With his equal love for gardening, cooking and surfing, not to mention his place of work, which overlooks some of SoCal’s best waves, you could say The Ritz-Carlton, Laguna Niguel’s Executive Chef Rob Wilson is the ultimate surf and turfer. But that would be cutting this master of cuisine short; though he loves to broil and barbecue, he is both a true student and artist of all things gastronomical.
At times, thanks to his amazing creations such as fruit caviars and flavored foams and belief in very precise cooking, he sounds more like the winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry than winner of Chef Magazine’s 2008 Chef of the Year. Take this little description for instance: “It’s all about ratios and understanding the different properties of foods. For instance, if you want to make grapefruit caviar you need to increase your sodium citrate and sodium alginate because it’s a higher acidic juice, so when you put it in your water solution with the calcium chloride in it, it solidifies the outside of the sphere. A tomato has different acidity levels, as does a carrot, etcetera.”
Huh?
But stop worrying. All you need to know is that scientific concoction is going to work wonders on your taste buds. Here, Wilson talks about his OC roots, how he started cooking before he could drive and why – the confusion over that last scientific explanation of fruit notwithstanding – you are a much more savvy and educated diner than your parents were.
Where did you grow up?
I grew up in Laguna Niguel in the mid-1970s, surfed Salt Creek, fished, went to Dana Hills High. It was great.
When did you start cooking?
At a very young age, actually. Both my parents worked and sometimes they would both have to work late, so my mom would leave ingredients and recipes and my sister and I would have to make dinner. It was just casseroles, meatloaf and a couple of other concoctions, but I enjoyed it. I also always enjoyed barbecuing the fish I’d catch and making sauces for them.
What about studying cooking?
I took Home Economics in junior high, but frankly that was to be around the girls more than anything. Then, in high school I was on the surf team in first period and I was always hungry afterward, but I’d have to go straight to second period. So I took Culinary Arts at the second period, just to have something to eat. But I excelled at that because I loved it and won an academic achievement award for Chef of the Year.
And your fate was sealed?
Sort of. From that, I got a work permit through school that enabled me to work at the Dana Point Chart House at 15 years old. [I] started as the dishwasher, but five days after I started, one of the chefs didn’t show up for work and the manager came to me and said, “I hired you because you liked to cook. Is that true?” I said, “That’s right.” And so he said, “Well then, get in the kitchen.” It was kind of a crash course.
I’ll bet.
A professional restaurant’s kitchen is about as calm as a hurricane. I can remember vividly how hectic it was, but it was something that really clicked for me. I was the lead line cook in less than a year. The Chart House is all about the grill and we were doing 400-plus dinners on a Saturday night and a couple hundred every other night, with the fish and meat having to be done perfectly every time. But I just thrived on it. To this day, I credit the Chart House for my speed and agility in the kitchen.
So you were a cook from then on?
Yes. I figured: I like to do it, I’m pretty good at it, it makes people smile, and I like making people smile. So I never looked back.
Like most chefs, you’ve had to move around a lot.
It’s almost as if you’re a professional athlete. You do a lot of traveling, you have to go where the opportunities are and you have to prove yourself. You start off as a rookie and you work your way through. I had done my apprenticeship with The Ritz-Carlton in 1990-1991 and I really liked the company, but then I went out on my own and had my own very successful restaurant in Mammoth Lakes from ’93 to ’97.
So what brought you back to The Ritz-Carlton?
My wife and I had our first child and we really wanted to move back to Orange County, so that’s when it became about rejoining The Ritz-Carlton. I took a 50% pay cut to come back to The Ritz. I went from owning my own restaurant, with salary and benefits and bonuses to being an hourly employee. I decided to give it one year, but within six months I was a sous chef and within eight months of that I was restaurant chef and making more money than I was making at my own restaurant. Then, in a year I was executive sous chef.
Then you followed an opportunity to Michigan, as The Ritz-Carlton’s executive chef.
That was the biggest leap, because you never know if you’re going to make it back, and that’s hard, because all our friends and family were here. And I love surfing. So it was a calculated risk. I was there for two years, and then we decided we had to get back. And right then The Ritz-Carlton Marina del Rey opened and I got their executive chef position. So I bought a hybrid and commuted from Orange County every day and figured that was it, that was my life. But then suddenly the [The Ritz-Carlton, Laguna Niguel] executive chef gave notice in January 2007, and I started in March 2007.
As executive chef, you are in charge of every facet of food for every one of the resort’s restaurants, including the room and pool menus. Do you ever get to cook?
Amazingly enough, every day. It’s not as much as I’d like to, because I have to be able to delegate and lead, but for instance, yesterday I got to work, took care of an e-mail and went straight to work in the kitchen. These days, because of our structure and the economy, we have to multitask more than ever. For example, I was here at 5:30 a.m. getting the new Grab-and-Go Café set up for its opening; this afternoon, I’ll work the lunch and my restaurant chef is out today so I’ll watch the line tonight for dinner.
Have diners become more sophisticated and educated in the past decade?
Definitely. People’s knowledge of food and beverage has really come on strong in the past five to 10 years. A lot of it is because of The Food Network, where they see all the top chefs preparing new and exciting dishes. And people are so willing to learn and educate themselves about food and wines. There are also so many specialty and wine shops now that have cheeses and food tapas-style, so the opportunity is there.
You’re known for your molecular gastronomy, and even went to Spain to visit super-chef Ferran Adrià at his famed El Bulli to study it.
Spain, for the past number of years, has been a true culinary leader and Ferran is at the forefront of that. He’s brought stuff to the table that has redefined modern cuisine. The foams, the liquid spheres, the [fruit] caviars, the dehydration process, the slow cooking [with] thermal circulators. I love learning and being an executive chef. If you’re not educating yourself, you’re going to be left behind.
Will it become the new way of cooking?
It’s not something that’s going to take away the old classic French style. I don’t think anything is going to replace roasting and braising and sautéeing and the methods of making a demi glace. But as we evolve into the future there are a lot of new tools to create a new wow factor for our guests.
What are some of your favorites?
One would be the thermal circulator for precise cooking. I can cook olive oil-poached ahi tuna for 24 hours at 120 degrees and it will be melt-in-your-mouth perfect. I did fennel the other day, poached it in basil oil with garlic and thyme, and cooked it for three-and-a-half hours at 135 degrees and it came out structurally completely sound but you could cut it with a fork. I also dabble around with the foams and the fruit caviars: tomato, coconut-rum, carrot-ginger, and others. Once you get the chemical balance right, you can do any combination you want.
Has cooking become a job now, or is it still a passion?
It’s a true passion, because a few times a week I’ll be home in time for dinner and I’ll cook. And on my days off, it’s all about cooking. In fact, we ripped out our entire front yard and built four five-by-five cedar-raised gardens. So I have eight different varieties of heirloom tomatoes, zucchini, cucumbers, broccoli, eight different lettuces, snap peas, peppers, chives, every herb. And every year I jar 50-75 pint-sized mason jars of marinara sauce. This year, I’ll break 100 thanks to all the tomatoes. I’ve been doing that since Michigan.
Sounds very environmentally conscious as well.
We’re trying. What I don’t get out of my garden I try to buy organic at the farmer’s market. Even at the hotel level, we’ve made the commitment to go as green as possible. We use sustainable, organic local produce as much as we can. We’re on the clean fish program where we use the fish that are completely sustainable or raised in an environment that’s as natural as possible. Two-and-a-half years ago, we got rid of all Styrofoam. All the to-go containers for the new Grab-and-Go Café are biodegradable and recyclable. It’s something in which, as a chef of a large hotel, I can make a difference.
So what’s the executive chef’s dish recommendation?
We have a California avocado and ahi tartare that’s always been a favorite. In the bar, the crowd favorite has been a big old copper pot full of truffle French fries. For me, in the restaurant, we have a prime dry-aged New York steak with an espresso crust that is melt-in-your-mouth, over-the-top good. We have a Montague 18,000 BTU broiler that cooks the steak in less than 10 minutes and it’s perfectly crispy on the outside and beautiful on the inside. We’ll also serve the Alaskan king salmon all summer long. And finally, our Kona Kampachi from Hawaii [Kona Blue Water Farms]. That’s now on our fourth menu because of its sustainability – again, something I really believe in. We have to make sure to keep those species around for our kids to enjoy.
The Ritz overlooks your childhood surf haunt. Ever get out for a wave or two?
I still surf as much as I possibly can. These days it’s mostly on my days off, but if there’s a good swell in the water, I’ll try to get out before work or sneak out before lunch. The summer is good because I can run down the hill after lunch and not bother with a wetsuit, have a surf and come back rejuvenated for dinner.
