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Monarch executive chef Josh Galliano loves being in the back of the house. “If I’m not in the kitchen,” he says, “I worry.” That type of hands on approach has gotten Galliano a lot of attention lately. The recent James Beard award nominee has only been running the kitchen at Monarch for a year, but the food world has taken notice. Here, he shares some of the secrets to his success.
You have a master’s degree in political science. What motivated you to make a career out of food?
Boredom. After about two years of that, I got really bored, and academia is not the place to be when you’re bored. That got me around the same time as I was working for a catering company. The owners were fantastic people and great mentors to me and big supporters as far as me choosing cooking as a career. Cooking is a lot about instant gratification, and with academia not giving me that kind of gratification, cooking definitely fulfills that need in my life.
Can you tell me about how you’re trying to cut down on the waste found in a lot of restaurants?
It’s kind of a question of sustainability. We get a lot of deliveries from our farmers on Wednesday. So, two whole lambs come in. One of the things we’re doing is buying the whole lamb so we have one part of the sustainability equation down. The second one is using the whole lamb. It really becomes a question of technique and creativity; not just cooking it, but also how to present it on the menu, which leads to the third part of being able to sell it. You can have all the skill in the world when it comes to butchering a lamb, but if you can’t put it on the menu and make it sell, you’ve done as much of a disservice to the lamb as if you let it go bad. So, it’s a multi-step process for us.
Is this something you’ve been interested in for awhile?
A lot of people I’ve worked with have influenced different parts of that and supported me, so I took from them what I could.
What makes a dish memorable?
I don’t know half the time, to be honest. It’s a dining experience... I definitely think that if we combine certain aspects of cooking processes, techniques and presentation that we get to a very memorable dish. If we showcase an item with complimentary garnishments to compliment the whole and present it in an artistic way, we get something that people think about next time they have, say, tuna, and it registers in their memory banks as their standard for what that could be.
What makes Monarch memorable?
The balance. Great food, wonderful service and showcasing some fantastic cocktail talent, as well as a great wine list. So, having those things come together in one spot, I think that’s what makes Monarch very memorable and very much a great dining experience.
What does it take to be a good chef?
28 hours in a day.
What are the best and worst parts of your job?
It’s really demanding. I enjoy the hell out of it, don’t get me wrong. This is the passion; it’s something I really love. Is it work? Yeah. But, it’s definitely along the lines of a big thrill. It’s a lot of fun to go into a busy service and just feed a lot of people. It’s a lot of fun to create a new dish; it’s a lot of fun to practice a technique. All that equates to me being very happy with what I do.
