Up next: Meet Zack Gates, pastry chef at Terra. Zack grew up in Beech Island, S.C. and earned a biology degree at University of South Carolina. But because Zack kept doing what he loved, cooking, he’s now worked his way to pastry chef, where he’s really excelled at Terra for nearly two years. If you’ve had Zack’s simple chocolate caramel tart or simply enjoyed a meringue as you’ve signed your check at the restaurant, you’ll agree that Zack’s really at home with sweets.

What’s your all-time favorite dessert to make or eat? It’s tough to narrow it down to one. I love cake. Cake is where it’s at. Any kind of cake. But my grandmother makes a butter cake with chocolate icing. Classic.

What’s your favorite dessert at Terra? I make them all, so all of them have to be my favorite. The cashew butter banana bomb this fall was really good.

All-time favorite dessert ingredient? Has to be dark chocolate.

An interesting seasonal ingredient you’ve used for a dessert?  Sweet potato for beignets in the fall were great.

Sweet potato beignets from the fall.

Is there something you really look forward to seeing on the menu at Terra? Fudge Farms pork chops.

What’s you’re favorite drink? Beer, wine or cocktail? A good beer. It doesn’t matter really what it is as long as it’s good.

Do you cook at home? All the time. I’m at Terra from noon until the doors shut at night, but I like to cook breakfast at night. It’s a favorite.

Where else have you worked? I worked at Mellow Mushroom as my first job a really long time ago. Al’s Upstairs, Windermere Club and Forest Lake Club.

What tool can’t you work in the kitchen without? A Kitchenaid mixer–all the way.

If you’re in charge of the playlist in the kitchen at Terra, what’s on? Led Zeppelin.

What about at home? Have any pets? I have a giant black lab, Cooper. He’s my best friend.

Zack slicing a peanut butter cookie, which often comes with the ice cream selection.

A winter dessert: Blood orange roulade, blood orange marmalade, orange curd, whipped cream.

]]> http://www.terrasc.com/2013/05/10/meet-terra-zack-gates/feed/ 0 http://www.terrasc.com/2013/04/08/chef-mike-davis-chosen-for-inaugural-edition-of-best-chefs-america/ http://www.terrasc.com/2013/04/08/chef-mike-davis-chosen-for-inaugural-edition-of-best-chefs-america/#comments Mon, 08 Apr 2013 16:28:11 +0000 Terra http://www.terrasc.com/?p=905 Chef Mike Davis has been named one of the Best Chefs in America for the inaugural edition of Best Chefs America.

The selection process meant that the book’s editors interviewed 5,000 chefs about other chefs that they respected. When the editors spoke to chefs, they asked where they liked to dine personally and inquired about other chefs that were “worth their salt” in their area. The more times a chef was mentioned by peer chefs, the chef’s chances of being named in the book increased.

When we talked to the editors of the book, they also shared some interesting gastronomic trends that they found while interviewing chefs.

“Chefs are definitely focusing on a farm-to-table style and getting back to basics,” said Elizabeth Fishburne, marketing director for Best Chefs America. “It’s less about molecular gastronomy and more about letting the local, seasonal fresh ingredients shine.”

“Chefs are also making as many things in-house as possible, in their gardens and on their rooftops and pulling things right from their back yards,” said Elizabeth.

Well, we couldn’t have said it better ourselves at Terra. Letting our seasonal, local ingredients, produce, meat and sustainable seafood shine, is what we’re all about.

Up next, Bailey Hasbrouck. At Terra, we’re proud of our wine list, and everyone that works here has to appreciate wine. Bailey, a senior at the University of South Carolina who works as a host at Terra, recently completed the first round of sommelier training and passed her exam. Bailey’s been working at Terra for a year and a half. Read on as she gives us the ins and outs of the art of hosting and her insider’s view on the road to becoming a sommelier.

Tell us about your background in the hospitality industry. I grew up outside of Atlanta and worked in a restaurant there while I was going to school. In 2011, my family moved to Charleston, so I decided to transfer to USC. Everyone in my family is a Gamecock. So I lucked out and found Terra the last day Howard was hiring. I came in and he hired me on the spot. Terra definitely reminds me of a restaurant that would be in an even bigger city that Columbia.

What makes you good at your job? I’m a hospitality major and I love the hospitality industry. I love being around people and that’s one great thing about being in a restaurant: you have your regulars that you see all the time and know their faces and names, but you’re also exposed to all kinds of new people and interesting characters. I love that interaction.

I’m also pretty organized and it’s easy for me to take charge. Howard just lets me run the floor and deal with seating and all of that. You have to be organized and you need to have a relatively strong personality, so that when you have a difficult situation, you know what they say in the hospitality industry, ‘the customer is always right.’ Especially when diners come in and say they have a reservation, and we just have to make it work because we’re here for them and here to give them the best possible experience. If you’re having a bad day, you have to put that all behind you and just focus on the guests and giving them the best experience we can offer them.

What is a difficult scenario you’ve encountered? On a night we didn’t necessarily plan on being that busy, but we have a lot of walk-ins, which is great, you really have to be able to make room for everyone, pace things out. And on Friday and Saturday nights we can be very busy. We can’t control the pace at which diners eat, so we try to make sure that people who have reservations just stay happy, even if they’re on a bit of a wait.

Have you always been interested in wine? I first started thinking about it last March. I went out to Napa and Sonoma (Calif.). It was my 21^st birthday present. So I went out there to tour different wineries and I just remember driving through the hillside and looking out at all of the vineyards down below, and it’s absolutely stunning. I turned to my mom and grandma and said, ‘maybe that’s what I should do, come out to California and work in the wine industry.’ And then walking around in Yountville I told them I was going to move there. But that was sort of a fleeting thought.

But then in May, as a hospitality student we have to do internships, and I did my first internship here at Terra with Howard just learning the management side of things. So I would come in pretty much every day. I had to work with the wine reps. Howard knew I was interested in wine, so he gave me all kinds of books to read and asked my opinion on different wines I may have tried that we had on the list. So that was when I first really started. Luckily at USC, we have two wine courses. So I took the wine and spirits class. A lot of people struggled, but I realized it came so easy to me having worked at Terra and being around all kinds of fine wines. That’s when I decided that was something I really wanted to do.

It was the first time that I really felt myself having a passion for something. This semester I’m enrolled in the advanced wine course, which is actually a graduate-level course. As part of the course we had the opportunity to take the intro sommelier exam at the end of February, which was awesome because three Master Sommeliers came for that and there are only 197 Master Sommeliers in the world. And three of them came to South Carolina. We’re (USC) only one of six schools in the country to have this program where Master Sommeliers come in and do the two-day intro course and at the end we take our exam. It’s nine-and-a-half hours each day. So that’s a lot of wine from 8:30 to 5.

Tell us about the exam. It’s two days of classwork with Power Points, taking notes. In between lectures they have blind tastings. We tasted 22 wines over the two days completely blind, so they taught us the deductive tasting method, which is amazing how well it works. You go through these different steps, but first you have 15 questions you answer about the sight of the wine, the nose of the wine and then the palate. At the end you deduce if it’s old world or new world, the grape varietal, what country it’s from, what region it’s from and what’s the vintage. Surprisingly, I got a lot of them right, even the vintage. It’s crazy how well it worked. At the end of the second day there was a 70-question written theory exam. It’s pass/fail, and you have to get 60 percent. When they announced our scores, they announced the top scores last, they’d given us some champagne to calm the nerves and they announced that I’d tied for highest score in my class.

Bailey with her certificate and three Master Sommeliers.

What’s next? Now I am in the process of applying for vineyard internships. I’m going to go out to the Napa/Sonoma area this summer and work at a vineyard. I feel like a dry sponge right now and just want to soak up everything I can. I want to learn everything from planting the grapes, different positioning—whether it’s on the hillside or in the sunlight—and why they do what they do. Then the viticulture side of things, the harvesting to the actual winemaking. I’d like to land an amazing job out there and stay, but ultimately I think I’d like to be a wine rep and work for a distributor.

Do you plan to finish the sommelier training? Yes. Within the next year I’d like to get my Certified Sommelier, which is a three-part test that includes a service exam. I’ve not been a server so that’s what I’m really struggling with right now and Howard’s working with me on that. I would like to continue to move up, but it’s really serious and it’s going to take a while. There are very few Master Sommeliers who are women, so that would be amazing to be one of those few. And you have to drink a lot of wine, what’s wrong with that?

Do you have a wine on the wine list at Terra right now that you really like? I prefer reds, but  the other night, in fact, during our Peirson Meyer wine dinner, the chardonnay was amazing, and our Lioco chardonnay is really good.

Anything else you want to add? Chef needs to bring back my favorite, the frisee aux lardons.

L’Angevin and Peirson Meyer both produce California wines with European sensibilities. Chef Mike Davis will pair seasonal dishes with the wines.

L’Angevin and Peirson Meyer wine dinner menu:

Swamp Bouillabaise
Frog Leg, Crawfish, Crabmeat
paired with 2009 L’Angevin Russian River Chardonnay

Seared Sea Scallop
Parsnip Puree, Blood Orange, Golden Raisin, Walnut, Celery
paired with 2009 Pierson Meyer Chardonnay Charles Heintz Vineyard

Stuffed Manchester Farm Quail
Andouille Rice Stuffed Quail, City Roots Kale, Red Bean Coulis, Red Eye Jus
paired with 2009 L’Angevin Russian River Pinot Noir

Grilled NY Strip
Roasted Fingerling Potato, Wild Mushroom, Crispy Brussels Leaves, Blue Cheese Butter
paired with 2009 Pierson Meyer Cabernet Sauvignon

Hope to see you there!

So, up first: Joby Wetzle, sous chef at Terra and master of the Butcher’s Plate.

Why did you begin cooking? I originally got into this business to be a server because I heard servers made awesome money. So I thought, I can do that. I’ll make some money. I was a server for about six months, and the guy that was the kitchen manager where I worked knew that I didn’t like it, and he told me I could come in and do some prep work in the afternoon and see what I thought. And I just fell in love with being in the kitchen and that environment, that atmosphere, and 10 years later, here I am.

What’s your favorite ingredient? Pork. I’m obsessed with sausage right now. That’s all I’ve done for the past year. It’s all I want to do. It’s all I think about. We’re always talking about something different to do with a pig.

Favorite meal that you’ve had? Right before we cooked at the James Beard House, the Sunday when we got up there we went to Balthazar for lunch. Not only was the food awesome, but that was my first experience at that type of restaurant and just being in the city. Everything was thought of with attention to all the details. It was just such an eye-opening experience to see a place like that, which had been in operation so long and still held those high standards.

Favorite dish on the menu at Terra? Any time we have Fudge Farm pork chops, anything we do with that is going to be amazing. Definitely really proud of how the butcher plate has turned out over the last couple months. That’s somewhere where I get to be myself and do things that I think are interesting and fun.

Kitchen tool you couldn’t do without? MAC knives. I’ve got the chefs knife and a utility knife. While I love my chef’s knife because it’s super sharp and well-balanced, my six-inch utility knife is what I use probably 75 percent of the day. It’s the perfect size and super sharp. Great for anything, fileting fish, vegetables, anything.

Drink of choice? Bourbon. Classic choice for all chefs.

Do you cook at home? Every night when I get home from here. Sometimes it’s something fancy if I’ve started something in the morning before I went to work. I’ll braise something early and finish it when I get home or it’s often cold meat and a salad, something simple.

If you’re in charge of the music in the kitchen, what’s on? [Laughs] Whenever chef’s (Chef Mike Davis) not here, we get to pick and he’s pretty open about listening to anything. One song? Led Zeppelin, “When the Levee Breaks.” You can never go wrong there.

Pets? Speedy the Tortoise. A 12-pound sulcata tortoise. Eventually he’ll get to be about 100 pounds in about 20 years. I’ve had him for about a year and a half. Right now he’s just the size of a bag of flour. We adopted him from a friend of ours and as long as we take care of him, we’ll have to find someone to take care of him when we’re gone. He’ll live about 100 years. He’s the coolest.

Speedy eats organic, locally grown greens too!

Speedy the Tortoise