Growing up near Childs Park and Lake Maggoire in St. Petersburg, chef Edouardo Jordan has gone on to build a resume that boasts experience around the world, including stints at The French Laundry in California to New York City's Per Se.
The 36-year-old, who now lives in Seattle where he runs his 1-year-old restaurant Salare (an Italian verb for seasoning, salting or reserving), was recently awarded a Best New Chef title by Food & Wine magazine. He was also nominated for Best Chef Northwest from the James Beard Foundation earlier this year.
In Tampa, Jordan started his culinary career at Mise en Place. He'll head back this way Saturday ahead of his collaborative, eight-course dinner and wine pairing on Sunday with Rooster & the Till's Ferrell Alvarez, who he worked with at Mise. At the time of publication, there were two $180 tickets left for the 40-seat Seminole Heights meal, according to Alvarez.
CL talked with Jordan Thursday about his return to St. Pete, where he'll help his mother celebrate her birthday, his life in Seattle and more.
CL: Where'd you go to high school?
EJ: Boca Ciega
What kind of food did you grow up on? Was food always important?
It was mainly Southern food, cooking from my grandmother. You know, she was a real Southerner. She's from Georgia so we always had Sunday dinners at her house or family reunions or, you know, any kind of big occasion, holidays. She kind of helped me get into the kitchen. My mom definitely helped me get into the kitchen from… a Southern American standpoint.
Are there any restaurants here that you like to hit up?
That was why I ran away a long time ago. I'm not sure what has happened currently. There weren't any restaurants that I enjoyed. I was initially, honestly, looking at trying to open a restaurant there but I was like, I don't think St. Pete is going to be ready for what I wanted to bring, at least at that point in time. That was years ago. No offense to the growth and direction it's going in now. I used to work at Mise en Place in Tampa, and yeah, when I came back I went to Mise en Place. That's where I liked to have a good dinner.
St. Pete to Seattle — that's kind of a long trek. How'd you make it over there?
When I left Mise en Place I landed an internship at The French Laundry, so that kind of got me to the West Coast. My wife is originally from Seattle, and once my internship was up at The French Laundry, we ended up going north to Seattle.
A James Beard nomination and Best New Chef are a big deal. What do you consider your greatest accomplishment?
Watching all my young staff grow and learn. Not the awards.
If this was MTV's Cribs and we opened up your fridge, what would we see?
*Laughing* That's a good question. A lot of my eating happens at the restaurant now. You'll see a lot of product for feeding the baby. He loves blueberries and strawberries and raspberries and yogurt, so you'll see a fair amount of fruits and yogurt and some juices. Other than that, you know, some leftover chicken or something.
What's the concept behind Salare?
Salare is a representation, or an interpretation, of my culinary journey… It highlights everything that I've learned on my journey, from the French techniques to going to culinary school and working in French restaurants; going to Italy and learning about Italian cuisine and simplicity; to the South, where I'm from, my foundation of cooking; to essentially Northwest ingredients and cuisine.
For those of us who can't go, any hint about what's on the dinner menu Sunday?
Well, I wanted to do a little expression of what we do here at Salare and also kind of touch on the ingredients that are pretty local to Florida, the St. Petersburg area… I'm doing a crab and rice dish, and we don't get blue crabs up here in the Pacific Northwest. We get these large Dungeness crabs, but the flavor and the sweetness of the blue crabs is second to nothing. I definitely wanted to highlight the blue crab, and I found this beautiful rice farm in Florida that I plan on working with over here on the West Coast also, so I wanted to highlight a farm… Just like, this porridge of beautiful crab and rice.
This article appears in Jul 21-28, 2016.