`Did you see that review?” the chef asks. ”That guy said so many good things about me it brought tears to my eyes.”
At 37, John Terczak has read words of praise and heard some disparaging ones as well during nearly 20 years of learning and practicing what scholars call the ”culinary arts.” A self-taught Chicago chef who went off to make it in Manhattan, he has known celebrity, frustration and failure.
Now he`s back: at home, on top, cooking astonishingly flavorful home-style food that is delicious, but daring and even controversial in its richness and copious portions.
Not that he minds controversy. Terczak`s, at 2635 N. Halsted St., which the chef owns with his wife, Linda, may or may not represent a turn in popular taste. But it definitely represents John Terczak`s view of what a restaurant should be. He worked hard to get here and now he`s working equally hard to make sure he stays here. There`s nothing trendy or short-term about his approach to what already is being called ”haute mom cuisine.”
The scene is Terczak`s kitchen. It`s morning, nine or ten hours before the first dinner customers will arrive at the front door. No one is there except an apprentice and the chef. He`s there every morning by 8, he says, and the bubbling sounds already emerging from two 20-gallon stockpots and a large pan filled with black beans attest to his claim.
With his name over the door at last, why is he performing such mundane preliminaries, he is asked in slightly more circumspect words.
”That`s easy,” he responds. ” `Cause I would have to pay three guys to do what I`m doing. I can`t afford it and I wouldn`t like the result anyway.” This is the John Terczak Chicago remembers from his time as chef at Gordon a decade ago: Energetic, intense, self-confident shaded toward cocky, a man who talks in machine-gun bursts and says what he thinks as he thinks of it. (”I didn`t take my notebook out for eight days in France,” he says at one point. ”I didn`t see anything I had to remember.”)
But there`s a difference. Terczak is trimmer, calmer, his beard is carefully cropped and he`s more focused.
”We sell 30 to 50 orders a night of this (bread and butter) pudding,”
he says, pointing to three cake pans filled with forests of toast points. ”We never hold it over. It must be fresh to be good, so it`s the first thing I make.”
He pauses for a moment.
”You know, it`s pathetic. I really like coming in here and making these puddings even though I burn my fingers on the damned things every day.”
He brightens.
”But people who like to cook, cook better than those who don`t. And you don`t stand in front of stoves for 18 years and have a chance to have something of your own and walk away from the stove until you`re damn sure everything is right.”
Customers are reaping the benefits of his attitude-in meat that`s been braised or roasted instead of grilled, long-cooked root vegetables instead of barely cooked baby vegetables and portions that would cover a cuisine minceur presentation like a lava flow.
”All I was hearing about was `home style,` ” Terczak says. ”But I couldn`t find anybody who was cooking that way (in a restaurant). We figured we could be first on the block.
”That was 18 months ago, when we started planning the menu. Actually, it began 15 years ago. I couldn`t keep pot roast on a menu and I told myself,
`When I get where I want to be, I`m serving pot roast.`
”To me this is regular food, what we make at home,” he continues.
”It`s upscaled, yes, but I`m surprised at how much attention it`s gotten. I have only one esoteric product in my kitchen, brandied cherries. I use lots of celery, carrots, onions, tomatoes and bacon, all things you can buy at Jewel.”
What`s also present, in profusion, are ingredients that have come to be known as the Four Horsemen of the culinary Apocalypse: red meat, sugar, butter and cream. Terczak`s mashed potatoes taste as though they were stirred with a stick of butter. His baby carrots are cooked in maple syrup. Cream, bacon and sugar-glazed onions flavor his braised cabbage.
Why do it? Why cook in a manner that flies in the face of current nutritional guidelines for healthful eating?
Terczak seems to feel no need to defend himself. He is using these ingredients because he`s cooking for taste and he likes the results they give. ”This is the food I`d rather eat myself,” he says, ”big flavored, served family style.”
(The frame of reference, he adds, is not his own family`s style. He
”grew up on overcooked pork chops and canned green beans. There was no inspiration there.” Nonetheless, not only did John become a chef, but so did his brother Dennis, who made his reputation at Avanzare and currently is co-owner of Sole Mio restaurant on West Armitage.)
Actually, it only appears John Terczak and his morning apprentice are portraying Don Quixote and Sancho Panza. The restaurant, open for dinner seven nights a week, has 28 employees, not the least of whom is Linda Terczak.
”She was here until 1:30 last night, now she`s at home sleeping like a baby,” he says. ”This place is mom and pop. It`s incomplete without her. That`s part of the charm. Also, I can depend on her for certain things, so I get out about 10 p.m. If I didn`t, I wouldn`t be able to keep this up.”
Separately or together, the Terczaks tell a harrowing story of frustration that helps explain their passionate commitment to the restaurant. (John`s persistence emerges as well in the story of their courtship, conducted in New York City and over long-distance telephone while he was doing restaurant consulting in Denver. Linda kept saying no. He kept refusing to hear the word. They were married in June, 1986.)
The idea of doing a restaurant together was born in Washington, D.C. While John worked on a consulting project, Linda, who had a background in sales, had begun selling specialty food products from regional America. They decided on Chicago because John knew the scene and felt he had the best chance of raising money here. She would do ”short stints” in restaurants to learn how to run a dining room. He would continue to consult.
”It was a long, hard, disappointing road,” she says, pinning some unlady-like adjectives on real estate agents with whom the couple tried to negotiate. ”After trying for more than a year, we were really
disillusioned.”
The situation got worse. They made a deal, delivered a deposit and saw it disappear as the restaurant they were trying to buy declared bankruptcy. ”We didn`t put the money in escrow,” Linda says. ”It was stupid of us, but the money-our savings-was gone.”
Eight months later, the same restaurant again was on the market and the Terczaks ”got it for a lot less” than had been asked previously.
Within a month of receiving a key, their restaurant was open. There was no interior designer. (”It wasn`t in the budget,” John says. He estimates construction costs were only $135,000.) It went so fast because the Terczaks already had scouted rural antiques stores and flea markets for furnishings and John ”had people (cooks and waiters he knew) lying in the weeds” waiting to join him. It went so cheaply because John and Linda joined the work crew, sanding floors and painting walls, and John settled for inexpensive, well-worn equipment in his kitchen.
”It`s a weak cook who complains about his equipment,” says John.
”That`s my only pearl of kitchen wisdom.”
What has emerged, in two side-by-side dining areas, is a comfortably eclectic collection of homey mix-and-match chairs, plates, tableware and wall decorations. The napkins are multi-colored kitchen towels. Some antique kitchen implements hang on one wall. Food often is presented on platters, family style.
But this isn`t a cloneable farmhouse version of the Ed Debevic concept. Waiters, who wear white shirts and ties, are polite and restrained. The wine list is well selected and intelligently priced. The menu does feature homespun items such as potato pancakes, pot roast, baked ham, chicken with dumplings, corn relish, mashed potatoes and cobblers as well as the aforementioned bread- and-butter pudding. But the recipes are far more sophisticated than mom`s, or grandmom`s, and some preparations, notably seafood, show a French influence.
”I hear comments that our food`s heavy,” says Terczak. ”But then why order pot roast in August? It`s been our biggest seller. Ours is really a year-round menu with some big foods and some light foods. There`s been a lot of hype about cooking seasonally, but I only need to take off two or three items this fall due to lack of seasonal products.”
Linda Terczak, small and slender, is more sensitized to potential criticism.
”I firmly believe there`s nothing wrong with butter,” she says. ”The body needs salt. The trick is everything in moderation. I eat here every night. I also eat a light lunch. There`s no need to eat three courses, or to finish everything on your plate. Take some home.”
”If there`s a trend,” John concludes, ”it seems to be an appetite for good, basic food. People want to go out and get some good chow for not too much money. I hope that`s it because that`s what I`m cooking.”
Following are some of Terczak`s recipes, which have been modified by The Tribune`s test kitchen for the home cook:
BRAISED CABBAGE WITH ONION AND MUSHROOMS
Preparation time: 30 minutes
Cooking time: 1 1/2 hours
Yield: 8 side-dish servings
Glazed onions, recipe follows:
1/2 pound bacon
1 medium green cabbage, outer leaves removed
1 quart chicken stock, heated
1 lemon, sliced
1 stick (4 ounces) cold butter, cut into small pieces, plus 2 tablespoons
1 1/2 pounds mushrooms, cleaned, sliced
1 1/2 cups whipping cream
Salt, freshly ground black pepper
Chopped parsley for garnish
1. Make glazed onions. Cut bacon into small pieces and cook until crisp;
drain. Reserve bacon and drippings separately. (This may be done ahead.)
2. Heat oven to 375 degrees. Cut cabbage into 8 wedges and put in a roasting pan. Add chicken stock and reserved bacon fat, then scatter lemon slices and small pieces of butter over cabbage. Cover pan with foil wrap and bake until cabbage is tender, about 1 1/4 hours. Meanwhile, melt remaining 2 tablespoons butter in a skillet; add and cook mushrooms until they begin to brown.
3. Remove cabbage and keep warm. Discard lemon slices. Strain braising liquid into a saucepan and boil until reduced to about 1 1/2 cups. Meanwhile, in a separate saucepan, boil cream to reduce by half. Add cream to the braising liquid along with bacon, onions and mushrooms. Season to taste with salt and pepper. (Recipe may be done ahead to this point. Reheat sauce and cabbage separately.)
4. Pour hot sauce over cabbage, toss and serve garnished with chopped parsley.
GLAZED ONIONS
Preparation time: 10 minutes
Cooking time: 1 1/4 hours
Yield: About 1 1/2 cups
2 1/2 large Spanish onions, sliced thin
1/2 cup clarified butter
1/4 cup sugar
2 tablespoons dried leaf thyme
Salt, freshly ground black pepper to taste
1. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Melt clarified butter in a large, heavy-bottomed skillet. Add onion slices and cook over medium heat, stirring often, until onions are soft but not brown, about 10 minutes.
2. Add sugar, thyme, salt and pepper and 1/2 cup of water. Cover pan and bake in the oven 45 minutes. Remove cover and bake until water is absorbed and onions are glazed and have a caramel color, about 20 minutes. If not using at once, cool, then refrigerate in a covered container.
