Food and Wine: Tyler Florence

It’s a bright, hot September morning deep into a long, steamy summer, and standing in the shadow of Falls Park, Tyler Florence is throwing aprons, rolled up into tight cylinders, toward the crowd gathered before him. Behind him, under a tent that stretches for a block or so, four chefs in their whites are furiously whisking, chopping, and stirring in a kitchen rigged up on a raised platform, competing in teams of two to finish their dishes before the clock runs out and win the favor of the judges.

But the crowd favorite is Tyler.

“That was a lousy throw,” he says, taking aim again. “I’ll get some more in the back.” As he turns his back to the audience to get another apron, you realize why chefs wear white: “It happens to be about three thousand degrees up here. Did you see the paper this morning? On page two—the sweaty tenderloin—that was me.” He lobs another apron beyond the rows of seated spectators and into the round tables of the Euphoria festival Jazz Brunch-goers, hitting his mark (“enjoy the apron”), then races back up to the kitchen to interview the chefs.

He approaches a chef who has opened up a bottle of rum to add to a bread pudding: “Are you guys gonna cook with that or drink it?”

“Both.”

“That’s fantastic—that’s all I can say.”

But, of course, “fantastic” is an understatement. One of Tyler Florence’s signatures, besides his uniform of T-shirt, dark jeans, and improbably white leather Converse sneakers, is that he talks really fast. Which is all the better to keep up a near-breathless commentary for two rounds of this cook-off, each one about an hour long. In conversation and in cooking demos like this one, he reels off recipes and tips at lightening speed.

By afternoon’s end, he has recited recipes for homemade barbecue sauce, butternut squash soup, salmon ceviche, and a five-minute marinara sauce based on one he picked up from a home cook in the Italian region of Campagna; shared his favorite uses for a blender (soups, pancake batter, and margaritas); and clued everyone in on the only three knives you really need (serrated, chef’s, and paring). He asks the chef making bread pudding what his favorite bread to use is (answer: croissants), then gets some spectator feedback. One woman offers her secret: hot dog buns. “Bread pudding made of hot dog buns. I’ve never heard of that one before.” Back on stage, he asks the chefs, “Who is the most famous person you’ve cooked for?”
“Tyler Florence.”

“You know, I’m not a judge.” He takes a beat, and then, with the knowing smile and flashing blue eyes that have made People magazine proclaim him “Sexiest Chef Alive,” says, deadpan, “Flattery will get you everywhere.”

At thirty-seven, Florence has rarely missed a beat in a career he started building before he could even drive. At the tender age of nineteen, he took on his first executive chef job, leaping directly into the fire, as it were, at La Scala, turning out Northern Italian standards like veal piccata. “I’m sure it was horrible,” Florence says of those early efforts. “But there’s a certain fake-it-‘til-you-make-it mentality among chefs. I fell asleep with [Italian chef] Lidia Bastianich’s books under my pillow.”

To his credit, Florence conveys none of the foodie hauteur that some chefs seem to wear on their whites. Instead, he says, “I’m just a fan of all things that taste good.” After graduating from Johnson and Wales (culinary) University in Charleston (the campus has since moved to Charlotte, NC) and working in some of that city’s best kitchens, he fast-tracked his rise in the cooking trade by moving to New York and earning his chops in some notable restaurants before hooking up with a then-fledgling cable network devoted to food and cooking programming. The rest is Food Network history. From his performance at September’s Euphoria festival, it’s easy to see why: there are skills you hone in the kitchen (not least among them an indefatigable focus and even athleticism), and then there is Florence’s secret weapon—maybe not his passing ability—of bringing people into the kitchen with him.

“That’s my thing—I want to make people look good,” he says a day later, uncharacteristically not in motion, over lunch at his hotel. But, even then, he doesn’t have much time to eat. His appearance at Greenville’s annual Euphoria festival is just one of dozens he makes around the country to support his books and Food Network show, and, he says, “to see the other side of the camera.” After lunch, he’ll fly to New York to tape new episodes of Tyler’s Ultimate, now in its seventh season, for the Food Network; after that, he’ll hit the road again, to Green Bay, Wisconsin, then to Atlantic City, then Chicago, Orange County, Calif., and New York City.

“I’m just trying to bridge the gap. Chefs are like cops; sometimes the only person they can speak to is other cops. So when chefs get together and start talking about making a gelée or a brûlee, especially at a live cooking demonstration, … it’s like me walking into a tax preparer’s office and they start talking shop—I don’t know what they’re talking about. I try to be the translator of what’s going on. That’s certainly the voice that carries over into my shows: that great thing you had at a restaurant, or this really simple technique that you’ve heard about, let me show you how to do that.”

Taking audience questions for the cook-off chefs, Florence seemed surprised when a thirteen-year-old girl asked what was the best fish for making ceviche (answer: halibut; Florence also likes salmon). “Wow,” he said, impressed by her sophistication. “When I was thirteen I don’t think I was asking about ceviche.”
What drove Florence to his first Greenville kitchen was less culinary curiosity than necessity, and what hooked him was the drama and frenetic pace of the restaurant business. (In a Food Network Chefology interview, Florence talks about his struggles in school as a boy; he was diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder: “It was hard to get one thing accomplished because I’m really good at doing ten things at a time. At that point, the career chose me.”)

Though he grew up in a household that revered good food (since retiring, his father, Winston, has started a second career as a caterer here), he didn’t really get cooking until he got his first restaurant job at fifteen. The impetus was something less lofty than star chefdom but one that any teenage boy can understand: he borrowed money to buy his first car. His girlfriend’s parents, who owned The Fish Market (which has since closed), gave him a job washing dishes and bussing tables, and although it ended a couple of years later when the relationship did, by then, Florence had a new love: restaurants.

“I liked being back there in the middle of it. It was like this theater, this show that was being ramped up every night, with the waiters preparing … and in the kitchen the chef was tasting the sauces and there was always this chopping and communication going on. And then all of a sudden, at six o’ clock, bang—it was show time.”

Hungry for experience, he went to Vince Perrone’s (also now closed), where he got his first job as a line cook, and, later, waited tables at the downtown Greenville institution, Ristorante Bergamo. “I did doubles every day. You know how Carl Sobocinski (of Soby’s) is the hot restaurateur in Greenville? That was Vince Perrone twenty-five years ago. I just wanted to learn from him. I used to cook lunch and take my stuff with me and change in the back and wait tables at night.”

At home, Florence started cooking for his family. “It was always something that seemed really fancy,” he says, like beef tenderloin and fish en papillote.
By the time Florence became the executive chef of New York’s Cafeteria restaurant in 1998, “everything really started to click,” he says. “I wasn’t trying to make it up and say I’m this Italian chef when I’m not, obviously. I was forming my own ideas of what I remember. It was more about developing a strong American aesthetic of what food was all about.”

Florence was designing the menu of upscale riffs on homey diner food that fueled a nationwide trend (he calls it “comfort food made sexy”), when Winston Florence got a call from his son. “I remember him calling me one day and asking me, ‘I want to make macaroni and cheese. How do you make yours so creamy?’” says the elder Florence.

Ultimately, the son devised his own recipe—although Winston Florence’s meatloaf recipe, followed “to a T,” was featured on the menu—using a béchamel combined with shredded cheese (instead of following his grandmother’s recipe for combining eggs, chunks of cheese, and milk, for a more custardy result), but it illustrates a point: Food is a long-running topic of conversation—even friendly contention—in the Florence family.

“My dad’s just as curious in the kitchen as I am,” says the younger Florence. The typical generational gaps apply: new-fangled vs. old-fashioned, conservative vs. liberal. “My dad and I debate a lot,” he says. “Sometimes mac-and-cheese and politics carry the same amount of weight.”

Some of the earliest food that informed Florence’s ideas of what he remembered seems to have been served by his grandmother in Lincolnton, Georgia. “My grandmother was always a fantastic cook; the house smelled like—I can’t walk into a place and replicate that smell, the smell of a Southern kitchen, you know, the smell of fried chicken cooking in pork fat and collard greens, cooked down with that kind of sweet, vinegar smell kind of floating around, and fresh cornbread baking up. Cornbread that’s not too sweet. And some kind of peach cobbler cooking away, and ambrosia being tossed together and put in the fridge. That was a fantastic aroma that I really associate with going to my grandparents’ house, and I just loved it. I just absolutely loved it. That’s what I remember growing up. Those are the flavors that are always going to hold true.”

Even if those Southern flavors aren’t always front and center in his best-selling cookbooks, his recent moves suggest a general shift in focus—if not in pace—to things closer to home. “I call it Tyler 2.0,” he says.

His new cookware store, Tyler Florence Mill Valley, is conveniently located in the same town he now calls home, with his wife, Tolan Clark, and their two young children (Hayden, age eighteen months, and Dorothy, three months old; he also has a twelve-year-old son, Miles, from a previous marriage).
His move earlier this year to Mill Valley, an upscale community in Marin County, California (where his wife is from), has opened new culinary horizons, and for the first time in years, he is preparing to get back in the kitchen in two restaurant ventures, one of them in San Francisco, just across the Golden Gate Bridge.

Family also played a part in his two latest cookbooks, which were released in October and which he says he wrote in twenty-seven days: Stirring the Pot, a lively how-to organized by essential cooking techniques, and Dinner at My Place, a collection of menus for every home-cooking occasion. He credits his wife with coming up with the concept for the latter book, based on her notebook jottings of memorable meals he had created for them.

He’s also cooking up plans for a Greenville restaurant with his father. Although no plans are definite yet, he says, “I’d be here quite a bit, but my dad would be the man on the ground.”

There’s no doubt, however, about what would be on the menu: “It would be Southern food and the real deal,” says Florence. “I would give Greenville the definition of what Southern food is all about.”

Brussels Sprouts Salad with Pancetta and Cranberries

Servings: 

6

Ingredients: 

• 2 lbs. baby Brussels sprouts
• Extra virgin olive oil
• 6 oz. pancetta, diced
• 1/4 cup dried cranberries
• 3 Tbs. shallots, finely chopped
• 1 garlic clove, peeled and minced
• 2 Tbs. balsamic vinegar
• 1/4 cup chicken broth
• Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper

Directions: 

Pick Brussels sprouts apart into leaves. In a large sauté pan, heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil over medium heat. Add pancetta and cook for 2-3 minutes, until crispy. Add the Brussels sprouts leaves, cranberries, shallots, and garlic. Toss well to combine. Add balsamic vinegar and chicken broth and continue to cook 3-4 minutes, until the leaves just wilt. Season to taste with salt and pepper and serve warm.

Pomegranate-Glazed Game Hens with Cornbread Stuffing

Servings: 

4

Ingredients: 

Cornbread stuffing
• Extra virgin olive oil
• 1/2 onion, diced
• 3 large cornbread muffins, crumbled
• 4 sprigs fresh sage, leaves only, chopped
• 1 egg
• 1/2 cup reduced sodium chicken broth
• Splash heavy whipping cream
• Kosher salt, fresh ground black pepper

Pomegranate glaze

• 2 cups pomegranate juice
• 1 Tbs. sugar
• 1 orange, quartered
• 1 sprig fresh rosemary
• 1/2 cup pomegranate seeds

Cornish Game Hens

• 4 1 to 1- ½-lb. Cornish game hens
• Kosher salt, fresh ground black pepper
• 1/2 stick unsalted butter, cut into 4 pieces
• 1 bunch beet mizuna or winter greens

Directions: 

Cornbread stuffing
Add about two tablespoons olive oil to large sauté pan, caramelize onion over low heat 8-10 minutes. Remove pan from heat and add crumbled muffins, sage, egg, chicken broth, and cream. Season with salt and pepper. Stir to combine and set aside.

Pomegranate glaze
In a small saucepan, combine pomegranate juice, sugar, orange wedges, and rosemary. Simmer over medium heat 8-10 minutes until reduced by half and slightly syrupy. Add pomegranate seeds.

Cornish Game Hens
Preheat oven to 400 degrees and rinse hens with cool water, inside and out, and pat dry. Season the cavities with salt and pepper, then fill with prepared stuffing. Tie the legs of each hen together with a piece of kitchen twine. Season with salt and pepper, place in a roasting dish and top each with a piece of butter. Roast for 60-65 minutes until the skin is golden brown and juices run clear. Baste each with pomegranate glaze every 20 minutes. Spoon pomegranate seeds from the sauce, use to garnish, and serve with beet mizuna or winter salad greens.

Bourbon and Chocolate Pecan Pie

Servings: 

6

Ingredients: 

Pastry
• 1 cup all-purpose flour, more for dusting
• 1/4 cup finely ground pecans
• 1 Tbs. sugar
• Pinch kosher salt
• 1 stick cold unsalted butter, cubed
• 2 Tbs. ice water

Filling

• 1/2 stick unsalted butter
• 2 oz. unsweetened chocolate
• 3 eggs
• 1 cup sugar
• 3/4 cup dark corn syrup or sugar cane syrup
• 1/2 tsp. pure vanilla extract
• 3 Tbs. bourbon
• 1/4 tsp. kosher salt
• 1 ½ cups pecan halves
• 1 pint heavy whipping cream, whipped

Directions: 

Pastry
In a large bowl, combine flour, ground pecans, sugar, and salt. Add the butter and mix with a pastry blender until the mixture resembles coarse breadcrumbs. Sprinkle in ice water, tossing the mixture with a fork until just combined. Squeeze a small amount of dough together, if it is too crumbly; add more water, one tablespoon at a time. When dough comes together in a ball, wrap tightly in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.
On a lightly floured surface, roll dough into a 12-inch circle. Carefully roll the circle onto the rolling pin and unroll onto a 9-inch pie plate, pressing gently into the plate. Trim excess dough, leaving ¼ inch overhang. Place pan on sturdy baking sheet. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Filling
Melt the butter and chocolate in a double boiler, remove from heat, and allow to cool. Beat the eggs with an electric mixer until frothy. Set the mixer on low speed and gradually add sugar. Stir in the syrup, vanilla, bourbon, salt, and melted chocolate. Arrange the pecans on the bottom of the pastry and carefully pour the egg mixture over them. Bake about 45 minutes until the filling is set and slightly puffed. Cool completely before cutting and serve with whipped cream.