Talking with a chef of a landmark restaurant is almost always interesting. Talking with Chef Ross Essner of Wilmington’s Columbus Inn is like surfing Discovery, Food Network, MTV and CNN at one-minute bursts. Winding his conversation around illegal living in Northern England, Delaware’s burgeoning dining scene, sugar addiction and stuffy eating experiences, Chef Essner’s reality is a broad palette dabbed with trends, realistic expectations and a wealth of knowledge. There is no melancholy, cut corners or lack of enthusiasm from this kitchen veteran.
Why Delaware? The Culinary Institute of America alum has worked in France, seen England—as a cook at Tannin Level in North Yorkshire—as well as worked stints at the French Laundry, Django and other spots around Philadelphia. “Delaware’s dining is in its infancy, as Philadelphia was 20 years ago,” said Chef Essner. With The House of William and Merry, La Fia and Domaine Hudson shape-shifting the scene in Northern Delaware, Essner foresees the same renaissance for this southern neighbor of Philly. Where is dining going?
Gone are the days of the starched chef coat, tall toque and militaristic hierarchy. Jeans clad with a hip Hedley & Bennett apron and black t-shirt, the tattoo-less sleeves of the senior kitchen member approaches the many moving parts with jovial stoicism; a nod at a good time, but a very precise dance to turn out great food. Keeping the reins close, dishes like pan-seared bronzino, brick chicken with confit leg and seared tuna pad thai are executed with a ballerina’s fluid grace while interspersed with a bar or two of Metallica.
Conservative but not dusty, fun but not silly, Essner wants to see the growth of dining in the area take on more of the fresh, local and seasonal slant that is ubiquitous across so many eateries. Further, said Essner, he hopes local restaurants will adopt the contemporary shine of being “comfortable with food being anything it wants to be—not so stuffy!” He laughed, “All the pomp and circumstance is lost on me—it always has been.” More on trend? “Every year there is a darling vegetable that gets overkill then it will pull back,” he said, referencing brussels sprouts of late. Columbus Inn produces “Arrogant” cauliflower, battered florets tossed with spicy Buffalo sauce along with a cucumber and tomato salad, as but one vegetable head-turner.
The challenge of attracting a skilled kitchen staff is reaching a crisis state in the restaurant industry. Along with rising raw product costs and the multitude of restaurant openings, staffing is a major issue. “It’s gotta be a wonderful place to work, a wholesome place—it’s hard work,” said Essner. Tucking away the image of horrid working conditions for no pay, no time off and no quality of life, Essner insists on “rethinking the way it works,” as many young cooks hurdle over the restaurant business and head into corporate dining, boutique grocery stores and catering. Rather, the “pool of guys that can cook is going away, [but] there is a reality of what we can pay,” he said of competing with some of the less daunting, non-restaurant positions. “It feels good being a little bit of an inspiration,” Essner said of cultivating raw talent in his kitchen turned teaching pulpit.
For creative mojo, Essner travels. As so many chefs look beyond the local landscape to juice the inspiration machine, Essner hits the road as well, with a recent jaunt to Portland, Oregon, to glean the culinary wherewithal of the Willamette Valley. “It is so easy to get mired down” with big city food and the gentrification of cookie-cutter dining. Essner turns to the eating experience at Woodbury Kitchen in Baltimore, for instance, and the “awesome pictures and complex recipes of 11 Madison Park” and jumps to Philly’s taquerias for honest eating.
His philosophy of keeping the plates consistent reverberates across the unpredictability of any given night. “We never push beyond what we can do on a crazy night,” he laughed, referring to the up and down swing of a busy Thursday night one week and a quiet Thursday the next. “It’s exciting to watch it happen.” During a recent wine dinner, the kitchen crew got to turn out smaller plates that were well received. The nod to upper echelon dining is not lost on Essner, while maintaining a grip on what is happening with the casual slant on today’s dining. “One of our best sellers is fried pickles. I’m reality based.”
So no parachuting from an airplane any time soon or even forearm ink, but the expansion of Columbus Inn’s role in local catering with the recent acquisition of Gallagher & Gallagher is the next step. While a confessed sugar addict, the young-hearted Essner is eating more healthy and trying to deliver wholesome food to customers. “I’m a hot mess and I’m okay with that.”
Find Columbus Inn at 2216 Pennsylvania Ave., in Wilmington; phone: (302) 571-1492.
- Photos: Jim Berman
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