I LOVE TO EAT WAS AMONG THE FIRST COOKING SHOWS ON TV. It debuted in 1947 and featured James Beard, cookbook author and teacher. Beard ran the James Beard Cooking School and championed authentic American cuisine prepared with fresh, local ingredients – a rarity in the 1940s. He also mentored generations of professional chefs. In short, he was a chef’s chef.
So it’s no surprise that a James Beard Award is one of the highest honors in the culinary world. The likes of Thomas Keller, Daniel Boulud, Suzanne Goin, Alain Ducasse, Nobu Matsuhisa, José Andrés, and Anthony Bourdain have all been bestowed with the honor. And now, Santa Fe has three of our own.
In 1996, pioneering Coyote Cafe chef Mark Miller was the first recipient. Mark Kiffin and The Compound followed in 2005, and Fernando Olea and Sazón took home the prize this year. Olea and Kiffin, who sit on the board of the Wine & Chile Festival, sat down to talk about what it’s like to win “the Oscar of the food world.”
How did you feel when you heard you had won the James Beard Award?
Fernando: I didn’t think they would pick me. I just didn’t. And when they said my name, I felt like I was in a dream.
Mark: It means a lot to American chefs. I remember being at the first awards ceremony when it was on the Circle Line, the boat that goes around New York. I was sitting next to Mark Miller, who didn’t win – he didn’t like that. He won later. But back then, no American restaurant had a Michelin star, so this was the highest award in the United States. It was the pinnacle of achievement.
I met James Beard. I have his original cookbooks. He was a large persona, but he was not a chef or a restaurateur. He was a cook who made Americans think about their food. Back then, fine dining was all European, basically French. So when he started writing American cookbooks, it really gave America its place. All of a sudden, regional cooking mattered.
Fernando, you are known for your moles. Regional cooking.
Fernando: Yes, my moles, my cooking, are my roots. I couldn’t cook Japanese – well, maybe I could, but I wouldn’t feel it. Food binds us as a culture, and my cooking brings memories of my childhood, my family.
Why are there so many talented chefs in Santa Fe?
Mark: Every state has that unique place. Some states have lots of them. But Santa Fe is really the heart of New Mexico, since the 1600s.
Fernando: Yes, Santa Fe is a very special place, one of the great energy centers of the world. It’s synergy. That’s why my restaurant is called Sazón. It literally means seasoning, but also something deeper, that magic touch that we have in Santa Fe. You see tourists walking around trying to see what Santa Fe has. It has nothing! But it also has everything: this energy, this magic.
How much of your restaurant is about food, and how much is about your relationship with your diners?
Mark: We are friends of our guests. The Compound and Sazón have a lot of local clientele. That’s unusual in a tourist-driven location. The Compound has been there since 1966; we serve the kids of people who ate there then. The kitchen is the root of the tree that expands into the hospitality in the restaurant.
We both have chef-driven restaurants – these are the best kind of restaurants in the world. When I was growing up, only in New York and Europe did you go to a restaurant for the chef.
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Photo Andy Johnson
