listened intently, when a farmer showed up with 30 pounds of gorgeous August tomatoes, he diligently peeled them, and when we ground pork and veal for sausage, he was giddy with the excitement of learning. Joe was one of the many cooks that helped make 33 Liberty wonderful, yet I owe it all to Mom.

I believe the most important thing we as humans can do is to pass on our knowledge to someone willing and able to learn. That’s how the memory of our parents, our mentors, our grandparents live on. My wife sews and paints and bakes because her mother and grandmother taught her. When she sews, she often quotes one of their lessons. I don’t remember yet perhaps when I was teaching a young cook something important, I led with “Mom taught me to…”

The lessons that we absorb are akin to a pebble thrown into the middle of a pond. They create ripples that travel outward and interact with returning ripples. Perhaps one or two lessons that Joe learned in his year at 33 Liberty were lessons of my Mom, one that she learned from hers and now those lessons are being taught in the kitchen of Scoundrel. Today, the lessons Joe spent years absorbing are now being shared with his young cooks and they in turn will one day share them with their own team.

When my mother passed away some years ago I yearned for some “thing” of hers, a keepsake that I could touch and hold, something that would instantly remind me of all the good in her.  However, the best part of her was never a noun, but a verb that often came alive in the kitchen. It was action, discipline, and respect for even the simplest of the land’s bounty. A tomato in August, a gift of onions from a friend, or a bushel of sweet potatoes at Thanksgiving, all carefully prepared, and shared with love.

The post The Scent of Home appeared first on Chef John Malik.

“Goodnight John.  Goodnight Tommy.  Oh, and in the morning, before you get out of bed make sure you shake out your shoes real hard before you put them on, just in case a scorpion crawled in during the night.  And if one does comes out, squash it with your shoe.  I love you.” And with that she kissed us good night.  I was probably eight yet I was already used to my mom’s advice.  So instead of lying awake and nervously listening for the scuttle of Mexican scorpions on the tile floor, Tommy and I slept knowing that morning held the possibility of dueling with a deadly foe.  Life with Virginia Baylor Malik was never dull.

The daughter of professional cattle ranchers, she was thrown from her first horse at the age of five and quickly admonished to “get back on that horse” by her robust dad, Tom Baylor.  She grew up in the Southwest of Texas, and Mexico as her dad sought out greater opportunity which came via the Ojo, an enormous ranch in central Durango.  To hear her tell it, Durango, Mexico in the 40’s was akin to Dodge City of the 1870’s.  There were bandits and heroes, vampire bats and scorpions, horse thieves and caballeros, Catholic priests and ancient Spanish ghosts.  Hollywood loved Durango and many classic Westerns (True Grit, The Magnificent Seven, The Wild Bunch, Sons of Katie Elder) were filmed in its rugged countryside.  John Wayne, while filming The Sons of Katie Elder, asked for an audience with Granddaddy Baylor at the Ojo.  Perhaps to further his craft, John Wayne wanted to spend time with a true cowboy.  We were told Granddaddy gave Mr. Wayne a tour of the Ojo yet was unimpressed with the actor’s quick-draw of a Colt revolver.  While on the Ojo, the Baylor family grew vegetables and mangoes, shot deer and antelope, milked cows and made their own tortillas, bread and butter. And when it was time for her to find her own way in life, she went to nursing school in San Antonio then at the invitation of another nurse, took a train to New Orleans and Hotel Dieu hospital where she soon fell in love with a young law student, Tom Malik.

Life in south Louisiana was often too safe for her.  Our venomous wildlife tended to keep to itself, unlike the wildlife of central Mexico that was constantly trying to slither into your home.  Alligators and water moccasins weren’t nearly as exciting as rattlesnakes, tarantulas, and scorpions.  My tales of face to face encounters with armadillos or raccoons were often trumped with her stories of gunfights, rodeos, and petty revolutionaries. And she never quite accepted Creole food over her favorite Mexican dishes.  In our town, her cooking skills were an anomaly.  For the bulk of my childhood, “Miss Virginia’s House” was the only Mexican restaurant in LaPlace, Louisiana. My friends, sons and daughters of Cajun and Creole descent, were fascinated by my mother’s cuisine and I was the one that gravitated to her kitchen.  She favored enchiladas and pollo en mole’ over crayfish etouffee or chicken gumbo and my friends considered her food incredibly exotic.  With her own hands she taught me the difference between crepes and pancakes, biscuits and scones, jam and jelly.  We cleaned freshly harvested ducks, redfish, and frog legs and it wasn’t unusual for her to drive across town just for tomatoes, onions, or the right sausage.

My mother could be incredibly compassionate.  A surgical nurse in a busy New Orleans hospital, it wasn’t unusual to see her cry when a patient passed away yet if I ran to her with anything less than a subdural hematoma her prescription was usually a kiss. “You’ll be fine, just wash it with a little soap and water.”

My mother taught me many things but most of all she taught me resilience. By the time I was probably five my appeals for something to drink were answered with “If you’re thirsty then suck on a button.” In other words, I was quite capable of getting my own ice water so I should go to it.  And when I failed at something, she offered a standing invitation to “get back on that horse.”  And she loved a good practical joke.  Perhaps her sense of humor stemmed from being born on Halloween.  She certainly relished that holiday.  One Halloween, when my brother and I were too “mature” to trick or treat, we decided to hand out dry dog food kibble dipped in orange icing, Halloween candy at its best!  When my mother discovered us creating this treat (I’m sure one of my sisters ratted us out) her fury quickly turned to raucous laughter yet she insisted we throw away the candy lest we end up on the front page of our little newspaper on All Saint’s Day.

Her zest for adventure was never quite satisfied by suburban life or our family vacations to Washington, DC or Orlando, FL.  She yearned to move back to west Texas or central Mexico, live on a big ranch, commute on a horse and carry a gun.  Yet she was faithful and loving to her husband, to the point of tenderly caring for him and his failing heart during his final years.

She taught me how to throw an ax, tell a story, sharpen a knife, identify poison ivy, filet a fish, offer a hand, poach an egg, wear a suit, pick out a ripe tomato, make a fist, stand up to a bully, and most importantly, to pray on my knees.  Goodbye Mom.  I love you.

The post Get Back on That Horse! appeared first on Chef John Malik.

Greenville, SC is the North American Headquarters for Michelin. In addition to manufacturing tires, all of Michelin’s travel publications are edited and published here.

In mid-July of 2005 I got a phone call from a good friend of mine at the Michelin Travel Guide. Some of the Michelin Inspectors will be in town to go over the manuscript to the upcoming Red Guide to New York City and they need somewhere to have a private dinner. Could we accommodate a party of 14 next Wednesday?

“Of course” I said “and just how many Inspectors are coming?”

“All of them” I was told.

Gulp.

The upcoming Red Guide to New York City has been perhaps one of the most talked about culinary events of recent memory. If one would believe the trade journals, these inspectors have terrorized Manhattan for a year. The heralded chefs of New York have been lying awake at night sweating the possibility of a Michelin star. Sous chefs have been fired, waiters berated, pots thrown and sommeliers humiliated in the quest for that star. Now they were on their way here. I hung up the phone and contemplated their visit. I had visions of the Alien Spaceship from “War of the Worlds” laying waste to civilization, panicked citizens screaming helplessly, elevated highways crumbling, entire city blocks engulfed in flame. When they were finished dining at our tiny restaurant, there would be nothing left except a smoking hole in the ground. I closed my eyes and thought about everything that could go wrong during the seven days prior to this visit. I called my wife Amy to give her the grim news. “That’s so great” she said. “They will love our restaurant”.

That night I sat down with my guys and a bottle of wine and discussed the menu for our event. I threw this question out to my Sous Chef Tony Keely and cook Juan Muniz. “What would be the last thing that this group would expect on our menu? Something totally French that we serve and do well?”

Tony said “pate'” and Juan said “Bouillabaisse”. Now you may think this borders on pandering. Should we style our menu just to suit our visitors? One of the great luxuries of owning a tiny, 45-seat restaurant is we can change the menu at our discretion according to the seasons and the produce I find at the state farmer’s market. Our menus have emphasized what we consider global comfort food with a touch of Southern hospitality so pate and bouillabaisse are a fine fit. After the proper amount of wine we settled on a few dishes we knew would be appropriate for mid-July: Gazpacho topped with a spicy peach sorbet, mini grilled cheddar cheese sandwich with a small bowl of warm tomato soup, smoked pork shoulder with cane vinegar, Cole slaw on a sweet potato blini, Alaskan salmon over market succotash with lemon and chive butter, hanger steak with roasted summer vegetables and thyme oil, blueberry cobbler with our own ice cream and a roasted peach and brioche tart.

That Monday my friend at Michelin gave me a few very specific instructions concerning their upcoming meal. There were not to be any cameras in the restaurant at all. If someone were to accidentally take a photo of this group, even with a cell phone camera, the entire group would get up and leave. I was not to mention anything about the Red Guide in any way, shape or form and I was asked not to mention this to anyone in town, especially any other chefs in Greenville.

“Geez” I said. “For Pete’s sake I can keep a secret.”

As soon as I got off the phone I called Ben Berryhill, Chef/Owner of the Red Drum Restaurant in Mount Pleasant, about 225 miles from here.

“BEN! Guess who’s eating at my place in two days?”

“Uh, the Pope?”

“No, no…the entire team of the New York City Michelin Inspectors!”

“Holy Mother of God Malik! Are you serious? Why? How? And what on earth are you going to serve them?”

We spent an hour discussing the hows, whys, and the merit of each dish and after receiving his seal of approval it was off to the state farmer’s market for some grocery shopping. Amy and I fussed over tomatoes, peaches, sweet onions, blackberries, cucumbers, tiny yellow and green squash, baby carrots, fennel, leeks, peppers, butter beans, and corn. Shopping at the market in the summer is so pleasurable and so rewarding that I often go four or five days a week. The sweet aroma of all that great summertime produce can truly be glorious.

The next two days were spent making lobster broth and rouille for the Bouillabaisse, gazpacho, peach sorbet, blanching and peeling butterbeans, veal stock, corn stock and thyme oil. Tony got the pates made with plenty of hand-ground pork, pork fat, veal brisket and some braised rabbit. We added salt and pepper, pistachios, shallots that were roasted in duck fat, ground mustard seed and some reduced red wine then lined our terrines with bay leaf and thyme, then bacon then filled them with the pork mixture. As the pate’ baked slowly in a water bath Amy made pastry cream and caramel frosting, cleaned blueberries for cobbler and roasted peaches for the tarts. Brioche dough was made the day prior then rolled into individual three-inch tart shells, proofed, baked then topped with pastry cream and half of a slow roasted peach. By Wednesday afternoon we were standing tall. I closed my eyes and thought of everything that had gone right.

When the group arrived they were all very cordial and relaxed, although I was far from it. They appeared to immediately like our tiny restaurant with its mustard colored walls, slow moving ceiling fans and smiling staff. Wine was poured, an Argyle Pinot Noir from Oregon and a French white Bordeaux, Chateau La Grande Clotte. Baskets of pomme frite with legit truffle oil, parmesan, and thyme are passed around and one of them mentions how enjoyable the pinot noir’s of Oregon are. As our waiter Tom begins taking their order, Tony and I are trying to predict how many would order the pate’ and bouillabaisse. Of the 14 dining, five go for pate and bouillabaisse. These folks are definitely homesick. The pate’, gazpacho and mini-grilled cheese sandwiches with tomato soup go out and I find myself glancing over to their table every chance I get. Glasses are being raised, forks are clinking on plates, smiles and cheers all around. They love the food. More appetizers go out, three of which are the molasses brined and pecan smoked pork shoulder with the slaw. The pork plates are getting passed around and shared and heads are nodding. The main courses are next and as I am ladling up the bouillabaisse, redolent with crayfish, mussels, shrimp, catfish, grouper and leeks I just know that they will love it. I grew up cooking gumbo in south Louisiana and I understand the importance of a dish such as Bouillabaisse. This is soul food, pure and simple. The bouillabaisse is served with plenty of our own bread and the smiles all around are genuine.

Everyone orders dessert. One gentleman asks for another smoked pork and Cole slaw in lieu of something sweet. “I cannot get pork like this in France” I hear him say. He changes his mind after Tom describes Amy’s brioche and roasted peach tart. As the desserts are being enjoyed I walk over and say hello. One gentleman immediately asks me if I made the brioche tart. “That was my wife,” I say “and she has already left for the day.”

“You will give her a big kiss for me when you get home, yes?”

“Of course” I say.

At the end of the night several of the inspectors come up to me and shake my hand, tell me thank you. They wave to Tony and Juan and smile, another mentions that our pomme fritte are better than many he has had in Paris. Yet another comes up and tells me that the local Michelin folks had spoken very highly of our restaurant and that everyone agreed that their dinner was delightful.

I call Amy and tell her how well the evening went and she chides me for all of my worrying. Alien spaceships indeed! The next day my Michelin friend calls to say how delighted they were with dinner. If we were being reviewed the consensus was that 33 Liberty would rate a Bib Gourmand, a category of unassuming, moderately priced restaurants with exceptional food. As I hang up the phone I wonder what it would have been worth to some of the New York restaurants to get a 7-day’s notice of an impending Michelin inspection. Priceless, I suppose.

As a PS, when this story first appeared in E-Gullet, just a couple weeks after this dinner, I received multiple calls and emails from many of those well known chefs in NYC asking how much I wanted for the photos. We didn’t take any, so there was nothing to discuss.

~ John

The post My Michelin Inspection appeared first on Chef John Malik.

If you’re brave, and you believe your cooking has a compelling story to tell, you can do what Roberto and Gina did and open up a small, very personal restaurant and hold your breath. Most of us that open restaurants have grown up in the business. We’ve washed dishes, bussed tables, cleaned fryers, peeled potatoes, and mopped bathrooms on our way to an Executive Chef or General Manager position. Gina and Roberto? He was a graphic designer; she was a corporate accountant. In the financial crash of 2008 Roberto decided they would buy a large grill (an asada) and tow it behind their truck to county fairs and serve the food of his native Nicaragua. Soon that truck & grill combo became a food truck. Their menu expanded, as did their reputation and when they bought a defunct restaurant, the forgettable Haus Edelweiss on Wade Hampton, and turned it into Asada, Amy and I were there. In a town that gets rave reviews for its independent restaurants, I believe Asada is perfect. They built their reputation on Roberto’s creativity, his artistic talent, attention to detail, and lots of glowing hospitality.  A visit to Asada was always filled with friendly smiles, cordial greetings, and humble gratitude. Their team made sure everyone was happy while their food spoke volumes to Roberto’s imaginative touch with colors, flavors, and textures. Yet one can dine at Asada for $20 and have a few dollars left over.

If a chef wants to achieve greatness, their food must tell a story and many successful chefs never quite reach that level of cooking. There’s lots of great food and accomplished chefs in our town, but very few of them serve food that has a “voice”, food that is demonstrably theirs.  Yet somehow Roberto reached that level with no background in the business, and that is something I greatly admired.

Over the years we became very good friends with Roberto and Gina and occasionally Roberto would pepper me for a bit of advice, and we often discussed the differences in the cuisines of Central America. When friends or family visited us and we wanted to treat them to a meal that represented the best of Greenville, Asada was always our first choice. I featured Asada in one of my first City Juice columns for the Greenville Journal and on our podcast, the Tin Roof Farm Radio Show. When Amy and I announced we were moving to Belize for a year, Roberto and Gina took us out to dinner and we drank and talked well into the evening. When we returned, our first meal out was at Asada and Roberto and Gina’s glowing smiles and energetic hugs were so welcoming.

This last year was very busy for me and too many times I drove past Asada and thought I should stop in just to say hi, but the clock was often against me so I made empty plans to visit the following week, which never happened. Roberto and Gina have a solid, dedicated crew and they’ll keep Asada open and serving the food that Roberto loved so much.

At Roberto’s funeral, in a small Catholic church, the priest offered up communion to the congregation. I grew up Catholic and not long after Amy and I were married, for a lot of slight, and significant reasons, I accepted the Episcopal denomination. Roberto’s priest reminded us that Catholic communion offers us a little bit of Jesus Christ and that there is another life waiting for us on the other side. That other life has often puzzled me. The how and why and the idea of eternity is something so bizarre, so implausible and mysterious, and no one can say with 100% accuracy what form, if any, that will take. If that is my destiny, I love the thought of meeting Roberto again and spending a few moments with his sparkling smile and sharing the joy in his handshake, and the warmth of his hug. Adios, mi amigo. Hasta que nos volvamos a encontrar.

~ John

I believe this episode of the Tin Roof Farm Radio Show with Gina and Roberto is the best one we recorded.

The post Adios, mi Amigo appeared first on Chef John Malik.

Yes. I know. I’m too old, too heavy to lie here like this.

I wish there was something I could do. I don’t want to lose you.

My time has come. There’s nothing to be done. I’ve had a good life and seen many wonderful things.

Tell me. What kind of things.

So many wonderful things.

When the road was all dirt, the sunrises, sunsets, and stars of such magnitude. So many animals have made their home on me, and under me. When the heat came, they took refuge in my shade. When the cold came my bones kept the earth warm. My leaves lined the nests of many animals. The seeds I produced kept them fat. The old man had cows, horses, donkeys. The cows would rub against my skin to keep theirs clean and the horses and donkeys would sing to me at night.  When the spring dew came, my leaves would sparkle in the morning sun like so many diamonds and the old man would look out here and smile. The nights were so dark, the stars so vivid, and the earth was alive with many animals that traveled in the night. Animals that scare humans, but they were just doing what came natural to them.  And the children. Lots of children that climbed into my limbs, ran around my trunk, climbed to the top and back down again. When the children were around, laughing and climbing, I felt so strong, so important, such a part of the earth. My roots would cling a little tighter and my limbs would brace up. My, that was such a great feeling to be full of little ones with their happy voices and fearless ways.  As I got older, my bones would dry and fall and the old man used them to keep his family warm.  Yes. My life was good.

Where do they go?

Where does what go?

The memories. Where do they go when we are no longer here to remember them? Do they die with me?

I will keep them.

Who did this to me?

Helene.

Helene. Bitch. What do these storms know? They have no roots, no soul, only sound and fury and they are so short lived. They leave behind only brokenness and misery in their path.  When the rains came my roots kept the earth in place and it was like that for many years. Yet this storm was too much for me. I feel defeated.

How much longer do I have?

Not much.

Do not let all of my bones go into the fire.

Perhaps I could make something from them?

Yes. I would like that.

My time has come. Make your final cut straight and true.

I will do my best.

~ John

The post When the Road was Dirt appeared first on Chef John Malik.

A few days after Helene ravaged our land I drove to Asheville, NC with a friend to spend the day working with World Central Kitchen. I’m no stranger to WCK and a few days earlier I’d emailed them two or three times offering to help in any way and received no response. Finally, they posted they were accepting volunteers and Brian and I headed up. The smell of warm dirty mud was in the air and Asheville looked and felt like it had just finished shooting an entire season of Walking Dead. The World Central Kitchen team wasn’t much better off. There was twenty five too many volunteers, not enough to do, and little in the way of organization. We spent an hour putting WCK stickers on to-go boxes when we should have been doing some heavy lifting. Finally, we found a real task and sunk our teeth into it. Driving home I decided I wouldn’t go back until the following week. The next day a friend of mine, Richard King, owner of the Pure & Proper restaurant in Black Mountain, made a forlorn social media post. He spoke of neighbors that had lost much, a lack of basic services, and he had joined forces with some other restaurant folks and turned an outdoor venue into a relief center. He had a crew of dedicated cooks working from sun up to sun down to feed anyone in need and that sounded like something I could help with. A couple days later I was in Black Mountain with a few professional cooks and over the next two weeks spent more time there than at my home.

Many souls were still unaccounted for, the thrum of military helicopters was constant, secondary roads were sketchy, Interstate 26 had been detoured, and the fall season in much of Western North Carolina was lost, yet every day there was filled with joy, smiles, hugs, and laughs. Neighbors hugged neighbors and traded stories of raging water and rooftop rescues. People that had lost so much were all around us; they smiled and thanked us, shook our hands and asked for the smallest of favors.

“Do you know where I can find a bathroom?”

“Do y’all have any clean underwear?”

“Could I get a cold beer?”

On one of those long days, I went outside, lay down on one of the many picnic benches and closed my eyes. I dozed off and woke up as a woman much younger than me told a frightening story of loss to a friend of hers. When I sat up and rubbed my eyes, she apologized for waking me.

“Chef the food has been wonderful, thank you so much.”

I’ve done this kind of work a few times before and I’m always encouraged by the kindness and compassion displayed by people that have suffered tremendous loss, and those that want to help. While in Black Mountain I met people from across the southeast that had just showed up because they felt that desire to help, and the vast majority of them were not affiliated with any particular organization. A group of lumberjacks from Raleigh, some retired gentlemen from Mississippi that came to make jambalaya for three days, some ladies from Charleston that were happy to make a few hundred sandwiches, a few college kids that washed a mountain of dishes, and two well-educated men that were cleaning the barely functioning toilets. Big trucks, small trucks, and cars of all sizes showed up with mountains of food and pallets of water. Clothes, shoes, pet food, beef, chicken, rice, eggs, and cheese appeared overnight and none of it had to be signed for. One day I spent hours organizing the walk-in cooler and freezer and the next morning there was half a tractor-trailer’s worth of fresh deliveries waiting for their turn in the cooler.

Each day I was approached by strangers who asked, “how can I help?”

After my final shift in Black Mountain, I was beat, so I had a cup of coffee before heading home. A few miles into my journey, one of those 250-gallon, steel caged water cubes slid out of the back of a too-small pick-up truck and scuttled across my path. A few miles later a massive round bale of hay spun out of another truck and plopped down on the side of the highway. Another few miles and a confused driver in front of me stabbed their brakes and went from 65 to 35 in a few tire-smoking feet. We all made it home safely and that night I told Amy it was as if the highway was full of people so exhausted they had lost their way or forgotten to secure their loads.

Today we are a week away from a contentious election and both sides claim all is lost if they are not elected. While in Black Mountain, it didn’t matter what side of the kitchen you were on, no one questioned your politics, religion, or authenticity. You were there to help a fellow human in need, or you were the one in need. In Luke’s Gospel, Jesus tells the story of the good Samaritan. He’s a man, walking down the road to Jericho, who finds another man, a stranger, beaten and bruised by criminals. Unlike the others on the same road, he stops and shows compassion to the one in need. This story is not unique to Christianity, many faiths have similar stories and along the way I’ve worked with people with wildly diverse spiritual backgrounds, but we’ve all had that one thing in common, we just wanted to help.

When I was a little kid and complained about something far out of my control, Dad admonished me with, “Only James Bond gets to save the world, but you can save a small piece of it”, then he encouraged me to do something helpful, such as cut the widow’s grass. Thank you to the chefs and friends that helped save a small piece of our world: Payton Conner, Teryi Youngblood, Kyle Swartzendruber, Pete Murray, Worth Burns, Carlos Baez, Brian Kenna, JR Bandy, Lora Pfohl, Daniel Moore, Carson Veit, Julian Loue, Ed Buffington, Angelica Wilkie, Amy & Tony Keely, Tommy Townsend and Holy Nativity Church, Ryan Gomez, and my lovely wife Amy.

As for Black Mountain, the relief kitchen has closed because the need has diminished. The donation center will be open for the foreseeable future.

~ John

The post The Road to Jericho appeared first on Chef John Malik.

Who will the global population look to for tech that’s going to take us into the next generation? India. Their population has an average age of 28 and produces 1.5 million engineers annually, and they still believe in the family unit. While working in India, my host brought me to RV College of Engineering where a member of our design team is a Professor of Mechanical Engineering. While at RVC I met students and teachers with a deep intent of solving our evolving world’s challenges. Years ago, India purchased engineering from the West. On my trip I rode a modern metro, and sat in a lavish Tata sedan that was 100% homegrown. We drove past billboards touting India’s coming Tejas 4.5 generation single seat fighter. While Bangalore’s streets may be a haven of Tuk Tuks, its classrooms are the provenance of the STEM curricula, and those students are looking for projects to sink their teeth into.

I was brought to India by a team that wants to create a robotic range for commercial kitchens, something to help chefs manage their production in a shrinking labor pool. They’ve lined up investors, a CAD/CAM design firm, factory, a logistics team then hired a decent American cook with experience in the US market to help them understand the challenges of our commercial kitchens. In my two weeks in India I enjoyed exceptional hospitality, fabulous food, great craft beers at three brewpubs, and marveled at the fresh produce stands that dotted the city streets like M&Ms on Halloween. India is 80% Hindu and there’s a lot of vegetarian food in their culture. Like any religion, compliance to its standards waxes and wanes yet its history of a vegetarian diet for believers has created a stunning cuisine unmatched by anything I’ve seen in the US. A curry in India will come in every shade of green, red, white, or yellow and they’re thickened with chilis, spinach, squash, cream, dumplings, chickpea flour and more. Idly with Sambhar, Mysore Bonda, and the peculiar Ragi Ball were my favorites.

Idly is a small cake made from rice and gram (it’s in the chickpea family). The rice and gram are soaked overnight, ground into separate pastes then combined and allowed to ferment. Add salt then the batter is poured into a shallow mold and steamed. The result is light and fluffy UFO shaped disc. Place one in a small bowl then pour a hefty portion of Sambhar, a hot vegetable broth, redolent with tamarind, ginger, cumin, mustard, chilis and curry leaf. That’s a traditional breakfast dish and it is wonderful.

Mysore Bonda? Mysore is a city in the south of India, and here they make small rice and gram flour fritters or doughnuts. The doughnuts are savory, flecked with curry leaf, coconut, cumin, and ginger, served hot with a coconut chutney, or warm and topped with yogurt, a drizzle of honey, puffed rice and a salty puffed gram. Wow. Bonda was common on the hotel’s breakfast buffet.

Now onto the Ragi Ball. This dish may have been the most outside of my culinary box, far outside, like down the street and around the corner outside.  Ragi is red millet, a grain that in the US, is more common in wild bird seed. Millet is popular across Asia and Africa and for some reason it hasn’t gained traction here. It has a lovely flavor, similar to wild rice and like any whole grain it’s packed with health benefits. My hosts took me to the famous Ranganna Military Hotel for this dish. As I was told, if your restaurant has been around for many years, it’s not called “restaurant” but “hotel”. Actual hotels of a certain age are Inns, Clubs, or Resorts, but if it’s western, it’s called Hotel. Got that? Now if your “hotel” (restaurant) serves meat, it’s referred to as Military. Why? I don’t believe I was told, I just accepted it. At Ranganna Military Hotel we were served mutton curry, chicken curry, and Ragi Ball. The millet is steamed or boiled until the starch oozes from the grain, the millet is cooled then shaped into tennis ball sized servings. One should pinch off a hazelnut sized piece, roll it through the curry sauce then gulp it down.

“Wait. I have to gulp it? How come I can’t chew it?”

“John. Look around. No one is chewing ragi. Just gulp it down.”

I tried my best to gulp, but it made more sense to soften it against the roof of my mouth, despite my Indian friends teasing that I was somehow doing a disservice to the ragi ball. At Ranganna we started by washing our hands then my Indian friends ate with their hands, deftly, neatly. Me? I made a terrible mess of myself trying to emulate their movements and I’m sure our waiter asked my hosts if they should bring me a bib.

Does India have its problems? Of course it does. However, my two weeks were filled with incredible sights, sounds, tastes, and aromas and at the conclusion of our work week, my hosts toured me through coffee farms, an elephant sanctuary, and ancient Hindu temples whose architecture and attention to detail were astounding. Would I return to India? You bet. Would I recommend it as a travel destination? Of course. The key to a visit to India is perspective. See it from the perspective of a country that followed an ancient path, was raped by an oppressor (Great Britain, go figure), like the US gained its independence, albeit about 200 years later, and is now rushing towards its standing as a technological and manufacturing powerhouse.

~  John

Does your food & beverage establishment need a helping hand? Give me a call at 864.616.7171.

The post Elephants, Robots, and Engineers appeared first on Chef John Malik.