There’s a chef in Spain who is the
Mick Jagger of the cooking world. Chefs swoon in his presence and await his
next move with parted lips and bated breath. Customers wait for years to pay
hundreds of dollars for meals that include gold-plated egg yolks, cherries
wrapped in ham fat, crepes made of nothing but milk, and foamed beetroot.
There are the TV personality chefs
and big-time authors, bamming this and bamming that, or suggestively licking
the sauce off their fingers and transforming cooking demos into escapades that
are more about eroticism and bedroom goings-on than anything you can find in
your fridge.
Then there’s Rolf Gunther.
Rolf is the chef/co-owner and
creative force in the kitchen at Rimrock Café. It’s a 25-year-old success story
that, despite or perhaps because of, its out-of-the-way location has become a
Whistler icon. For in some inexplicable way, Rimrock has distilled and captured
a quintessential essence of “Whistler” while delivering a mighty fine dining
experience at the same time.
Touted by many as the best restaurant
around, including
Pique
readers who
have voted it “Best of Whistler” four years in a row, Rimrock has been
commended by culinary bastions like
Bon Appétit
and
Zagat
for its
overall excellence. Movie stars hear about it and try to squeeze in a visit,
even when the place is sold out. Sometimes the likes of Bill Murray and Danny
DeVito get in — and sometimes they’re just plain out of luck.
So Rolf has every reason to start his
own show on the Food Network or pump out designer cookbooks and go on
cross-country tours. After all, he has all the credentials: culinary training
at the four-star Park Hotel in Germany’s Black Forest region, and experience in
fine restaurants from Basel, Switzerland to Berlin before delivering the goods
here.
But he can’t. Because Rolf is the
original anti-celebrity chef.
You likely know somebody like him
yourself — one of those people who hates putting him- or herself in the
spotlight, even in a modest, neighbourly kind of way. As his business partner
Bob Dawson puts it, some people don’t even know who Rolf is, and he’s been
around for decades.
“We just don’t care about a lot of
the things that are going on out there. We just keep doing what we do,” says
Rolf on a crisp autumn afternoon before leaving on a holiday to Maui.
“I feel uncomfortable putting myself
in the front of anything — I don’t really like it. I would not go out
there and promote myself because it’s just not in my nature.”
In fact, he admits that he doesn’t
even like doing this interview. On top of that, he barely recognizes how good
his work and the entire Rimrock experience is.
“I’m too close to the forest to see
the picture, if you know what I mean,” he says. “To me it’s all about work. In
a restaurant, you have some highs and some lows. Sometimes I feel okay about
what I do and sometimes I don’t, and if I don’t, I try to do better.”
To Rolf, the twinned concept of
achievement and success is an on-going dynamic — you can never really
rest about what you’ve done or what you’re going to do. So he keeps an eye out
for what’s going on out there, but he definitely shuns fads.
“You have to have a look at what
other people are doing, right? In case you are missing something in the big
picture here,” he says. “You could do something radically different, but then I
go, no, because most of the stuff you see out there just plays on things
everybody else is doing.”
Like the “foam” fad that’s been
kicking around the past few years with everybody riffing on the foamed pumpkin,
foamed beetroot, foamed mushroom concept that the aforementioned Ferrán Adrià
kicked off at his famed El Bulli restaurant in Spain.
As for the growing phenomenon of
celebrity chefs, “I find it really odd,” Rolf says as we poke fun at the likes
of Nigella Lawson and things like the presentation of food so lasciviously that
the term “food porn” has popped up.
“It’s pretty to look at, maybe, but
that’s not the kind of thing I’m looking for.”
So what is he looking for?
“What’s not over the top, what real
people buy — that’s what I look at. Not novelty for the sake of novelty,”
he says, “but what I would I like if I go to a restaurant. What do I want to
eat? That’s the way I look at it.”
And that can be whatever you’re in
the mood for. A lot of people go out because they have to. They don’t know how
to cook or aren’t willing to spend the time doing so — a trend Rolf
laments — so they go out somewhere cheap.
“But if you want to go out somewhere
special, spend a little money and come to Rimrock, you probably want to eat
something you don’t eat everyday, something you can’t necessarily pick up at
the grocery store, or, if you do, you don’t know how to cook it,” he says.
One thing he really has a pet peeve
for is anything that’s not fresh. And that’s where the concept of the
three-course special in shoulder season comes from.
Since Rimrock is focused on seafood,
freshness is ridiculously important; Rolf would rather sell something at a
discount and move it than have it sit around and try to make something out of
it days later.
I ask him about a tip I heard from
New York celebrity chef/bad boy Anthony Bourdain. Ever see those “specials” in
restaurants and wonder what’s up? Could be they really are based on seasonal
ingredients that are plentiful and at their peak. But if you’re in a seafood
restaurant, especially in the U.S., Rolf agrees that you should ask your server
just how fresh the fish really is.
However, don’t worry at Rimrock. If
the halibut is chalky, back it goes to the supplier. And if a piece of fish is
overcooked, Rolf gets really annoyed, especially if he’s the one who did it.
Overall, it reminds me of something
very familiar and far removed from celebrity — my own mom’s approach to
cooking. Quietly behind-the-scenes, taking care and putting great thought and
effort into it. Coming up with pleasurable new experiences using fresh
ingredients and interesting combinations. Avoiding novelty for the sake of
novelty and anything over the top. Checking to see if everyone is enjoying it,
and not doing it again if they’re not. Feeling satisfied when it works; trying
harder when it doesn’t.
Sounds like a recipe for life to me.
Glenda Bartosh is an award-winning
freelance writer who hates delivering a half-baked story.
