Kerstin Kühn: Interview with Suzanne Goin

In her final piece for The Staff Canteen, Los Angeles-based food writer Kerstin Kühn, talks to Suzanne Goin, this year’s winner of the James Beard Foundation’s Outstanding Chef of the Year Award.

Last month, Los Angeles chef Suzanne Goin – chef owner of iconic restaurants Lucques, A.O.C. and Tavern – received the Outstanding Chef Award from the James Beard Foundation. The most recognized awards in the US hospitality industry, this particular honour has only ever been granted to four other female chefs before her, including Alice Waters (1992), Lidia Bastianich (2002), Judy Rodgers (2004) and Nancy Silverton (2014).

Goin, who won Best Chef of the West in 2006 and had previously been nominated for Outstanding Chef eight times, is a Los Angeles native. She spent time with the Roux Brothers at Le Mazarin in London before joining Chez Panisse in Berkeley and then working in France at Didier Oudill’s two-Michelin-starred Pain Adour et Fantastie and Alain Passard’s three-star L’Arpège in Paris.

After returning to Los Angeles and working with Silverton as executive chef at Campanile, she opened Lucques in West Hollywood in 1998. The restaurant was an instant success and Goin was named one of Food and Wine Magazine’s Best New Chefs in 1999. A second restaurant, A.O.C., a concept of inspired wines by the glass with a small plates menu, opened in 2002 and quickly emulated Lucques’ success.

Since then Goin has launched a number of other popular restaurants, including The Hungry Cat, a collaboration with her husband, chef David Lentz, comprising an eclectic market-inspired seafood restaurant, which has since expanded to locations in Santa Monica and Santa Barbara; as well as Tavern in Brentwood, arguably her most ambitious project, which brings together a trio of concepts under one roof – a full service dining room, a marketplace and a bar with craft cocktails and artisanal wines. And inspired by the more casual larder section at Tavern, she also opened The Larder in 2011, which now has three outlets across Los Angeles.

After being nominated for the James Beard Foundation’s Outstanding Chef award eight times, was it a surprise to finally win this year? 

Yes, it was a fantastic surprise! It had started to feel like actually winning was not on the cards for me, so when I heard the “S…u…z…” come out of Chef Michael Anthony’s mouth I was filled with a super emotional euphoria!

You’re only the fifth woman to have won this award. How does that make you feel?

It just feels great in general to win. I love being a woman and have tons of women chef friends but really it’s about winning the award period. My parents both worked and there was always an equal respect for my mom and her career as much as there was for my dad and his career so I don’t always think of things in terms of women vs. men.
My mom was the first woman from her college to go to medical school so she used to get asked “what does it feel like to be a woman doctor?” all the time. I remember as a kid I always thought it was cool that her answer was: “Well, I’ve never been a man doctor so it’s hard to compare!”
That said the other four women, who won the James Beard Award Outstanding Chef before me, are my mentors, heroes, idols, former chefs and great friends so to be included on the list with them is sort of mind-blowing and quite the honour. 

Do you think women chefs get enough industry recognition? 

I think the industry is really tough. It’s tough for men and for women. And it’s very fickle... I’d like to think if you do the work and have the talent the recognition will come, but there is luck and timing mixed in there as well. I never liked the idea of getting recognition because of being a woman so I’m sort of torn on the subject.

You operate a number of different restaurants. What is the one thing that they all have in common? 

Great ingredients, great people and great atmosphere – those are three things but I think they are all equally necessary. The food has to be great but so does the service and sense of hospitality. And these days the space and the vibe have to be great too. 

How would you describe your culinary ethos?

I cook based on the seasons and what is growing locally, respect the ingredients and traditions but also try to give them a twist. I cook from the heart and love to layer flavors and find balance in all my dishes.

What do you love most about living and working in Los Angeles? 

I’m a native Angeleno so I love having created restaurants and a sense of community in my home town. And I love the mix of people and cultures and I could not cook without the gorgeous produce grown by our local farmers.

You studied under celebrated chefs including Alain Passard and Alice Waters. Who was your most influential mentor and why? 

Alice was and continues to be a huge influence on me and my cooking style. Cooking under Alain Passard was amazing and inspiring.

But probably my most influential mentors were a culinary couple – George Germon and Johanne Killeen of Al Forno restaurant in Providence, Rhode Island. I cooked for them during college and their food and style are with me to this day. Al Forno was the first time I had seen really soulful and exciting non-French food in a restaurant setting. And while the restaurant was very popular and quite pricy, it was casual and welcoming. The mantra there was “made to order” and I learned to everything a la minute; it was almost like they were cooking at home or for a big party rather than in a standard restaurant format, which was great and resulted in very personal and very delicious food. I remember they would drive 45 minutes to the town of Little Compton in the summer just to buy tomatoes from one specific farmer.

You have been a stalwart of the Los Angeles restaurant industry for many years. How do you think the city’s food scene has evolved over the past few years? 

It’s been amazing to watch the LA culinary scene grow. There are many more small restaurants, off-beat restaurants and chef-owned restaurants than ever before. I think it’s part of our LA way of thinking but there is no real norm and no requirements or rules on what a restaurant or cuisine has to be. That liberating feeling keeps our food scene super vibrant, fresh and exciting.

What is your favourite restaurant in Los Angeles? 

That would have to be my husband David Lentz’s The Hungry Cat – and not just because he’s my guy – it’s the ultimate LA restaurant of the kind I described above. Tucked in a mixed use courtyard off Sunset and Vine the eclectic industrial space is always full of energy with delicious cocktails made from farmers market fruit juiced to order, incredibly fresh and inventive seafood dishes inspired by anywhere from the Chesapeake Bay to Bali or Singapore and down to the Gulf of Mexico. It’s cool, casual and always fun and tasty.

Kerstin Kühn is a freelance food and travel writer, specialising in restaurant and chef stories. The former restaurant editor of Caterer and Hotelkeeper, she relocated from London to Los Angeles in 2013, where she lives on the city’s trendy East Side.

With a vast network of chefs from around the world, Kerstin has profiled the likes of Michel Roux, Heston Blumenthal, Thomas Keller, Daniel Boulud, the Roca brothers and Massimo Bottura. She is a regular contributor to the World’s 50 Best Restaurants, FOUR Magazine, M&C Report and Spinney’s Food, and also writes her own blog, La Goulue. You can follow Kerstin on Twitter @LaGoulue_

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