They are men of taste who gladly will wine and dine you and leave you begging for more. They know how to live well. Even better, they know how to cook well.
The perfect men, you say? Perhaps. Great chefs? Definitely.
At work, they oversee the kitchens of some of Chicago`s best eateries, cooking for hundreds of people a day. When they`re not cooking, they`re training staff, developing new recipes and haggling with suppliers.
It`s not unusual for chefs to work 12-hour days, 6 or 7 days a week, so these men rarely make it home for dinner. But when they are home, often they unwind by cooking for family and friends.
Four of Chicago`s leading chefs discussed the food they eat, the kitchens they cook in and the ways they entertain at home. Their personal tastes proved to be as distinctive as their dining establishments.
Joe Decker
”Cooking is my passion, and I`ve always believed that if you love what you do, you`ll be successful,” said Joe Decker.
He should know. At 32, Decker is executive chef of Lettuce Entertain You Enterprises` Italian restaurants division, a position he came to in an unlikely way. Working as a mailman in Wilmette in the late 1970s, he got to know the owner of a bakery on his route. On a whim, Decker convinced him to let him moonlight there as an unpaid apprentice-baking by night, delivering mail by day.
Between naps, he realized that cooking was his calling. From then on, his career took him on a route from the post office to culinary school to jobs at top restaurants around the country.
In 1982, he became the chef at Avanzare, Lettuce Entertain You`s first Italian restaurant. He went on to open Scoozi!, Tucci Benucch and Tucci Milan, and now oversees these and three other Italian restaurants in the chain.
A typical day finds him at work by 6 a.m. and home by 7 p.m. Even then, he can`t stay out of the kitchen.
”I don`t ever get tired of cooking,” he explained. ”I also test a lot of recipes at home because it`s more relaxing here. I don`t really think about it. It just happens.”
Decker lives with Kim Carroll in the small yet comfortable North Side home they bought and remodeled last year. The couple knocked down most of the interior walls on the first floor, creating a wide-open space. Simple furnishings define living and dining areas, which look onto Decker`s pride and joy, a modern teal-colored kitchen.
”We opened everything up so I could cook and entertain at the same time. The space really works for me. Guests can see what`s going on in the kitchen, and there`s a really nice flow to the house,” Decker said. They have dinner parties for 8 to 10 people about twice a month.
Carroll helped with the kitchen design, visiting model homes and scouring magazines for ideas that would work for their budget. Removing walls and putting in hardwood floors and professional-grade appliances were the biggest expenses, but otherwise the couple tried to use what they had.
For example, they painted the old wooden cabinets a striking blue-green and removed the inner panels on the upper doors, replacing them with frosted glass for a fresh look. Jars of colorful decorative pickled vegetables, Italian foodstuffs and imported ceramic dishes add warmth to the design and belie Decker`s love of Italian cooking and culture.
”It`s sort of a professional kitchen with a homey look. I didn`t want it so sterile that I felt I was still at Scoozi! It`s dramatic, but not overbearing.”
Still, Carroll said: ”I have to admit I was pretty intimidated by the stove at first. The flames shoot way up the sides of the pots. But I got used to it, and, lucky for me, Joe does most of the cooking.”
Lucky indeed. The chef is never at a loss for recipe ideas. He says he rarely plans meals, but tends to create them on the spot from whatever`s in the refrigerator.
”I`m spontaneous. We eat a lot of good imported pastas, lots of vegetables, salads, fruits and good breads. And we grill a lot of fish and chicken,” Decker explained. ”My style of cooking is simple and healthy, whether I`m at home or work.”
Darryl Sams
Darryl Sams, executive chef of the Chicago Caterers, said he was first inspired to cook by his mother, Perolian, who owned Ida`s Bakery on the North Side.
”When I was a kid, I was always baking cookies and cakes with my mother. She said it was the only way she could keep me quiet,” he recalled with a smile.
Sams, 29, started his culinary career at age 13 as a kitchen helper at the Mixing Bowl caterers and was kitchen manager there by the time he was 17. After training at Chicago`s Washburne Trade School, he worked as a sous chef at Maxim`s and La Tour restaurants and went on to head or consult with a dozen Chicago restaurants, including Ambria, the Dixie Bar and Grill, Coyote Grill and Cucina Cucina.
At Chicago Caterers, he said he works 13 to 20 hours a day, almost every day, planning and overseeing the catering of 20 or more parties and events a week. He also is in charge of meal service for Chicago`s First Lady cruise ship and the Chicago Historical Society`s Society Cafe.
When does he find the time to cook at home?
”Never,” he replied.
Well, almost never. Although his wife, Maria, and their 10-year-old daughter, Evelyn, fend for themselves most of the time, Darryl cooks for the family at Christmas, Thanksgiving and other holidays.
He and Maria are also host to about eight or nine dinner parties a year for about eight friends at a time. ”I let him do everything,” his wife explained. ”I`m not that great a cook, and he`d rather be alone in the kitchen anyway.”
Sams said: ”When I cook for friends, I try to keep it as odd as possible, so it`s like nothing they`ve had before. Everyone expects more each time.”
He seems to like the challenge, though, citing this home-cooked meal for friends as one example: grilled marinated lamb loin and a polenta tart with mushroom and tomato ragout on a bed of red lentils.
Sams said he doesn`t need or want a professional chef`s kitchen at home.
”Everyone always expects a chef`s kitchen to be an elaborate setup. We don`t need that. We have it at work, so why would we want it at home? Then we`d never escape.”
The Samses have just moved from their downtown condo to a brand-new home in Oak Lawn, with a large and striking skylit kitchen, in white with burgundy countertops and marble floors.
”It`s very contemporary-sort of like me,” Sams said.
As for his personal preference in food, he said, ”I like foods that are a combination of nouvelle (cuisine) and Creole. When you take the presentation of nouvelle and combine it with some of the flavors of the South, you always get something great.”
He still likes to bake amazing-looking desserts. Yet despite his success, he`s quick to give credit where credit is due.
”My mother`s still the best baker. She keeps me humble.”
Christian De Vos
Christian De Vos put the 95th Restaurant at the John Hancock Center on the country`s culinary map. Trained in his native Belgium, he joined ARA Services as executive chef at the 95th in the early 1980s. Under his direction, the former French eatery was renovated and reopened as Chicago`s first ”American cuisine” restaurant with a menu based on seasonal ingredients, a pioneering concept at the time, copied widely today.
De Vos is now vice president of special projects for ARA Services, overseeing the company`s restaurant openings nationwide, as well as special food service projects such as those at Soldier Field and Arlington
International Racecourse. Among his many responsibilities, he still finds time to cook, training chefs and developing recipes for the operations he oversees. His free time is filled with volunteer activities for Chicago`s Holiday Meals on Wheels program for needy families. De Vos is its founder and president.
He cooks at home when he can-which is not as often as he or his wife, Marnie, would like.
”I travel about 150 days of the year now,” he explained. ”But when I am home, I usually cook at least some of the meals.”
”If we waited for Christian to cook, my son and I would starve,” his wife said.
The couple and their teenage son, also named Christian, live in a renovated turn-of-the-century brownstone in Chicago. It is decorated with modern European-style furnishings.
When he cooks for friends, many of whom are chefs, he likes to keep it simple. He usually serves 4 to 10 people at a time. His white-and-black contemporary kitchen is streamlined and efficient, and he usually serves buffet-style on the counter island that separates kitchen from dining area.
”The last thing I want to do is be in the kitchen when guests are here, so I try to do everything in advance,” he explained. ”I make special meals, but I try not to overpower people with my recipes.”
”I found when we first moved here (from New England), many people were intimidated by Christian being the chef at the 95th and hesitated to have us over,” Marnie said. ”It took a while before they realized that we didn`t care about the food, just getting together as friends.”
As a case in point, the couple said they recently held a brunch for chefs in town for the National Restaurant Association`s convention; Christian served a simple meal of omelets, turkey sausage and fruit.
Still, simple or not, Christian likes the food he serves to be made with fresh, seasonal ingredients, presented with panache. He said a typical dinner at home might be a stir-fry or marinated, grilled chicken or fish, pasta and a vegetable salad. His son gets in the act by helping him ”make a nice presentation” with the meal.
The resident chef admits that he`s no longer the European-trained food purist he once was. ”I`ve changed. Now I`ll even eat nachos. I never would have done that when I came here.”
Charles Weber
Charles Weber gets more done around his house on Sundays, his only day off, than most people get done in a week.
Weber, who started his chef`s career at the Pump Room and Printer`s Row restaurants in the mid-1980s, left Chicago in 1987 to cook for and direct operations at top restaurants in California and Florida. He moved back here last year to become executive chef at La Tour in the Park Hyatt Hotel, to rave reviews.
Since his return, the chef has spent his few days off in a whirlwind of activity at home. In less than a year of Sundays, he has extensively remodeled his split-level home in Naperville, built a terraced herb garden, constructed a back-yard play set for his three children and built a wine cellar in the basement.
”My father has helped me with the remodeling,” Weber said. ”Plus, it`s fun. I like living on the edge.”
His wife, Tricia, does, too, it seems. She concurrently has redecorated much of the house, doing most of the work herself with the three Weber girls, ages 1 to 6, looking on. She recently finished a makeover of her traditional- style kitchen, painting the cabinets a dark green and the walls white with a ceiling border. New white Formica countertops, refurbished appliances and a hardwood floor complete the look.
Somehow, the couple find time to cook. Tricia, a gourmet cook herself, makes the family`s meals most of the week. Charles takes over on Sunday evenings, grilling year-round on the deck that overlooks the DuPage River.
”We eat all kinds of food at home, not just French,” said Charles. ”I make everything on the grill. We eat a lot of fish and chicken with herb marinades, and I`ll make vegetables using aluminum foil. I use a lot of herbs.”
Growing herbs is Weber`s hobby. He has more than 80 varieties in his flagstone-terraced garden.
”I`ve enjoyed herb gardening for years. Whatever I don`t use up at home, I take to the restaurant. You get such wonderful flavor from fresh herbs.”
Does Weber ever tire of his hectic life at work and at home? ”I really don`t have time to get tired,” he replied.
