In Part 1 of our Chef Chat with Randy Evans, we explored his struggle with deciding to become a chef instead of a doctor (and how his wife helped), his friendship with chef Chris Shepherd and how he came to be Executive Chef at Brennan's of Houston.
Perhaps, though, the most pressing question for diners is "Why did Haven close?" For most fans of chef Evans, it was surprising and unexpected. You'll get the full story here.
Even though Evans no longer is in a restaurant, he's not sitting on his laurels and is staying quite busy. His new consultancy, Southern Son, has already taken on three high-profile clients and the chef is occasionally doing some catering gigs--when he wants to.
We pick up here where we left off in Part 1, with Evans and Shepherd still at Brennan's of Houston.
RE: So, Chris [Shepherd] left in 2006 [to be executive chef at Catalan] and I wrote a cookbook, The Kitchen Table. It was Alex Brennan's idea. He called a meeting and said, "Bring all your big ideas and we'll sit down and talk about them." My idea was starting to do dry-cured meats. We were already doing bacon, tasso and sausages but it was all wet-cure.
Alex sits down and starts first. His idea is the cookbook, which pretty much put a pin in my balloon for dry curing. It never happened.
EOW: Because the cookbook took all of your time.
RE: I spent six months at a desk, writing. I moved my desk into the old walk-in cooler. It won Best Cookbook in the nation from Independent Publisher [Book Awards]. It was fun. I got to travel all over the United States to food festivals. I cooked in Singapore for two weeks at a resort.
Hurricane Ike rolls in and the next thing you know, I've got to figure out what to do next.
(Author's note: Brennan's caught on fire during Hurricane Ike, forcing it to close for several months.)
I'd already been talking with Rhea Wheeler, who became my partner for Haven. I met him through Charles Clark. Charles, Chris and I all went to school together. Rhea was Charles' original investor for Ibiza. He starts calling me and we start talking, very casually at first.
He bought the land, which was just dirt, where Haven stood. He bought it and had Jim Herd of Collaborative Projects build it. He built a beautiful restaurant.
Rhea came up with the name, "Haven." This was before Twin Peaks [the "breastaurant" that later opened next door] and all this other jazz. That road was very quiet, had giant oak trees hanging over both sides--quite serene. It felt like you were driving into a haven off the traffic of 59 and Kirby. That's where the idea came from.
Haven opened in December of '09. We got a bunch of good press, people liked what we were doing, I was having a blast and had good people like Kevin Naderi, who was a cook for me at Brennan's.
EOW: Oh, I didn't know he worked for you over there, too.
RE: Yeah, he was a cook at Brennan's and then he started helping me with catering after the fire. He kind of forced his way into being the sous chef. I have to give it to him. He was smart about that. He didn't wait around for me to call him. He'd just come work. Didn't ask to get paid. I paid him, but he never asked for anything. He just wanted to come work and learn.
Kevin proved to be strong enough to hang and grew a lot with me. He's grown a lot more since me as well, which is good to see.
I brought Philippe [Gaston] on. He was kind of a nomad chef. He was with me for three years, longer than he's ever been anywhere.
EOW: Where was he before Haven?
RE: Reef, for a small window. He was at Kata [Robata] when it opened for a year-and-a-half, maybe.
EOW: And now he's back there.
RE: Yeah, for the izakaya place. I've watched him grow a lot, not just as a good cook, but a smart chef. That's what I loved about Haven. I got to mentor people. Watch people grow. I got to meet a lot of great customers who became friends.
EOW: At some point, you decided to turn the bar area into Cove [the raw bar restaurant inside of Haven].
RE: Cove came about in the spring of '12. I looked at Philippe and said, "All these places opening up are ceviche bars and there's all these sushi bars opening up everywhere. But there's nowhere you can go for awesome raw seafood. We should do something." The royal "we," meaning Philippe.
EOW: Cove got a lot of good regard.
RE: He was very creative and did some stuff that I would never do. I learned how to cook stuff I'd never cooked before because of him. We learned a lot from each other. Cove got a lot of great press and we did a lot of fun stuff.
Haven changed over the years. I think we should have stayed at the price point we were when it opened. I felt we were in no man's land in pricing. We were $10 higher than the Reef and Ibizas of the world and $10 cheaper than the Brennan's of the world. I think people weren't sure if we were a special occasion restaurant or if we were a restaurant you could come and eat in once a month. You'd hear people say, "Oh, I love going there for my birthday." It's great to celebrate with us, but I didn't want it to be a birthday restaurant. I wanted it to be a "Hey, I love to eat and have a good time" restaurant.
EOW: What was driving the price difference between you and Reef? Why were you $10 higher?
RE: We saw price increases [on ingredients]. The numbers that Rhea wanted--I don't think we were where we needed to be in terms of the dollars. Looking back at it, I think we should have stayed where we were, sucked up the cost of increasing items and just did more volume.
The interview, including what happened to Haven, continues on the next page.