by Celebrity chefs are known for wowing fans with meals cooked at their famous restaurants and recipes shared during their many television appearances. But when a chef likes it Weird foods hosts Andrew Zimmern or Dominique Crenn, the only female chef in the US to earn three Michelin stars, go out for a meal with friends, what to do they order for dinner?
At the Cayman Cookout, an annual epicurean festival at The Ritz-Carlton Grand Cayman, celebrity chefs meet with curious ticket holders to learn more about their favorite culinary personalities. The intimacy of four days of beachside cooking demonstrations, barefoot barbecues, and dancing in the lobby bar breaks down barriers and opens up candid conversations.
While attending Cayman Cookout, I chatted with celebrity chefs like Top chefs icon Tom Colicchio and restaurateur Daniel Boulud, to ask which dish they would have never ordering at a restaurant because they are so partial to how they make it at home. Their simple answers show that anyone can cook a delicious meal in their own kitchen, without fancy ingredients or fiddly recipes. And, to make it even easier to cook foods loved by celebrity chefs at home, the masters themselves were willing to share how they’ve perfected dishes like the perfect fried egg or mouth-watering paella over the years.
Anthony Bachour
Although Antonio Bachour is a famous pastry chef, his answer is not a cake. The Puerto Rican chef shares it never order the eggs.
“I love making eggs,” says Bachour, whose favorite is a “very simple” scramble with ghee, ham, tomato and onion, served with a piece of toast. Bachour says the trick is to beat the eggs in a separate dish and, unlike many suggested tricks, don’t add any water or cream to make them frothy.
“The problem with scrambled eggs is that they often burn,” she explains, “when I order them, they’re not yellow, they’re brown.” Bachour says this is typically because restaurants reuse pans and the eggs take on the blackened color from a previously burnt batch of eggs.
“You want them fresh, so they’re soft, not overcooked, because you’ll lose the flavor,” she says.
Andrea Zimmern
“Caesar salad is one of those combinations that is just insanely good,” says Andrew Zimmern. “But I would like to tell many young chefs that you power open a restaurant without a Caesar salad on the menu.”
The chef, restaurateur and TV personality says it all boils down to freshness, starting with the dressing, which he stresses, “must be made to order.”
“It should not be done in a five-gallon batch twice a week with a commercial oil dip rod,” he says, adding that at home he uses a large wooden salad bowl that he doesn’t wash — just treats — and which he always had. egg yolks straight into the bowl, mash some anchovies with a fork, add the lemon juice and then the olive oil. “Don’t emulsify these things together because the olive oil will go bitter,” she says.
Next, she adds lettuce (she steers away from classic romaine lettuce, opting for gem lettuce heads for its best flavor and texture), toss the salad, and add cheese on top. Zimmern clarifies that he’s not against romaine and advises if you’re going to use it, opt for the romaine hearts and use the bigger, crispier ribs.
Dominique Crenn
“My mom roasted chicken with roasted apple, so that’s something I always distrust when I go to a restaurant,” says Dominique Crenn, the chef at three-Michelin-star restaurant Atelier Crenn in San Francisco, California. Crenn says roast chicken takes time, despite what some recipes might suggest.
“I don’t just put a chicken in my roasting pan and go walk the dog,” she says. “It’s a process — you have to watch it, you have to love it, and it’s all about timing the flavor.”
Tom Colicchio
Co-founder and former executive chef of New York’s Gramercy Tavern, Tom Colicchio also chooses a dish based on nostalgia. “Sunday gravy is something I would never order,” he says of the traditional Italian-American recipe of meatballs in a hearty tomato sauce with a pasta. “When I was growing up it was meatballs and macaroni…every Sunday that was what we had for dinner.”
Colicchio says there’s nothing that really makes his Sunday gravy special—it’s just a simple dish his mother prepares and “something he only associates with eating at home.”
José Andres
Even a multifaceted chef like José Andrés sometimes takes it back to its origins. “Nobody knows how to make fried eggs,” he says.
The founder of World Central Kitchen teases that the secret to a successful fried egg is “I make them,” but he does give some tangible tips. “Talk to the oil,” he says, intending to listen to it and make sure it’s heated before adding the egg. So, “add salt around the edge of the egg white that’s in contact with the egg yolk. That’s where coagulation occurs the hardest, and the salt allows coagulation to happen quickly.”
Adrienne Cheatham
“A house salad usually has less love than anything else on the menu,” says Adrienne Cheatham, Top chefs runner-up and author of Sunday Best: Cooking up the spirit of the weekend every day. That’s why just a basic salad will do at home. To start, Cheatham suggests roughly chopping the lettuce and then tossing it with the dressing.
“Most people don’t dress their salads, but every salad needs a pinch of salt first add the dressing,” she points out. Be sure to add the dressing right before serving, and use partially cooked or delicious raw vegetables. “Raw radishes [are a] yes,” she explains, “but don’t give me thick raw carrots, that just ruins the dining experience.
Eric Ripert
French chef and host of Cayman Cookout, Eric Ripert points to paella as a dish he loves to make at home. “At home in summer“, he adds, because the typical Valencian recipe of rice, saffron, chicken and mixed seafood cooked and served in a shallow pan is “something that seems simple, but that requires a lot of attention”.
Ripert also notes that you don’t make paella for just one… or even two people. “It really is a dish that brings people together,” she says. “It’s very interactive and there’s something festive about it.” Chef Le Bernadin advises that in addition to atmosphere, paella requires high-quality ingredients from the most basic, such as olive oil, to rice, proteins and vegetables. He notes that the quality of the pan and fire is also “essential”.
Daniele Boulud
“Soup,” says French chef Daniel Boulud. “I like making soup.”
The restaurateur says the best soups have a combination of vegetables and texture. He says one of his favorite things to do is grab a pot and walk around the kitchen adding “all kinds of stuff.” Boulud mentions spinach, fresh herbs, grains, meat or seafood, crab, shrimp or lobster, as examples of ingredients he will add. “I don’t have a recipe, I have no idea where I’m going,” he says.
Boulud also shares his love for moqueca soup. Brazilian fish stew – made with coconut milk, peppers, fish or shrimp and served over rice – combines whatever ingredients they like into a soup. He advises that “you have to add dendê oil (a bright orange-red oil made from the fruit of the dendezeiro tree) … to give that certain je ne sais quoi to the soup.”
“I make it for my Brazilian friend,” adds Boulud, “and he says it’s better than what his wife makes.”
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