printable versionWilbur Dining's Jeff Rosen wins university's version of Iron Chef
BY MICHAEL PEÑA
Chef Jeff Rosen, on his way to winning the competition.
A light red wine would complement Jeff Rosen's duck confit nicely, but these days, his masterpiece is more likely to be accompanied by a lemon-lime soda.
Rosen, the production manager of The Marketplace in Wilbur Hall, has 25 years of experience in the food-service industry—ranging from stints at gourmet grills to running his own bistro and, later, a catering business.
A year after throwing in the entrepreneurial towel for a job feeding hungry undergrads, his skills still seem to be as sharp as his cleaver.
On Nov. 17, Rosen won a culinary challenge featuring lamb against four other residential dining chefs, whose backgrounds stretch from the windswept shores of Pebble Beach to Turkey's thriving capital of Ankara. Like an episode of "Iron Chef," the Cardinal Toque is a competition that puts Stanford's best in the spotlight and under pressure.
In one hour, Rosen whipped up a saddle of lamb stuffed with foie gras and chanterelles, a potato confit, crepinette of lamb and a warm six-onion salad in front of awed onlookers, stern judges and color commentators. The Toque—named for the tall chef's hat—was held in Tresidder Union and hosted by Residential and Dining Enterprises.
"I just wanted to make a good showing," said Rosen, who won an all-expense paid trip to Hawaii. "If you put together the experience of all the chefs in the room, it goes a long, long way."
There was chef John Monteleone from Stern Dining, whose expertise ranges from Italian cuisine to ice sculpting. Previously an executive chef for various California hotels and resorts, the Massachusetts native once served a $65,000 lunch to Bill Gates and 100 top Microsoft investors.
Steve Mesa, executive chef of Tresidder's Union Square and the Stanford Coffee House, sautéed lamb loin. A high-honors graduate of the Culinary Institute of America (CIA) in Hyde Park, N.Y., Mesa last worked for The Cheesecake Factory chain—first in its San Diego restaurant and then managing the kitchen in San Jose when that location opened.
Chef Burak Epir represented Florence Moore and Ricker Dining. He was raised in Turkey and spent his summer breaks from high school in the restaurants of Ankara. He came to America in 1986 to further his education and worked in university and hotel kitchens along the way; eventually he earned a degree in hotel and restaurant management.
Ukraine-born Mikhail Shvartz, Lakeside Dining's chef, prepared an olive-oil poached lamb loin alongside a pyramid of mascarpone polenta. He also graduated from the CIA in Hyde Park. Once a chef in San Francisco's Hotel Nikko, Shvartz has supplied the gourmet garnishings for soirees by the likes of Passport and Bon Appetit.
In Rosen's life, food has been a constant. He grew up in a Jewish New York household and took his first cooking job at a family-run Italian restaurant when he was 16. He earned a bachelor's degree in hospitality management from Florida International University in Miami, and in 1987, moved out to California.
"As a fledgling chef, I felt that this was the major leagues for me," Rosen said. "If you can make it in the Bay Area, you can make it anywhere."
He worked at the Park Hyatt hotel in San Francisco for about two years, subsequently directing dining concepts for high-end retailers such as Club Monaco and Emporium-Weinstocks, where he developed menus for 20 of the department store chain's full-service restaurants in California and Utah.
But it was as the corporate executive chef for a private group that owned four upscale grills in the Bay Area when his stock really rose. He hob-nobbed with the area's culinary elite, and from 1991 to 1996 got to work with industry icons Mark Franz, now executive chef and co-owner of San Francisco's famed Farallon, and Nancy Oaks, owner of the Zagat shoo-in, Boulevard.
"I emulate their styles of cuisine and their cooking philosophies," Rosen said. "That job was a dream come true for me."
Like all good chefs, however, inspiration pushed him further. From 1996 to 2000, he owned a restaurant in San Francisco's Sunset District called Avenue 9. After that closed, he spent the next three years running another business, SF Caterers.
In terms of experience, such deep seasoning is becoming more common at the collegiate level. Chef Jay Marshall, who chairs western regional cooking competitions for the National Association of College and University Food Services (NACUFS), said the days of meatloaf and mash are all but a memory.
And it's not just at the premiere universities. Public colleges up and down the California coast have notable dining programs, said Marshall, himself the executive chef of San Jose State University's Spartan Dining program.
"University food service has come a long way in the past 10 years," Marshall said. "It's fresh, it's organic. It's all those things."
Marshall also was one of the judges at this year's Cardinal Toque, and he said Rosen artfully blended two textures of lamb on the same plate. Rosen sliced and diced the two sections of the saddle—the loin and the tenderloin—serving them over a salad and seasoning the meat for maximum kick.
"The flavors exploded in your mouth," Marshall said. "His obviously tasted better than anybody else's."
And if you missed Rosen's performance last month, he will fire it up again on March 1, when NACUFS holds the Pacific region's Culinary Challenge at Stanford. Up to 15 college chefs from nine western states, Hawaii and Mexico could be on the fight card, so the contest will be anything but a cakewalk.
"I never go into any competition thinking that I'm going to win," Rosen said. "The key is to stay focused and not panic."
On every other day, the stress-free setting at Stanford is one of the biggest benefits of working here, Rosen said. At age 40, he lives in the city with his wife and their three children, and since coming to Stanford last fall, he can now savor that part of his life as well.
No more burning the midnight oil; no more weekends whittling shallots. And over the holidays, he will be free to cook a succulent prime rib and a chocolate chip cheesecake for his family.
Then there are his other 900 kids. As Wilbur's head chef, he coordinates the production of all food, develops menus and is on the floor every day—in the kitchen tasting recipes and in the servery chatting up students. Rosen says the palates of some pupils are actually quite sophisticated, and Marshall agrees.
"Not everyone, but it mirrors the general population," Rosen said. "Even the freshmen, they're food savvy."
The Marketplace's standards, such as Mediterranean wraps and stir-fry veggies, are already nothing to sniff at. But occasionally, Rosen will kick it up a notch with duck confit—duck legs seasoned over a few days and cooked in their own fat—osso buco, fresh Dungeness crab cakes and Alaska wild king salmon.
"When I closed my businesses, I was looking for something different, something that was a little more enjoyable, with less stress so I could concentrate on the passion of cooking," Rosen said. "In my field, a lot of restaurant people are nomads."
Yes, the occasional crab cake will drown in red sauce that a hasty student meant to dump on his ravioli. But that's OK. Rosen deals with a culinary challenge all his own, in part because he no longer has to dazzle a new diner everyday.
"In a way, it's the opposite. The people are here. The trick is keeping them interested," he says. "I consider myself lucky that I work in such a fine place, and I'm not just saying that."