Joey Ward understands that it’s not cheap to go out to dinner these days, so he tries hard to make it worth your while.
A night dining out at Gunshow, the Kevin Gillespie restaurant where Ward is executive chef, is akin to an evening spent at the symphony or at an art gallery opening. The chef told host Lois Reitzes on “City Lights” that cooking itself is a form of art.
“To be able to take all five senses and try to stimulate them at once,” Ward explained, “and make it taste good, and make it visually appealing, the smells, the aromas, the sound of the kitchen … I think it’s a very nuanced art form.”
The experience for customers and staff is performance art, with a physically absent “fourth wall” as the chefs create, cook and present their own dishes in an entirely open kitchen and dining room. Sometimes performances fall flat.
“Each dish is not for everyone,” the chef acknowledged, “… we have to wear sort of a thick skin at times and understand that some things aren’t for everyone.”
As Gunshow’s executive chef, Ward must help nurture the cooks’ creativity as well as coach them through disappointments. He’s only 31 years old, but he has already had a long and remarkable career to build on. He attributes his culinary introduction to his grandfather, himself a former U.S. Navy cook. Five-year-old Joey “helped” (as only 5-year-olds can) make pancakes with fresh blueberries they picked the day before.
Surprisingly, Ward admits that cooking did not come naturally to him. His earliest years in the kitchen were more science experiment than haute cuisine.
But his science experiments evolved into his current philosophy of food: “Respect the ingredients. Proper seasoning is the most honest way to cook. People get lost in the presentation first, and not focusing on flavors of those ingredients first … both are important … but at the end of the day, the food has to taste delicious, otherwise you’re failing.”
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