Claire Legas

Claire Legas is now helping teach the next generation of chefs. Prior to that she opened the scharffenberger chocolate cafe, Café Cacao, was Pastry chef at Palio d’Asti, and the intial pastry chef at Absinthe where she ignighted the lavender crème brulee craze. She started her career at the French Laundry.

Chefwatch: Where are you originally from?
Legas: I consider home to be Southern California, North Orange County, as that is where I spent the majority of my childhood. But I was born in Illinois.

Chefwatch: How did you get started cooking?
Legas: My mom was cheap – she wouldn’t pay for “treats” like muffins or cookies, the only way we were going to get them was by making them from scratch. And once I got started it was a slippery slope into all things baked.

Chefwatch: Who or what is your main culinary inspiration?
Legas: I think my main inspiration is that look that people get on their faces when something is really good. Not the comments they make, which can be faked, but the look which is so instinctual you can’t control it.

Chefwatch: How does that translate into what you are doing now?
Legas: Well, it guides everything I do – use the best stuff you can get your hands on and don’t mess with it too much. I’m in this to make people happy – not in a customer service, “have a nice day” way, but to really bring pleasure to people.

Chefwatch: You must have dreamt about your restaurant before you opened it. How does the reality match up with the dream that you had?
Legas: I have dreamt about my dream place – as a baker/pastry chef I imagine it a lot. I had a chance to open something that was kind of mine – not completely – and it wasn’t “me””enough so in the end it didn’t work out.

Chefwatch: What keeps you going day after day and keeps you fresh?
Legas: New food keeps me fresh. I think I go in cycles a bit – I like a shape or a texture or a flavor. I run through that, and then I find something I haven’t worked with in a while and Whammo! I’m off in a new direction.

Chefwatch: What is your favorite ingredient?
Legas: Eggs and butter – ok, that’s two.

Chefwatch: What is the most memorable meal you’ve ever created?
Legas: Since I’m not responsible for making meals, I’d say that a few things I’ve made are memorable for me at least. Le Ding Dong, Rhubarb Tart with Blackcurrant Tea ice cream and Rhubarb Jus, Lavender Crème Brulee, Oh, and this chocolate-hazelnut mousse cake with 16 layers total – all without flour or leavening so it’s ok for less-than-strict Passover seders, that’s amazing.

Chefwatch: What is the most memorable meal you’ve ever eaten? *
Legas: It would have to be one of the meals I had at the French Laundry – but mostly it was a dish. A friend of mine, Lisa Nakamura, was cooking and she made me this dish with hearts of palm standing on end, filled with a “marrow” of beans (imagine this like a hunk of bone) and then a brunoise of vegetables around it and, maybe, it had a truffled sauce. It was just out of this world!

Chefwatch: Who is your favorite chef or place to eat? *
Legas: Ok, I know that you are looking for person or restaurant here, but really, a simple picnic: bread, wine, cheese, maybe some sausage or salami, and olives on a warm day sitting on a hillside, maybe within sight of the ocean, but with some sort of view. That’s it. That’s heaven.

Chefwatch: What was the most challenging time in your career?
Legas: When I was working at the French Laundry. The hours were long and the people weren’t always treated with respect. And the community at the time was very small and self-focused. It was also the most amazing place to work. Everyone was working for the same goal: it was all about the food, period. I’ve never found that atmosphere again, it’s a really, really rare thing. Mostly I found the personal toll to be the part of the job that was difficult, not the requirements of the job itself. And, without a doubt, I left with admiration and respect for Chef.

Chefwatch: If money, time and manpower were no object what menu would you create?
Legas: Hmmmmm…..

Chefwatch: What one piece of advice would you give to cooks who are just starting out that you wish somebody had told you?
Legas: On a practical level: I wish someone had actually taken the time to teach me how to roll dough. Honest. There are plenty of descriptions of it, but no one bothers to explain the why and how of it.

On a more philosophical level: just take responsibility for your job and your actions. Sweeping things under the rug gets you nowhere – just up and say “I fucked up, I know it, how do I fix it?” Man, if more people did that, kitchens would be much more reasonable places.

Chefwatch: What piece of advice would you give to home cooks out there?
Legas: Trust your gut, not the cookbook.

Chefwatch: Any future plans that you would like to share with us?
Legas: I’ll let you know if I get the job…