The summer of 2002 forecasted the reordering of the culinary firmament in Charlotte when Johnson & Wales University announced plans to build a campus in downtown Charlotte. The Johnson & Wales’ College of Culinary Arts, which is only one college within the university, immediately captured the media’s attention.The enormous play by area media was somewhat disconcerting to Charlotte’s small, but talented, pool of professional chefs. While most of the media was having a field day talking and writing about Charlotte suddenly having trained chefs — as if none existed in our restaurants — the chefs were asking me why no one realized they were already here.
Also overlooked in last summer’s media barrage were the other colleges of Johnson & Wales: a Hospitality College and a College of Business. Building the Charlotte campus, an investment of $82 million, will consolidate the programs Johnson & Wales currently operates in Norfolk, VA, and Charleston, SC, by 2006. In addition to academic classes, culinary students are encouraged to spend time weekly in local restaurants learning hands-on skills. Community service is also required for all students.
What impact will Johnson & Wales University have in Charlotte? Will we eat better? Will we suddenly be able to shop in phenomenal kitchen shops? Buy freshly imported exotic spices? Have a plethora of well-trained and knowledgeable servers? Have a pastry shop?
For more than a decade Charlotte restaurants have had a difficult time staffing their kitchens, although this has been less of a problem recently with the economic recession. With an influx of trained culinary students, chefs will have a choice of available talent. With more experienced staff in the kitchen, Charlotte’s most talented chefs, some of whom have gained regional and national attention, can spend less time training and more time creating. For J&W students, working in our better restaurants will be prestigious and competitive. The patrons, in turn, will eat better.
The restaurants that may suffer are what I call the “Emperor has no clothes” restaurants. These restaurants look good but offer not-so-good food at high prices. These restaurants operate on the coattails of better restaurants whose menu prices are dictated by labor costs and the high quality of ingredients. The gulf between our good restaurants and the pretenders will widen.
But Charlotte will not become a culinary destination with only the addition of trained kitchen crews, new chefs, and more restaurants. Charleston became a restaurant city because it has a strong base of restaurant patrons. Tourists eat out. Restaurants cannot survive unless people eat in them. Charlotte has had talented chefs close their restaurant doors because of lack of interest while neighboring chain restaurants, without a chef in the kitchen, had a line out the door. Charlotteans will determine whether or not Charlotte will become a culinary destination.
During the last decade American cuisine has enjoyed a renaissance. Much of this can be attributed to the development of professional schools with rigorous training producing a large number of skillful chefs. Where once only New York and San Francisco owned the bragging rights to pools of kitchen talent, today you can find chefs dispersed throughout the nation creating notable pockets of excellence. Charlotte has been one of those budding sites. Having a pool of talent from Johnson & Wales will allow us to blossom.Speaking of New York, one of my best meals of 2002 was in Craft, with its geodesic leather half dome wall and impeccable ingredients. Chef Owner Tom Colicchio, also the executive chef of Gramercy Tavern, allows the diner to build a meal by choosing from a roster of vegetables, meats, fish, condiments, and so forth. The ingredients are exquisitely fresh, simply prepared, and served family style so all can taste the selections. Some ingredients, such as blue foot mushrooms, are wondrous.Preparing fresh foods simply is the major trend for 2003. Now that organically grown vegetables are common, why muck them up by overcooking them or dousing them with heavily flavored sauces? The trend is to have the food speak for itself and keep plates simple and clean. The quality of ingredients will count.
This, of course, ties into the fast food lawsuit where an obese man filed a class action suit against McDonald’s, Burger King, Wendy’s and Kentucky Fried Chicken claiming that they jeopardized his health with greasy, salty fare. Will consumers take charge of their eating habits? The most troubling aspect of the lawsuit is the implication about Americans’ ability, or inabiility, to choose healthy food.
In 2003 we will see more Asian influences on the plate at restaurants, especially in starters. Pot stickers are big, as are Asian aromatics: chilies, cilantro, kiffir lime leaves, black sesame seeds, black radishes, and mizuna. No longer are Americans satisfied with bland approximations of ethnic foods. Just look at the transformation of tabbouleh in Charlotte since 1990. In the past, tabbouleh only vaguely resembled this famous Lebanese parsley salad. Now the proportions have returned to overwhelmingly parsley, only a smidgen of wheat.
Last summer, area farmers’ markets were crowded. This is a good thing. More Charlotteans are choosing to buy their produce fresh. Since Charlotte has seen an increase in the number and variety of area farms that produce extraordinary produce, I hope we will also see more proprietary and signature dishes based on these local ingredients in area restaurants. In addition, I hope restaurateurs in Charlotte will follow a national trend by replacing those awful kids’ menus filled with fried foods with a kids’ menu which features smaller portions of the items found on the menu. This way kids will grow up knowing how food should taste, which, coincidentally, is the culinary theme for 2003.
Do you have a restaurant tip, compliment, complaint? Do you know of a restaurant which has opened, closed, or should be reviewed? Does your restaurant or shop have news, menu changes, new additions to staff or building, upcoming cuisine or wine events? You can fax this information, at least 12 days in advance of event date, to Eaters’ Digest: 704-944-3605, or leave voice mail: 704-522-8334, ext. 136.
This article appears in Dec 25-31, 2002.
