A Chat With Jonathan Krinn

[DonRocks]

Since this is the first time we've tried this format, I hope to leave this thread open for about three days, during which Jonathan Krinn, Executive Chef at the glorious 2941 Restaurant in Falls Church, will be fielding our questions. This thread, and this concept in general, is a work-in-progress, so please understand that I'll need to monitor it and tweak it more than I usually might. It will be a wonderfully entertaining and informative thing to have industry insiders posting here, and I cannot think of a better person to begin with than Jonathan Krinn. Everyone feel free to chime in, asking Jonathan about everything you always wanted to know about 2941 but were afraid to ask. If you submit questions now, Jonathan will see them soon enough and reply at his leisure.

Chef, welcome to the DC DelMarVa forum, and thank you in advance for sharing your thoughts with us.

A bio on Jonathan on 2941's website.

There's a fine miniature Q&A session with Chef Krinn in the June, 2004 Washingtonian. Simply scroll down to view.

There was a wildly successful eGullet event at 2941 that you can read about here.

But Jonathan, let me begin by asking you something I've always wondered. You've been at the restaurant every single time I've been there, most recently last weekend when you came out, frazzled, looking like you had been in a food fight with someone who didn't like you. You have a successful physician as a wife and a young child, and you must surely be in a constant state of addled exhaustion. How can you possibly pull this all off?

Cheers!

Rocks.

[sara]

Jonathan, here's my q. What's it like working with your Dad? I know many restaurants are family affairs, but I haven't heard of too many father/son ventures as of late. Do you fight? Throw dough at each other? Have separate kitchens to work in, or work together? Thanks.

[Malawry]

I wanna hear about the cotton candy. Where did that idea come from?

Also, with Dad baking the bread, and with the cotton candy being a signature part of the 2941 experience, can you talk about your views of the pastry arts and bread-baking? How connected are they to the rest of the cuisine at 2941?

Finally, I think your stove is even cooler than the one they use at the Inn at Little Washington--plus your line cooks don't have to listen to Gregorian chant music while they work it. How did you select it?

[bilrus]

Chef Krinn,

My question relates to one of my obsessions - the lack of good, independent restarants in the area starting about where you are located and west/south of there.

2941 is more of a "destination" restaurant, but I wonder if you feel at all held back by your suburban location in terms of either customer support or creativity. And do you think that the suburbs or exurbs of Virginia is underserved in terms of food/chef focused places or are we only getting what we are willing to support?

[jonathan krinn]

But Jonathan, let me begin by asking you something I've always wondered. You've been at the restaurant every single time I've been there, most recently last weekend when you came out, frazzled, looking like you had been in a food fight with someone who didn't like you. You have a successful physician as a wife and a young child, and you must surely be in a constant state of addled exhaustion. What's going on with that, dudeness, and how can you possibly pull it off?

Cheers!

Rocks.

No easy answer for that question. I would say that every business person has their own formula for their success. This is mine.

[DonRocks]

... how can you possibly pull it off?

No easy answer for that question. I would say that every business person has their own formula for their success. This is mine.

Forget your formula for success - I'm asking how it's humanly possible for you to stay awake!

But here's another question: inside your restaurant is a copy of one of Rodin's Burghers of Calais (the despondent man on the right, holding the key). Where did you get such a thing? Also, what are those giant hanging pieces that I can only describe as being apricot yo-yos?

Congratulations on your RAMMY award, by the way. In case people here don't remember, Jonathan just won the Rising Culinary Star Of The Year award, following in the footsteps of our own John Wabeck who won it the year before.

[jonathan krinn]

Dudeness?? Don, really.

Jonathan, here's my q. What's it like working with your Dad? I know many restaurants are family affairs, but I haven't heard of too many father/son ventures as of late. Do you fight? Throw dough at each other? Have separate kitchens to work in, or work together? Thanks.

I've heard of a lot of sons working for their fathers, but I've never heard of a father working for a son, so this is a very unique situation. He and I started talking about doing something together back when I worked for Chef Gerard Pangaud. We really get along well and have fun together, but I still built him his own kitchen just to give us some alone time. Its the least I could do for making him work every day.

[cjsadler]

Chef Krinn,

Prompted by an experience I had Saturday (which I'll post about shortly), I ask an unoriginal question: What dish on your current menu would you most like people to try?

Edited June 29, 2004 by cjsadler (log)

[jonathan krinn]

I wanna hear about the cotton candy. Where did that idea come from?

Also, with Dad baking the bread, and with the cotton candy being a signature part of the 2941 experience, can you talk about your views of the pastry arts and bread-baking? How connected are they to the rest of the cuisine at 2941?

Finally, I think your stove is even cooler than the one they use at the Inn at Little Washington--plus your line cooks don't have to listen to Gregorian chant music while they work it. How did you select it?

Great question on a subject into which I put a lot of thought. Restaurants are entertainment, so the more fun/delicious things any chef can think of, the more people will talk about their restaurant. Bread is the first thing that guests eat and judge. Every restaurant serves it, so I am very lucky that Dad brings creativity and quality to that part of the meal. Since I knew that guests would talk about the bread at the beginning of the meal, I looked for something that they would talk about at the end of the meal. The cotton candy is fun because you have to use your hands, which you usually don't do in a fine dining restaurant. Its just something that everyone knows, but hasn't seen used in this environment. The idea could have backfired, but, love it or hate it, I knew guests would talk about it. I thought I could take care of the middle parts of the meal and I wanted to accentuate the very beginning and the very end of the meal.

I love pastry, but I think it is the hardest part of the meal, because when guests look at the dessert menu, they are usually not very hungry anymore. The desserts better be intriguing and delicious to be worth it. I trained in pastry everywhere I worked because I wanted my savory food and pastry to have the same style. I use well known American combinations as well as French combinations and techniques. I want guests to look at the dessert menu and say, "I can't leave without trying this or that."

I am also lucky that I had a lot of space to build my kitchen. The cooks work around a central stove (Citronelle, Maestro and The Inn work the same way as well as many fine dining French style kitchens). The advantage to this system is that the cooks (normally less experienced than the sous chefs or the chef) do not plate their own food. They cook the food for the appropriate table and then send it to the front of the stove. Its like a dinner table where you would pass your plates to the head of the table so he/she could check to see that you had eaten everything. Same thing here. The cooks pass the food to the sous chefs and myself at the "head of the table." We check the quality of their preparations and we put it on the plates. Vulcan, a locally based company, custom built the stove for me. It's general design is based on the stove at Le Louis XV Alain Ducasse.

how's that?

[jonathan krinn]

Chef Krinn,

My question relates to one of my obsessions - the lack of good, independent restarants in the area starting about where you are located and west/south of there.

2941 is more of a "destination" restaurant, but I wonder if you feel at all held back by your suburban location in terms of either customer support or creativity. And do you think that the suburbs or exurbs of Virginia is underserved in terms of food/chef focused places or are we only getting what we are willing to support?

I was actually looking for a "destination" location. Most of the Michelin starred chateaus where I worked in France were really off the beaten path. I am not comparing myself to them, but I think it is fun to have to travel a bit to go to a restaurant of this caliber. I would consider this area the "bizburbs." There is too much business going on around here to consider it the suburbs. People here are great eaters! They enjoy trying different products and love the changing menus. I do think the area is underserved. We will see what happens in the future. I hope my restaurant helps others get the same idea. The more the merrier.

[Tweaked]

How did your studies at L'Academie De Cuisine help prepare you for life in the restaurant industry? What are you feelings about the debate over the "worth" of getting a culinary degree versus starting from scratch in a kitchen?

and finally, what's it really like to work for Rocco?

[jonathan krinn]

Chef Krinn,

What dish on your current menu would you most like people to try?

New Zealand Ostrich Tenderloin with red cabbage saurkraut and porcini spaetzle. Ostrich is super tender and has a great flavor similar to venison.

[morela]

Chef:

I read with interest what you said about the importance and challenge of good pastry. It's been discussed in this forum and Tom Sietsema's chats; really, really outstanding pastry (and freshly baked breads at restaurants) are hard to find.

Well, what I mean is, it's way easier for me to find a decent soft-shell or better-than-satisfactory roasted chicken or foie gras, than it is a killer cheese plate or a dessert that inspires me to string more than a few sentences together on E-gullet. Enough about me, though. My question for you is, where would you send someone for really great dessert in our area?

I respect your philopsopy and am interested in hearing where you have had some your best meals (dessert, obviously included)...

France wins, but we're talking DCDelMarVa.

[jonathan krinn]

inside your restaurant is a copy of one of Rodin's Burghers of Calais (the despondent man on the right, holding the key). Where did you get such a thing? Also, what are those giant hanging pieces that I can only describe as being apricot yo-yos?

my partner is a big art collector (not that he collects big pieces of art, but that he collects a lot of art!). The Burgher and the "Jellyfish" (from a Milanese artist Jacabo Fuginni) are part of his collection.

[jonathan krinn]

How did your studies at L'Academie De Cuisine help prepare you for life in the restaurant industry? What are you feelings about the debate over the "worth" of getting a culinary degree versus starting from scratch in a kitchen?

and finally, what's it really like to work for Rocco?

I feel like cooking is sort of like acting, and working in New York I know a lot of actor wanna be's. Not every aspiring chef chooses to go to cooking school. Its not like, say, medicine, where you cannot practice your craft if you do not have the necessary diplomas. Cooking is a purely entreprenurial art/business. But cooking school introduces you to the language and the skills you will need to survive in the kitchen. There are actors that didn't go to acting school that make it, but there are many more that are successful that learned valuable skills in acting school. Same with cooking (Thomas Keller is the best example of a chef who made it without going to school). The hard thing to accept for students out of cooking school is that after spending all that money to go to school, you don't make much money at all until you have a very high level of skill. No matter what school you go to, that skill only comes with years of experience at the right places. You must have a pretty specific goal to get you through those years of training.

When I worked with Rocco (2000, 2001) he was in the kitchen all the time. It was the most forward thinking and technically stimulating food I had ever cooked. He had worked for Gray Kunz (Lespinasse) for three years, and Lespinasse had just closed. Lespinasse was the holy grail for cooks in New York, so Rocco was the next best you could have. Very intense perfectionist who taught me how to cook at a high level for 100 - 250 guests per night. He always liked to "hang"with the right people, so it doesn't surprise me that he parlayed that into a tv show. But I still keep in touch with all the old Union Pacific "peeps" and I know he is not happy with the results. Hindsite is 20/20 I guess.

[jonathan krinn]

I respect your philopsopy and am interested in hearing where you have had some your best meals (dessert, obviously included)...

France wins, but we're talking DCDelMarVa.

Quite frankly, sometimes a chef is not a good person to ask about restaurant recommendations, because we don't get out much. We can tell you the best meals we've had in this area after mifnight.

On the subject of pastry and how it goes in harmony with the savory side, I learned a lot working at Grammercy Tavern. Claudia Flemming, the award winning pastry chef, made a point of matching her style of desserts with the savory food of Tom Collichio. It made the meals a GT flow very well. Sometimes savory and pastry seem like they from different restaurants. Its just a product of two different artistic minds working under the same roof. Ideally, a meal at these caliber of restaurants should not feel like a fragmented story. It should flow from beginning to end. In that sense, Michel Richard has a distinct advantage because of his backround as a pastry chef. But more smart chefs are including pastry in their training now.

[DonRocks]

Jonathan, where do you want to take 2941 from here? Do you have any aspirations for chef's tables, wine dinners, truffle menus, etc.?

[jonathan krinn]

Jonathan, where do you want to take 2941 from here? Do you have any aspirations for chef's tables, wine dinners, truffle menus, etc.?

I have big dreams for this restaurant. One and a half years is not a very long time to be in business, so I still consider this place very new. I am building a chef's table in the kitchen this summer, hopefully to be ready by the fall. There will be lots of truffles on the menu in the winter and more wine dinners starting in the fall. There are also a couple surprises I have up the chef's jacket sleeve.

[DonRocks]

Jonathan,

What a wonderful job you've done with this.

Thank you for being the pioneer in what willl be an ongoing feature in this forum. Although your official duties in this interview will end with the first firework this evening, (literally, with a bang!), you remain a highly valued member here, so please chime in whenever a topic interests you. (What I didn't tell you before you agreed to do this, is that you have no way to delete your userid and password, so you've now become a permanent member. Welcome to the Hotel California. ) Thank you!

Stay tuned for another interesting guest ... and happy Fourth of July everyone.

Rocks.

[FunJohnny]

Hey Jonathan: Just wanted to let you know my family celebrated Father's Day at 2941 (at my request) and we had a wonderful meal from beginning to end. My daughter, who is a finnicky teen, said the smoked duck appetizer was "the best duck she ever tasted" -- that's high praise. She also was delighted by the cotton candy. The restaurant is an amazing and unexpected space so close to Rt. 50. Hope to be abe to get back soon.

[amcleod]

This was fascinating. Thanks, Chef, for taking time out of your busy life!!