THE BEST OF: FOOD
WELCOME TO THE GUNSHOW Chef Kevin Gillespie, a dedicated hunter and outdoorsman, has created a bold take on traditional dining at Gunshow. STORY BY ADDY MCDANIEL PHOTOGRAPHY BY MIKE SCHALK
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ELK VINDALOO (Shown left) Find recipe at coveyrisemagazine.com
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B
ecoming a chef can be a risky career move, especially if you planned on attending the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and becoming a nuclear engineer. But that’s just what Chef Kevin Gillespie, owner of Gunshow in Atlanta, Georgia, did. Now the author of two cookbooks, a James Beard Award finalist, a Top Chef finalist, and owner of five Georgia based restaurants, Chef Gillespie is living out his true passion, serving his guests high-quality food and proving that his ambitious career change paid off. When Chef Gillespie is not working in one of his awardwinning restaurants, he can be found with a shotgun, rifle, or bow in hand, enjoying the outdoors. “I grew up in a family that was very avid in any sort of outdoor pursuit: fishing, trapping, hunting, camping, you name it. It was not a passing hobby, but a very heavy factor in my life.” He spent many days hunting as a child alongside his father for deer and other wild animals. At 6 years old, Gillespie went afield for the first time and remembers his father waking him up at 4 o’clock in the morning to go hunting. That routine has flooded through to his current life. “I still wake up at about 5 o’clock in the morning every single day.” For Gillespie, hunting is more than just a sport, “There is something about getting out in the woods, regardless of what the quarry is, and being there to watch the world wake up. It is that very simple moment that draws me to hunting and being an avid outdoorsman.” Not only was hunting a time to spend with family and friends, it was also a way to feed his family. The food he and his family consumed when he was a child was game harvested by his father or uncle. “Hunting put food on our table my whole life, and now I prefer to feed my family with things whose history I know, and I know exactly where they came from. I like the simplicity of hunting your game, processing it yourself, and serving it.” Much of his inspiration for cooking comes from the outdoors, too. “I gain more inspiration on the way that I cook from being outdoors, than I do reading a cookbook and seeing what my peers are doing,” Gillespie explained. This natural progression from hunting game and preparing it himself led to his involvement in the restaurant industry. He says, “I’ve really been into food since I was very young, and the restaurant business was just, by chance, an outlet to be more into food.” For most of his high school career, Gillespie was slated to attend MIT on scholarship, to pursue a degree in nuclear engineering, but he knew that was not the right choice. “When I decided not to go to MIT, everyone was pretty crestfallen. No one in my family had gone to college, much less somewhere as reputable as MIT, but it just wasn’t the right path for me,” he explained.
F RO M T HE C A R T At Gunshow, speciality cocktails, like the Toasted Old Fashioned (right), are served tableside on bar carts. Learn how to make this drink and more at coveyrisemagazine.com.
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GRILLED WHITETAIL FILLET Recipe on page 79
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C HEF KEV I N G I L L E S P I E
Gillespie planned on attending culinary school at the Art Institute of Atlanta, but needed a scholarship to fufill his dream of becoming a chef. He had to prove his professional experience, but his only experience was from working at a chicken shack, and a portfolio of recipes that he’d developed throughout high school. Gillespie entered a cooking competition to obtain a scholarship, and won. To school he went, and his future career dreams solidified. After his professional schooling, Chef Gillespie joined the team at Woodfire Grill, an Atlanta-based restaurant, and left six and a half years later. The restaurant was successful, and so was his time there, but it was not his true passion. “I got tired of doing high-end, fine dining stuff, and I wanted to go on to do something else. I didn’t feel like the restaurant was particularly representative of who I was as a person. I wanted to do something a lot more personal,” Gillespie says. When he left Woodfire, he drew up a pros and cons list to help in creating the concept of his next venture. He set parameters of what he thought were the most important virtues of a restaurant, and continued from there. Gillespie’s goal: to be true to his roots and create a place he could be proud of. He named it Gunshow as an homage to his father and not forgetting where he came from. And so, Gunshow was born in the winter of 2013. Gunshow, located in the Glenwood Park neighborhood of Atlanta, is a twist on Chinese dim sum and Brazilian churrascaria-style
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dining. Because of its open floor plan, chefs are able to interact with guests more than in traditional restaurants. Dishes are prepared by each chef, taken on trays throughout the room, explained, and finally, guests choose what dishes they would like to eat and what dishes they would like to pass on. (While enjoying dinner at Gunshow, we were told that the word “later” is considered a bad word. If you see it and like it, say yes. It might not come around again, and you don’t want to miss out.) Chef Gillespie’s goal in developing Gunshow was to create a connection with the guests and not have to rely on third parties in the classic way of serving a dish. The restaurant’s menu is meant to act as a guide for how the night will unfold. Chef says, “I realized that we needed to create a restaurant where the menu was not so much something you ordered from as it was a road map for what you were going to see that evening. We needed to leave it loose enough that the cooks could decide on their own time and by their own volition when they were going to serve something.” And it is just that. The dishes do not come out all at once, or even in any particular order or fashion. When a chef feels that his dish is done and perfected, he will serve it to the guests. Once you say yes to an item, the chef marks on your menu indicating the item you got. When the night is done, you can see all the dishes you devoured and those you might have regretably missed out on. Gunshow’s menu is ever changing and evolving. Rather than Chef Gillespie dictating the menu, he wanted his chefs to be able to decide what to cook. He explains, “I wanted everyone who was a part of this, who prepares the food, to be excited to cook whatever it was that they were interested in at the time. I wanted them to have a say-so.” On any given night, the menu ranges from Nduja Agnolotti to Sausage-Stuffed Quail to Fish N Chips. They even have themed nights and “Hired Guns,” which is a collaborative dining event with different innovative chefs from around the nation. For one night, the Hired Gun creates different dishes to serve with the featured items on the menu. Dinner is accompanied by house-made cocktails, served tableside, like the Toasted Old Fashioned and the Witch Doctor, along with a full list of wine, beer, and non-alcoholic beverages. But the icing on the cake? Gunshow’s Warm Banana Pudding. This is the one item that never comes off the menu, and no Gunshow experience is complete without it. I can attest to it! This must-have dessert is made with a layer of custard, fresh pound cake, fried bananas, another layer of custard, and topped with a mile-high meringue. Make sure you come with an empty stomach, an open mind, and a unique sense of adventure and prepare to be entertained at the Gunshow.
FIE LD TO FO RK (Right) Chef Gillespie prepares elk and venison he harvested from recent hunts. Gillespie processed this meat in-house and walked us through this meticulous process while visiting him in Atlanta.
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GROUND VENISON KABOBS WITH TOMATO JAM Serves 4 INGREDIENTS 2 pounds venison, ground, 90% lean 2 tablespoons ice-cold water 2 cups fresh flat-leaf parsley, finely chopped 1 cup fresh mint, finely chopped ½ cup fresh cilantro, finely chopped ½ cup onion, finely minced 2 tablespoons za’atar 1 tablespoon and 1 teaspoon salt 2 teaspoons garlic, finely minced About 2 tablespoons grapeseed oil About ½ cup tomato jam (recipe below) 1. Heat a grill for direct high heat. 2. In a large bowl, crumble the venison and pour the ice water over the top. With gloved hands, gently mix in the parsley, mint, cilantro, onion, za’atar, salt, and garlic to combine. Divide into 4-ounce portions (about 10) and shape each
into a log around a long metal skewer, pressing gently. 3. Scrape the grill clean and coat it with oil. Brush the skewers all over with the oil and grill for 2 minutes. Turn and grill for another 2 minutes, then turn one final time and grill for 2 minutes more. The 6-minute cooking time is for medium-rare kabobs—the perfect doneness to serve venison. Transfer the kabobs to a platter and let rest for 5 minutes before serving. 4. For each plate, spread a generous spoonful of tomato jam on the plate and top with 2 kabobs. TOMATO JAM Makes about 2 cups 28-ounce can whole peeled canned plum tomatoes, with juice 6-ounce can tomato paste
1/2 cup onion, finely minced 1/2 cup dark brown sugar, packed 1/4 cup red wine vinegar 3 tablespoons garlic, minced 1 teaspoon salt 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon Empty the can of tomatoes and juice into a heavy-duty, nonreactive 3-quart saucepan. Using your hands, squeeze and crush the tomatoes. Stir in the tomato paste, onion, sugar, vinegar, garlic, salt, and cinnamon, and bring the mixture to a boil over medium-high heat. Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer until the mixture thickens, stirring occasionally, about 45 minutes. Remove from the heat and use an immersion blender or stand mixer to puree the mixture until smooth. Return to heat and simmer until it has a thick, jamlike consistency, another 10 minutes. Store, covered, in the refrigerator for up to 3 months.
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WILD BIRD FRICASSEE Serves 4 INGREDIENTS 1 pound gamebird breast fillets (any gamebird will do) 1/4 cup diced bacon 1 tablespoon garlic, chopped 1 tablespoon shallots, chopped 1 tablespoon fresh sage, chopped Juice of 1 lemon 1/4 cup dry white wine 1/2 cup heavy cream 1/2 cup butter 2 tablespoons grapeseed oil
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1/4 cup all-purpose flour Kosher salt, to taste Black pepper, to taste 1/4 cup chicken stock 1. Place oil and bacon in a sautĂŠ pan over medium-high heat. Cook until bacon is lightly crispy. Add half of the butter to the pan and allow it to brown slightly. 2. Dredge breast pieces in the flour and shake off any excess flour. Place breast
pieces in the pan, and cook until one side is golden, approximately 2 minutes. 3. Add garlic and shallots, and shake pan to mix contents together. Deglaze with the white wine. Add cream and stock, plus a large pinch each of salt and black pepper. Stir vigorously to combine and add remaining butter. 4. Remove from heat and swirl butter into sauce to emulsify. Add lemon juice just before serving.
GRILLED WHITETAIL FILLET Serves 4 INGREDIENTS
2 tablespoons rosemary, coarsely chopped 2 tablespoons garlic cloves, sliced 1/4 cup Espelette pepper 1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil 1 pound venison fillet (either leg or back strap will work) Kosher salt, to taste Lime wedges for garnish TO PREPARE
1. Mix the rosemary, garlic, Espelette pepper, and oil together. Pour over the venison fillet and place in a zip-top storage bag. Allow the meat to marinate for up to 36 hours. 2. Remove from marinade and wipe excess marinade from the meat. Grill over high heat until medium rare. Serve sliced with lime wedges as garnish.
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JERSEY ROOTS TO HAUTE CUISINE Scott Romano leverages his Garden State upbringing in the outdoors to reward us with fine food from the field to the table. STORY BY ANDREW BOGAN PHOTOGRAPHY BY WIL SENSING
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CHICKEN-FRIED MULE DEER Recipe on Page 72
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But I did know to listen carefully to his fast-talking style, to ignore the occasional expletives, and to see what I might learn about field-to-table dining from this unlikely source.
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W
hen one imagines the beautiful overlap between the sporting lifestyle of hunting and fishing in the great outdoors and the culinary arts that combine in field-to-table dining, New Jersey is not the first place that comes to mind. With the highest population density of any state, and one of the very few states that has no rifle season for white-tailed deer—only shotgun or archery are allowed—New Jersey is not exactly a top hunting destination. And while it has plenty of restaurants, they tend to be located in strip malls and largely ignored, in comparison to its neighbor, New York City, with its world-leading culinary scene. The New Jersey restaurant that most people think of first is probably Jersey Mike’s, the chain sandwich shop serving the traditional submarine sandwiches of the Jersey Shore. Delicious, but not exactly “haute cuisine.” So, when I first heard Chef Scott Romano’s slight Jersey accent, I was not expecting to find my way into a lengthy conversation about hunting gamebirds and big game across the continent, fancy restaurants from New York to Dallas to Los Angeles, and fine wines from around the world. But I did know to listen carefully to his fast-talking style, to ignore the occasional expletives, and to see what I might learn about field-to-table dining from this unlikely source—a Jersey boy—since I grew up in New Jersey, too. Scott was born into a hardworking Italian family in Rahway, New Jersey, where his father was a firefighter. Two hundred years ago, Rahway was an early Colonial-era stagecoach stop on the line from New York to Philadelphia. Today, it’s a sprawling New York City suburb just 20 miles outside of Manhattan on New Jersey Transit’s Northeast Corridor commuter rail line. Scott’s father spent his career fighting fires in Rahway, but moved his family toward the Jersey Shore, to Middletown, when Scott was a boy. There, they had a bit more room to roam and better access to fishing in Sandy Hook Bay and the Atlantic Ocean, as well as deer hunting on a family friend’s farm in neighboring Holmdel. You cannot legally shoot deer with a rifle in New Jersey, since even the rural areas are fairly densely populated, and the white-tailed deer population has exploded in the past century. However, the deer are plentiful in South Jersey, and a Remington Model 1100 shotgun with slugs and a scope works just fine. So, despite their Jersey roots, the Romano family always had a freezer full of venison when Scott was growing up. When Scott was five years old, his father, who was an avid outdoorsman, sank all the family’s savings, and then some, into a fishing boat—a center-console Wellcraft that he aptly named In Debt. It plied the waters off New Jersey shores any time he was not at the firehouse, and many a striped bass, bluefish, and tuna were landed on that boat. Scott’s childhood saw three of his
SOURC ED BY L A N D AND S E A Scott Romano grew up in New Jersey with a freezer full of venison and fish, an upbringing that fostered a passion for cooking wild game.
S COT T RO MANO
lifelong passions emerge—fishing, hunting, and cooking. With ready access to wild fish and game and a firefighter who loved to cook for a father, almost every meal in the Romano home, or at the firehouse, was sourced from the seas or the woods around South Jersey. His favorite game dish growing up was the venison parmigiana that was at the center of the Romano family’s Christmas table each December. Even his first job in high school revolved around cooking. Scott worked in the kitchen at Middletown’s Villa Pizzeria, where he started the foundation of his culinary training and began to take an interest in the restaurant business. Following high school, Scott followed his love for food and studied at the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York. While a culinary student at this august institution of all things food related, he began to work at Chef Charlie Palmer’s flagship New York restaurant, Aureole. He was initially an unpaid volunteer working part-time on his days off from school, just trying to get a foothold in one of America’s most competitive industries. Romano spent several years in New York with Palmer (who is also an avid hunter) at Aureole, steadily working his way from unpaid kitchen volunteer to intern to sous chef, a remarkable climb for a young culinary graduate working at one of Manhattan’s most acclaimed restaurants. With the exception of a brief stint
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with Wolfgang Puck in Los Angeles, Romano has spent nearly his entire culinary career working with Palmer over the past two decades in New York, in Dallas, Texas at Charlie Palmer’s eponymous steakhouse, and most recently in the Sonoma County Wine Country town of Healdsburg, California. He is currently executive chef at Dry Creek Kitchen, one of the Wine Country’s finest destination restaurants, inside the boutique Hotel Healdsburg. While Scott grew up hunting big and small game and fishing in New Jersey, his introduction to bird hunting came while he was living in Texas. A good friend in Dallas, Gary Hamilton, insisted that anyone so passionate about field-to-table dining simply had to learn to hunt waterfowl, doves, and quail—staples of the hunter’s kitchen in Texas. So, Scott went out for his first duck hunt and was immediately hooked on wingshooting. He soon added doves, quail, pheasant, and wild turkeys to his birdhunting repertoire.
T RULY F RO M F I E L D TO F O R K Scott Romano has the ability to bring wild game, such as elk, mule deer, or quail, directly from an afternoon afield to the table with an expertise as impressive as you’ll find in any fine restaurant.
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After several years with Palmer in Texas, Scott took the opportunity to lead the kitchen at the Frisco Gun Club in the suburbs north of Dallas. He ran the restaurant, while his wife Brenda—whom he had met while she, too, was working in the culinary arts for Palmer—helped manage the club. It was a unique opportunity for them to meet and dine with many of the most avid hunting and shooting enthusiasts in Texas. However, it was not long before Romano was reunited with Palmer—this time in California’s Wine Country. Since moving to Sonoma County two years ago, Romano has continued to hunt gamebirds. His upland pursuits in California center around Wing & Barrel Ranch, one of Northern California’s finest upland hunting and outdoor lifestyle clubs, conveniently located on the Napa and Sonoma border. The California Wine Country counties of Sonoma, Napa, and Solano not only produce much of the finest wine in America (and arguably the world), but they also provide an enviable range of hunting opportunities surprisingly close to the urban center of San Francisco, especially for upland gamebirds and waterfowl. Every hillside vineyard surrounded with live oaks and chaparral is prime habitat for wild turkeys, which are ubiquitous. And the native quail of this region, the handsome and very sporty California quail, abound. In the lowlands immediately south of the hills and vineyards where Sonoma Creek, the Napa River, and the Suisun Marsh flow into the San Francisco Bay, some of the best waterfowl hunting in the Pacific Flyway sits adjacent to the Wine Country. While the turkeys were a modern introduction, the quail and ducks have been popular with California hunters since before the first vines were planted on the adjoining hills and uplands. The Teal, Tule Belle, Ibis, and Cordelia duck clubs in the Suisun Marsh, just south of Napa, have deep duck-hunting roots stretching back to the 1880s, when their historic clubhouse arks were built of oldgrowth redwood, and market hunters still prowled the sloughs. California’s Wine Country, with plentiful game, fresh produce, and local wines, has been an ideal place for field-to-table dining since shortly after the Gold Rush. Wherever Chef Scott Romano hunts and cooks today, one thing is certain: He will combine the nuanced technique of a highly trained master chef with a deep personal knowledge of the harvested game and lessons learned over a lifetime afield, on the water, and in the kitchen. His true passion—for cooking game with creativity and his ability to capture and present the delicious layers of flavor unique to wild game—will dazzle you, should you ever be so fortunate as to dine at his table. Romano is a chef in a category of his own when it comes to cooking wild game. You can give him a few hard-earned California quail, fresh from the mouth of a good dog, a handful of elderberries foraged along the way, and a half-finished bottle of bourbon, and you will still be rewarded with a meal that is better than most from the finest restaurants in this land. After all, his passions for the outdoors, hunting, fishing, wild game, and cooking great food are the pillars on which his successful culinary career was built. Not bad for a Jersey boy.
GRILLED DUCK HAM WITH ELDERBERRY BOURBON SAUCE Find Recipe at coveyrisemagazine.com
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PINK PEPPERCORN - CHARRED ELK BURGER Serves 6 INGREDIENTS 2 pounds elk sirloin, fresh ground 1 pound beef sirloin, fresh ground ½ cup shallot, minced ¼ cup Italian parsley, chopped 2 tablespoons thyme, free of stems 2 teaspoons Kosher salt 2 tablespoons Dijon mustard 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce 6 slices Havarti cheese 6 slices aged Vermont cheddar 2 tablespoons butter, unsalted 2 cups baby arugula 1 cup frisée 1 tablespoon lemon zest, finely grated 12 slices smoked bacon, cooked crisp 4 Roma tomatoes, sliced 1 red onion, thinly sliced 6 sesame-seed yeast buns, split 9 tablespoons Pink Peppercorn Salt, recipe Page 72 6 tablespoons Herbed Garlic Mayo, recipe following
1. In a large mixing bowl, mix together ground elk, ground beef, minced shallot, chopped parsley, thyme, Kosher salt, Dijon mustard, and Worcestershire sauce. Mix well. 2. Shape into six 8-ounce patties. Season each with 1½ tablespoons of Pink Peppercorn Salt. 3. Heat the grill over medium heat and brush grill with oil. Cook the burgers, turning once, until charred on both sides, about 12 minutes total for medium-rare or until desired doneness. During the last few minutes of cooking, top each burger with slices of Havarti and cheddar cheese. Remove when cheese is melted, and set aside. 4. Brush the cut sides of the buns with melted butter and place cut-side down on the grill until well toasted.
5. In a small mixing bowl, mix the baby arugula, frisée, and lemon zest. For the Herbed Garlic Mayo 1 cup mayo 2 tablespoons garlic, finely minced ½ tablespoon chervil, chopped ½ tablespoon parsley, chopped ½ tablespoon chives, minced ½ tablespoon tarragon, chopped ½ tablespoon sugar ½ teaspoon Kosher salt ½ teaspoon black pepper, ground In a medium mixing bowl, combine all ingredients, blending together well. To Serve: Place an elk burger on the bottom portion of each bun. Place two slices of bacon, sliced tomato and onion, and a portion of the arugulafrisée salad on top of the burger. Spread garlic mayo on the top half of each bun and place on the burger.
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CHICKEN -FRIED MULE DEER BACKSTRAP Serves 8 INGREDIENTS 16 mule deer backstrap, 3-ounce portions 1½ cups whole milk 2 eggs 3 cups all-purpose flour 1 teaspoon Kosher salt 1 teaspoon fennel seed, ground ¼ teaspoon paprika ¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper 2 teaspoons Pink Peppercorn Salt, recipe following 2½ cups canola oil Bourbon Huckleberry Mustard Cream Sauce, recipe following Pink Peppercorn Salt 1½ cups Kosher salt 1 navel orange 3 sprigs rosemary, fresh ½ cup granulated garlic ½ cup granulated onion 2 tablespoons black pepper, fresh ground ¼ cup pink peppercorn, coarse ground ½ tablespoon paprika ½ teaspoon celery seed, fresh ground Bourbon Huckleberry Mustard Cream Sauce ½ cup shallots, minced 2 tablespoons olive oil 1 cup bourbon 3 cups chicken stock 1½ tablespoons Tabasco 1 tablespoon thyme, free of stems ½ cup huckleberries, fresh 2½ tablespoons honey 2 tablespoons whole grain mustard 2 tablespoons Dijon mustard 1 cup heavy cream Kosher salt, to taste Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
1. Place one piece of backstrap between two pieces of plastic wrap. Using a meat mallet, pound out the meat to ¼-inch thickness. Place the meat on a paper towellined plate. Repeat this step with each portion until all the backstrap is prepared. 2. In a medium mixing bowl, combine the milk and the eggs. 3. In a separate medium mixing bowl, blend together flour, Kosher salt, fennel seed, paprika, and cayenne pepper. 4. Sprinkle both sides of the meat, one piece at a time, with Pink Peppercorn Salt, then place in the flour mixture, and turn to coat. Place the dredged meat into the milk and egg mixture, turning to coat. Finally, place it back in the flour, and again turn to coat (dry mixture/wet mixture/dry mixture). Place the breaded meat on a clean plate, and repeat with the remaining meat. 5. In a 12-inch cast iron skillet, heat canola oil over medium heat, to 325 degrees. Drop in a few sprinkles of flour to make sure it’s sufficiently hot. 6. Place the coated meat into the oil, three pieces at a time, and cook until the edges start to turn golden brown, about 2 minutes each side. Remove to a paper towellined plate. Repeat until all the meat is cooked. For the Pink Peppercorn Salt 1. Preheat a dehydrator at 170 degrees. Using a peeler, remove the zest from the oranges and place zest and the rosemary into the dehydrator. Dry orange zest and rosemary for 12 hours. 2. After drying, using a spice grinder, grind the orange zest and rosemary separately into a powder. 3. In a medium mixing bowl, place 1 tablespoon rosemary powder and one half tablespoon orange zest powder. Add remaining ingredients and mix well. For the Mustard Cream Sauce 1. In a medium saucepan over medium heat, sauté shallots in olive oil until soft. 2. Remove from heat, add bourbon and stock, return to medium heat, and simmer until reduced by one third. 3. Add Tabasco, thyme, and huckleberries, whisk in honey and both mustards, then simmer for about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. 4. Add the cream, and reduce on low heat until slightly thickened. 5. Season with salt and pepper, and serve hot. To Serve: Serve the Chicken-fried Mule Deer with the Bourbon Huckleberry Mustard Cream Sauce.
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