Photograph by Kevin A. Roberts
"We wanted to bring the band back together," says Aleks Jovanovic, GM/wine director at Truffles in Ladue. He was speaking of Chef Brandon Benack (a protege of Emeril Lagasse and Norman Van Aken), and a third troubador in New Orleans, who hand-selects for Truffles every oyster, every piece of fish, every head-on shrimp, fresh jumbo lump crab. Then there's the friend at a meat packing house in Atlanta who's doing the same with all of their prime beef. Think good things are happening at Truffles? Benack says "the menu language is simplistic, the dishes are not." We say: Let the band play on.
Was becoming a chef a calling or something you just fell into?
When I was young, I spent a lot of time with my Italian grandparents. Every Sunday, the family had dinner at their house, anywhere from 12 to 50 people. There'd be competitive cooking, wine making, sausage making. The seeds were planted there, literally...
They had a garden?
A humongous garden, with strains of vegetables that had been in the family for generations. Every year the tomatoes got sweeter and the peppers got hotter. When my grandfather wanted to propose to my grandmother, he had to first eat one of their family's peppers, which apparently was hot as hell. He didn't curl up and die but he said his mouth burned for a week.
Many Italian families brought over their own grape vines, too.
They all did. My great-grandfather knew he wasn't going back, so he brought everything with him. Everything. I still have some of it.
Like what?
When we moved to St. Louis, I discovered a box I'd had in storage for years. Inside was a manila folder containing a bunch of my great-grandmother's hand-written recipes that I thought I'd lost years ago. I'm using some of those recipes at Truffles.
Which ones?
Pizelle, biscotti, and various other cookies. Meal-making was different back then and it was different for me.
How so?
We didn't have TV dinners...my mom, who worked evenings, would tell me what was in the fridge and tell me to make myself dinner. Those were the values I learned... "You wanna eat? Make dinner. You want a car? Get a job. You want to drive the car? Pay for the insurance." I got a little help, but that was the way it was.
Those days are long gone.
It instilled a work ethic that I've never lost. I was the guy who never stayed down on the mat. I try to pass that along to my staff, but you're right, everything is at the touch of a button. most of it on your iPhone! You don't have to work at anything anymore. Your car now drives itself...
Did you go to chef school?
I went to school on a basketball scholarship but got injured, then reinjured. My roommate talked me into culinary school...he said they cooked all day, hung out, drank some. Sounded pretty good to me. I soon figured out I was good at it—hardly had to try—and quickly became a student teacher.
What was your first real chef job?
My first externship was at a private club on Daufuskie Island. I learned more there than in all my time at school. So I quit school and returned to that job on the island.
But you had to be in school to get that job.
True. And eventually that F&B director got me on with Emeril in New Orleans.
What did you learn in New Orleans and from your stint in Antigua?
The answer's the same: an appreciation of what's around you. We were blessed with seafood in New Orleans and had very little in Antigua. Everything there was flown in. All Antigua could claim was some fish and two indigenous fruits.
Just two?
One's a black pineapple—the sweetest one you've ever tasted. People get killed for stealing from black pineapple fields. And there's the grafted mango, crossbred from the very best strains. They're like eating candy. I've seen people get arrested trying to export the roots of that plant.
Anything else?
Up here, coconut water is this cool, new thing, but down there it's everywhere, so that's all anybody drinks, gallons upon gallons. All the drinking water is shipped in from Japan and controlled by the government.
Sounds primitive.
You'd lose electricity 10 times a day; all the gas was in giant propane tanks; the cistern pumps would quit all the time. I frequently had to shower with rain water I dipped from a barrel. It WAS primitive by US standards. Here, I became so much more appreciative and accepting.
When was this and how long did you stay?
This was recent, 2006-2008. My wife and I did not leave the island for three years straight.
But would you go back?
In a minute. It takes a certain person, but my wife and I loved it. If a kid would misbehave and the parent would somehow miss it, another adult would step in and correct the child in their stead. Try doing that here...
Are there indigenous dishes in Antigua?
One in particular: fungi. It's very simple, like a polenta, usually with onion and garlic and okra mixed in, formed by hand and served in a ball shape. It was served with fish, topped with creole sauce. That is dinner in Antigua. Or barbeque...
I hear they like to barbeque in Antigua.
Different guys would cook different things on the side of the road on different days. You'd stop at the place the line was forming. Ribs, huge land crabs would get thrown on the grill, bullfoot soup...
Is that what it sounds like?
Yep, it's a rustic soup made from bull's hooves.
Any classic customer anecdotes--good or bad--from the islands or from New Orleans?
One big shot customer in New Orleans would always come in late, after closing, but we didn't mind, because he'd let a few of us drive his Ferrari around while he ate.
Had you been to St. Louis before moving here?
Nowhere even close. Not even to the Midwest. When the opportunity arose, my wife was very understanding.
Is she in the business?
She hopes to start a truffle business here, which, considering where I work, certainly seems appropriate. We know truffle growers in Italy---she'll be able to tell you who the grower is...and the name of the dog who found it.
But it was Aleks [Jovanovic] who persuaded you to come here.
We were best friends, he was the brother I never had, so when he told me of the opportunity at Truffles, I paid attention. The timing was right because I had been hired to take Norman Van Aken's new brand, Norman's 180, and expand it, but that ultimatelydidn't happen.
Your first weekend in St. Louis was memorable.
When I arrived here for the first time, I bought a new car. Later that same day, that crazy hailstorm hit, pelting my four-hour old car. I've never seen hail like that. My wife called me and said: "What is this place? Where the hell did you take me?"
Those sirens scared her to death.
You don't have tornado sirens in New Orleans?
We don't have tornados. That green sky is quite a sight. Welcome to St. Louis...
What impressed you about Truffles?
The opportunity. I felt Truffles was a special place, an established restaurant with a good reputation and a family mindset. It was simple: the Cella's [Truffles' owners] wanted to better realize their vision to create a really great--but really different-- steak and seafood restaurant.
How are you doing that?
First, I don't cook for critics or stars or for recognition in national magazines. I cook for the guests. That's how Aleks and I were trained and that's what we believe. The Truffles experience will focus on the guest--and that everybody's a VIP—something that unfortunately has disappeared over the years. Our plan is to know our guests well and treat them better than they're treated anywhere else.
Talk about your seafood.
Aleks and I have a third best friend, Drew Knoll, a New Orleans native, who co-owns a seafood company there. He literally hand-picks everything we get and ships it to us--every fish, every oyster, every head-on shrimp, the best crawfish, and fresh jumbo lump crab—fresh—plus every link of bayou-issue andouille sausage. Those Plaquemines Parish oysters we just got? They're highly allocated in new Orleans, but we have them here. That's what makes us unique.
Your beef program is unique as well.
Our beef, too, I reconnected with a friend at Halperin's in Atlanta who hand selects all of our prime beef. All of it. He's the guy who's advising me on our new dry-aging program.
Few restaurants bother to dry age meat themselves. Why?
It takes knowledge, and dedication, and space, plus it's expensive. But starting with the best prime cuts sure helps justify our dry-aging program.
How long will you age the beef?
We'll dry age everything: filets, hangar steaks, chops. Flavor is good at 14 days and primo at 21; my experience has shown that after that you just lose product. Then it's important that you cook it properly, so we've installed a 1600 degree infra-red burner broiler to properly caramelize the meat and allow for maximum appreciation.
Reading the menu, I see it's a whole new program. You've even injected some life into the lowly wedge salad.
We add fresh jumbo lump crab, a kicky buttermilk dressing, chopped egg, housemade bacon, and local tomatoes, when we can get them. We want to have something for everyone, but we want to make it interesting, something to talk about, to remember.
Describe the menu, then.
It's my greatest hits album. I've done hundreds of wedge salads and this is my favorite version. We serve the real BBQ shrimp...my wife's family was one of the founding families in New Orleans. It's a variation of that recipe. A riff on the classic broiled oyster has smoked bacon and manchego...incredible adds. A lot of thought goes even in the simplest sounding dishes: the foie gras with pound cake is like a 50-step, 3-day process.
An interim menu featured the legendary Famous Barr French Onion Soup. It now reads "Truffles' Soon To Be Famous French Onion Soup." What's your secret?
We caramelize about 4 to 5 gallons of onions, throw in a handful of peppercorns, bunches of thyme, some brandy. That becomes onion stock. From there, we caramelize another batch of onions, deglaze with sherry vinegar, add some sherry, some aromatics, and that gets added to the stock. Doing all that develops layers of flavor.
And you serve it with mini Gruyere grilled cheese sandwiches?
How often does this happen? You dig through the cheese and the croutons and are left with a bunch of residual soup. Now you have something tasty to get after that with. It's a damn good soup. We simply took a classic and elevated it. That's all we're trying to do: to work at a higher level, yet do so without being pretentious.
How long before you can claim success in Ladue? How long does it take a chef to accurately gauge his impact?
I'd say we've already done it. I've never had so many repeat customers in such a quick time, some four and five times. I've only been here 30 days.
What's your plan for lunch?
Entree salads and more variations on the popular Truffles burger: we're now using prime grade Chuck roll, grinding it fresh daily, cooking it on the infra-red broiler. Some chefs overthink things like burgers. This is as simple and as complicated as it needs to get.
Are there plans for the back room?
We'd love to blow out the wall to the kitchen and rebuild it so diners in that room could see everything going on in the kitchen. Make it a draw rather than just "the back room."
You mentioned there's a story about the table where we're now seated.
At the original Emeril's, table 10 was where he and his managers gathered every night to discuss the evening. It's a tradition we grew up with--one of Emeril's restaurants, in Las Vegas, is even named table 10. So that's what Aleks and I do every evening: we taste new dishes, we tweak, we pair them with wines, we act as our own food critics. It might look like we're just sitting there eating and drinking, but we're working, helping to perfect what we do. This table's number is 17...I think it's time to start a new tradition.
Will Truffles ever expand outside?
Yes, we would like to add a patio, with a roof...so you don't have to worry about hail falling on your head!
Can you relax when you dine out or are you hyper-critical?
I always respect the house I'm in and never like to come off like I know more than the people running the place. Unless it's inedible, I rarely complain. If it's lousy, I'm like most people and just never go back.
