I HAVE AN ALMOST KNEE-JERK DISTRUST OF ANYONE who has not been dismissed from their job at some point. Peter has cheffed for and then left several well-known Santa Fe restaurants. There may be reasons for that, but they cannot have anything to do with talent and skill, his work product. An entrepreneur is someone who thinks they can do it better than the boss. The successful ones are right.
You see why Peter might feel that way. He is mischievousness incarnate, a culinary Puck. He is steeped in Culinary Institute of America training. He knows the rules of the game. He has the authority, the temperament, and a second-nature delight in breaking them.
It is not surprising that he hates recipes. They imply there is a right way. Every meal he prepares is a little different. It has to be. He is a performance artist who insists on improvising, as a matter of principle, conviction – and a love for the love he gets from a happy majority of people he serves.
One more thing – he won’t hire skinny waiters. At least in principle. Because anyone who isn’t willing to taste his work – consistently, perhaps even maniacally – cannot tell the customer what they want or don’t want.
Peter loves every single part of preparing a meal. He loves The Bear-like insane drama, the always idiosyncratic kitchen staff, the required holy focus, the dishing, and other stuff that I can’t even fathom. But he is most happy when he ventures out to join the audience in the festivities – eating, drinking and being very merry.
He has started a promising catering business, High Mountain Cuisine. He is his own boss. I am sure he always was.
You have been a chef and a caterer. What’s the difference?
In a restaurant, you’re in the zone and it’s just this jamming. And when you’re catering, it’s up and down. It’s like, hurry up and go and hurry up and wait. A lot of times, you’re like rushing, rushing, rushing, you get to the event space, and then you’re waiting, waiting, waiting. So it’s a whole different kind of mindset and the way you focus your energy and time. Both are super fabulous.
And so, what happens next?
Things get really quiet. You look at your grill guy and he nods, like he’s ready for the next four tickets. And you might be doing four tables at a time. But then when it comes down to putting the food out for the servers, it all comes together, boom, boom, boom, boom. Because you want everything to go out seamlessly. It’s like chaos over on one side of the line. And then it needs to get into symmetry. Like just dialed out, so that when the food goes to the table, that’s a whole ‘nother conversation. Yeah. The whole thing is not just cooking food, the whole thing is really when they walk out the door.
So how do you make sure that every little plate, everything is set up and the servers have two plates? I don’t come from the world of carrying five plates. It’s two plates, each server, and they go to the position numbers and the food gets laid down, boom, boom, boom, boom. And then almost the same symmetry that plates get cleared, and then the dessert goes out.
How do you get to that? How do you take everything that’s just chaotic over on one side – and it’s not necessarily chaotic, to some people it may seem incredibly chaotic, but there’s a lot going on. So you have a grill guy with five items, you have a sauté, a hot apps guy that might be doing 14 items, and they’re all kind of working together. And then, oh my gosh, we’re out of duck. Go! We gotta get some. And either it’s prepped or it’s not prepped. All the speed bumps that come into play. Man, no problem. Everybody’s calm.
Why is that?
Everybody’s calm ‘cause they know what they’re doing. For me, a lot of that has been luck. I walked into the Anasazi kitchen and the sous chef had been there 20 years, and half the guys had been there a dozen years. So I came to the sous chef, and said, This is what I plan on doing. And I’m all ears for how you think we can pull it off. And they knew. They’re just like, This is how we’ll pull it off. Let’s do it. And I feel like some of the better chefs in this world give it up to their guys. Like, You know what? Here’s what I think, this is what I see on the plate. Let’s do it.
Are you one of those guys?
Yeah, I’m not one of those guys like, this is how it needs to be done, and the sauce needs to be here, and the fish needs to be here. I’m not one of those guys that say, this is exactly how I want it every time. You put a special together, and you all work on it together. And sometimes, even throughout the night, that dish gets better and better.
Do you have days where nothing works?
The way to flip that around is, if you’re a chef, you have to expect that there’s an opportunity that it’s not gonna work all the time. If you do that, then the chances of shit hitting the fan, A, are less, and B, you’re more ready for it. Does that make sense?
The other part of that is if it’s gonna fail in my world as a chef, then that’s on me. If someone doesn’t show up, it’s because I hired them. And if they’re that type of person, then that was my fault. So sometimes it just comes down to like, I fucked up hiring that person, and learn your lesson and move on. Shit happens.
And the other thing is that a lot of times, my vision of something, my dream of a dish, I don’t meet that vision. But I still get to a point where I’m really happy with it and so are other people. I fall short, I guess is what I’m saying. Learning to live with that. And there are a lot of chefs that don’t live with that very well.
Talk about instant gratification.
That’s why I’m a chef. Because you cook these great meals. It’s why I love to be gregarious and fun and out there and talking and holding and touching people. I think that’s why I really like catering more than I like being in a restaurant. Because you’re right there. Sometimes, when we do these dinners right in the kitchen and you’ve got these fabulous spaces in this town, outside and inside, that are just incredible, and you’re right there and you get to interact and you get to catch the, I’m vegan, before the veal sauce goes on the plate. You get to really talk to people.
You’re completely in the scene of the crime. You’re meshed. You’re not only preparing it, but you’re seeing how people will react. You’re getting feedback. It’s a show, where you’re a director and a producer and an actor.
Like with my cooking classes. I screw up in the middle of a demonstration. I do cooking classes at Santa Fe School of Cooking. And people catch me on my bullshit. Like, you didn’t do it the way the directions say. I tell people, We’re cooking. We’re not following directions. We’re cooking right now. Come on, let’s just cook. And they’re like, Well, I have a question. I feel like the honey needs to go in with the butter and it needs to be mixed up. And I’m looking at them like, Okay, if you want to do it that way, knock yourself out, but right now, I’m in front of all of you and we’re gonna do this and it’s gonna be just as great.
So do you follow recipes?
It’s interesting, after cooking for years, you get ratios. If you get the ratios of how much this-to-that you need to have, you really can dial it in. I made biscuits yesterday. I didn’t use a recipe.
But ratios. Yeah. You get real close and they come out great. Once you start to really get a feel for that, you really kind of don’t need recipes. I’m not a big recipe follower.
What made you want to get into this?
I had this glorious meal. My grandfather was the Baccarat crystal rep for everything west of the Mississippi, pretty much. And so, there were some big dinners that I would go to as a kid. There was always this entertaining. And there’s so much that I got out of that with being courteous and being, not just pleasant, but overly gracious.
What do I think people really want for this dish? If I’m doing foie gras, they want a certain element of luxury. Great. Just the other day, I’m making bone marrow. It’s so good. And I’m broiling bone marrow and serving Petrossian caviar. It’s for my friend’s 60th birthday. And her seven-year-old grandson gets up on the bar, and he gets some crème fraîche, and he puts some bone marrow on top of the crème fraîche, and then he puts this huge heap of caviar on top of that. Now, how luxurious and how beautiful is seeing that, right?
You also went to the Culinary Institute of America.
Yeah, I drank and partied the whole time. I hardly paid attention. I don’t have my CIA book, put it that way. I didn’t walk. I graduated and got on a train and went to Toronto to do a job.
You passed your exam. How did you do it?
I dumped the whole tray of shit that they put in the fridge. They give you a mystery basket, okay? Everybody gets this basket and they pretty much know what’s on it. Like an old chicken and some veggies. My roommate is another person who passed it. We went to all the different little kitchens, the prep kitchen, the fish kitchen, the stock and meat kitchen. We went to all those and we asked them if we could get this and this and put it on a cart. And we went and got the cart an hour before class and we rolled it over to the door. And we walked into class and the chef said, there’s your basket. And I took the basket and threw it in the trash and I opened the door and grabbed the cart and pulled it in and made my dinner. And he looked at me and he goes, Exactly.
But look, I’ve had my share of mistakes. It’s like, I’ve pushed it too far. Just about every place I’ve been the chef, I’m pretty much part of the face of it or part of the brand. If the shit’s hitting the fan out in the middle of the desert and it’s pouring rain, let’s figure out what to do, let’s turn it into something great.
So I’m part of the brand and sometimes being me and outspoken and fun and gregarious has definitely not been kosher with other people, and I get that. I’m not gonna just show up and just punch in and punch out. I could never just stand there and watch tickets go and watch food go out and not be totally involved in it. If someone hated something, I own it. But no one’s ever hated it that much. It’s like, This is not my favorite. That’s what my daughter always says.
You love food. You love drink.
I’m not drinking. My son is a helicopter pilot, and he just went through SERE training, which is fucking crazy. And when he went in to SERE I promised myself, Look, if he can do this, then we don’t need to drink like we’re drinking. Cara and I both did it. And it’s been great. I’m really focusing on managing my behavior. To a point.
I’m not doing any program or anything, but I’m also at that point in my life where it’s just not working out for me anymore. Now, if you happen to go back into the cellar and open a bottle of La Tâche, well, then I’m gonna drink some of that, but it’s got to a point where I was just relying on it too much. And it’s not fun.
What are you doing right now in Santa Fe?
I’m wearing a couple different hats. First and foremost, I’ve started High Mountain Cuisine, a catering company. And I’m private chef-ing. I love that because you come into all these different fabulous places here in Santa Fe, and they’re all unique. They all have their own little thing. Sometimes, the kitchen is in the dining room, which I love. Sometimes, it’s not. You have to kind of be ready for anything.
Then there’s a couple other caterers that I help out, which is super fun. I get to see what they’re doing. This town has got a really great network, everyone really kind of steps up to help each other out, which I love. It’s not Dallas. It’s not Austin.
And I do the Santa Fe Cooking School, which is a lot of fun. I love it. Sometimes, you get a group of New Yorkers who just like can’t stand chile and you’re doing a tacos class. And you’re kind of like, Why did you sign up for this? But oh, well. It’s just a head scratcher.
There’s that remark Caesar makes about Cassius, where he says, you don’t trust a guy who’s skinny.
No, I don’t trust a skinny chef. I have to tell you a great story about that. So when Cara and I opened Si Bon, our first restaurant, we didn’t want any skinny waiters. It was one of those restaurants, like, hey man, there’s the menu, but fuck the menu. I want you to be a waiter that goes and tells people, hey it’s good to see you again, sir. You know what? I think Chef might have a little lobster, or he may have some veal. Create a relationship. That’s what it’s all about.
And so, we had waiters that would waddle around in the fucking dining room, and they’d be like, Do you guys want to look at a menu? And people would go, No, Bob, whatever you think. They created relationships. You got to own them. So my thing about that is you can’t trust anybody skinny in a restaurant at all. Unless it’s a health food place.
Last question. Why Santa Fe?
The culture. I mean, it feels like being in a third world country.
I love a town that, if it snows, it can’t regain its ability to move around for at least six hours. Everything slows down. I like the pace.
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