Q & A with Jordan Kahn

Pastry Chef Jordan Kahn seemed to burst into New York City and make more noise then oft admired comrade in arms and best buddy Alex Stupak did moving into the vacated P.C. spot (by Pastry Superstar (sorry) Sam Mason) at wd-50 by , firstly doing a spot at the 1st Annual International Chefs Congress (hosted by starchefs.com) with the amazing chef Paul Librandt (savoury) of Atlas, Papillon and GILT, all in NYC.
I was intrigued immediately and this led to me Googling, where I didn’t see that much. That much except he was helping OPEN a new restaurant in NY called Varietal, he had worked at The French Laundry AND PerSe, presumably with Sebastian Rouxel, at Grant Achatz’s Alinea with Alex Stupak and became much admired and at the same time a target for skepticism of his openly embraced admiration for people like Alex, Albert Adria and Sam Mason and probably Heston Blumenthal as well, all fellow travelers in pastry and savoury, I hate to say it, molecular gastronomics. He uses Mushrooms, Mastic, sumac and many other herbs and spice found in savory applications along with Chocolate and the usual and not so usual pastry ingredients

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T.N: Hi, Jordan, and welcome to pastrypros.com, we’re very excited to
have you with us!

JK: Thanks, I’m glad to be here.

TN: How did you get into being a pastry chef?

JK: While I was in culinary school, I worked at a four star
restaurant, but the only spot they had available was in pastry. I
agreed and worked with Vincenz Aschbacher, a certified master pastry
chef. i was immediately drawn to the amount of chemistry involved,
and the fact that pastry doesn’t allow you to cut corners. the
mixture will always let you know when you’ve changed something, no
matter how slight.

TN: Where did you go to Culinary school?
JK: I went to culinary school at Johnson and Wales, Charleston campus.
I was fortunate enough to do an advanced-track program, where I got
my 2-year associate’s degree in 7 months. I was so lucky to have done
that, I hated culinary school.

TN: Where was your first gig?

JK: My very first job was at a fine dining restaurant in Savannah
(where I grew up) when I was fifteen. The place, sadly, no longer
exists.

TN: Have you ever been much of a “classic” guy? Pastry -wise?

JK: I worked for several years under some very classically trained
pastry chefs… so yes, I have a classical background. Tarts,
chocolate, vienoisserie, entremets, sugar… all that stuff.

TN: How do you feel about some of the focus you’ve had on you since
you got to NYC?

JK: The focus actually has been better than I thought. Everyone would
tell me that “New Yorkers don’t want that modern stuff. They want
their molten chocolate cake and ice cream. Who’s gonna eat mushroom
in dessert?”. and I felt sort of odd. My retort was “this is New
York City, right? This is the place where everything happens first.
This is the trend-setting city. So if it doesn’t fly here, where the
hell does it? Off of some remote coast in nowhere Spain?” and I
thought that it became a mentality that people didn’t exactly evoke,
as much as followed, because that’s what everyone else thinks. I am
happy to say, that the feedback has been unbelievable. Our mushroom
and chocolate dessert is actually our best seller! That’s pretty
special, I think. People are really diggin our stuff. In the month
that we’ve been open, virtually every dessert plate that comes back
from the dining room has come back licked clean. I think people are
beginning to evolve their mentalities.

TN: Yeah, well, I think a lot of people are kind of full of it about
what flies there in NYC.

JK: I think it’s more press driven, the whole fable about “forward
thinking” food not having much of a chance there.
Your press on “the boards” seems to be pretty great, it makes me
really happy to see that even if people are a bit mystified by your
desserts, they at the very least appreciate your….the care &
consideration that goes into them.
The fact that you’re pushing it a bit and opening them up, that’s what
I’m trying to say.

TN: So, are you inspired by the Spanish movement?

JK: Of course. I think that most chefs are inspired by the great food
coming out of Spain, regardless of style or cuisine. They have an
entire country’s support behind all of their chefs, and they’re slowly
changing the world’s perception of what food can be. Ferran ( Adria,
of El Bulli ) is their celebrity chef… ours is Emeril (no comment).

TN: I HAVE to ask you this, do you have the Oriol Balaguer compiled
S-21 book?
There’s a cake Spanish Pastry Chef Abraham Palomeque came up with
called ‘Boletus”. That’s composed of a financier type cake,
a licorice root cream and a bavaroise of cepes.., did that inspire the
work with mushrooms and eggplant?

JK: I don’t actually own that book. I really don’t have a big library
of cookbooks at home. Mostly Batman picture books.
No, I’ve actually have never heard of that chef, I’m out of the loop.

TN: Abraham Palomeque isn’t really a household name lol!

JK:No the mushrooms as I said before, they just made sense in that
dish. It’s chocolate and pear, which is my favorite chocolate-fruit
combination. mushrooms and mastic just felt appropriate. The most
interesting thing in my opinion in that dish, well, all of my dishes
really, is not the flavor combinations. I don’t think of our flavor
combinations as being unusual. What’s unusual are our techniques. We
try to explore and come up with as many new and different techniques
as possible. The chocolate mushroom dish has a ‘chocolate puree’,
which is cool to us in that it has the flavor, texture, and richness
of a dark, chocolate pudding, and yet it is made with no eggs, no
butter, no dairy. Just chocolate, and water. but you think it’s full
of rich, fatty substances. Little things like that, that aren’t
obvious. Lots of things seem deceptively simple, but are actually
quite complex.

TN: Tell us about your dessert menu at Varietal, the flavor profiles
and
your interest in art, in painting, perhaps?
Inspirations, who has influenced and inspired your work?

JK: I’m inspired by many mediums. people, music, architecture. My
direct influences are my peers, colleagues, and my family. I am
heavily influenced by certain works of art, including the works of
Jackson Pollock, Laurie Maitland, Joan Miro, and Salvador Dali.
certain musicians such as the band ‘Red Sparowes
(http://www.myspace.com/redsparowes)
and ‘Sigur Ros’, (an Icelandic rock band http://www.sigur-ros.co.uk/)
have such intensity and dynamism is their work, that it really
influences the way I work.

Thank you, Jordan, and continued success in everything you do!

Jordan Kahn New York Magazine article

– ted niceley