chef du jour- Summer 2000

Chef Charlie Brown Chicago Firehouse Restaurant 1401 S. Michigan Chicago, Illinois 60605 (312) 786-1401 By Nancy Ross Ryan

"Charlie -- not Charles -- Brown is my given name, and when it comes to jokes, I've heard them all," says Chef Charlie Brown, now 40 and executive chef of the new, three-story Chicago Firehouse Restaurant that opened in February of this year. The new restaurant is housed in a renovated 1905 firehouse in the hot new South Loop neighborhood. The menus he has created to support the restaurant's two styles of dining -- formal and informal -- is best called classic American. It's comfort food taken to a new and higher plane. "My goal is to put together high quality ingredients in creative ways but keep the presentations simple, understandable and approachable. Quite frankly, sometimes people will go to a new restaurant and the next day when they go to work and somebody asks them what they had for dinner -- they can't remember. When you go to dinner at the Firehouse you can actually remember what you had for dinner. It's not like, 'Well, I had something with scallops, and maybe some caviar somewhere in it, and it was stacked up high.'" If Charlie Brown follows his own pattern, guests at Chicago Firehouse can look forward to four more years of South Side sausage pizza, Firehouse half-pound burgers, old-fashioned meatloaf with mushroom gravy and garlic mashed potatoes, classic spinach and Caesar salads, and blue crab cakes for lunch. For dinner they can count on his CF 104 pâté plate, house-smoked salmon, lobster bisque, pan-fried rainbow trout, New York Strip steak and slow-cooked pot roast -- for at least four years. Early on in his culinary career, shortly after his 1982 graduation from Johnson & Wales culinary school in Providence, R.I., he began to spend four years at jobs he really liked. Oh, there were the handful of apprenticeships and entry-level jobs (the Soho Charcuterie in New York, The Colony Restaurant in Sarasota, Fla., Stampler's Steakhouse in Long Boat Key, Fla.), but his first challenging position, as chef of Mustard's Grill in Napa Valley, California, he held for four years. "I attribute the direction of my career and how I feel about the restaurant industry, to the people at Real Restaurants who opened Mustard's and also Fog City Diner," says Charlie Brown, revealing another strong character trait: loyalty. After his four years at Mustard's, he was "lured back to Florida by people I know who own the Max Group of restaurants. I always seem to go with the people I know." So for the next four years he opened and was chef at quite a few of their restaurants: Cafe Max, Max's Grille, Brasserie Max." After the restaurants were sold, he found himself in Sarasota as chef of Ophelia's restaurant which, soon thereafter, began getting stellar restaurant reviews and became known as one of Florida's top restaurants. He stayed at Ophelia's for, you guessed it, four years. His old friends at Real Restaurants called him to Dallas to help open a Fog City Diner there. While in Dallas the group who managed Michael Jordan's restaurant in Chicago recruited him to take over the kitchen -- which he did and where he stayed for four years. When Michael Jordan's restaurant was closed, in January of this year, he was walking down the street, when his cell phone rang. It was friends at Chicago Firehouse Restaurant. "What are you doing?' they asked him. "Oh, I was planning to take 30 days off and just hang out," he replied. "How about coming down here -- just to talk," his friends suggested. "I started working that afternoon," he said. Charlie Brown's menus have been getting rave reviews from Chicago food critics. In March, Chicago Sun-Times critic Pat Bruno wrote: "Chicago Firehouse Restaurant's split dining option -- casual side, formal side -- allows for a wide range of eating choices at different price points. I am all fired up about this restaurant." Forgive us, chef, we just can't help it: Good Ol' Charlie Brown. Double-Cut Pork Chop Sweet onion stew and tart cherries, roasted potatoes and green beans Meeting at The Chicago Firehouse It's three stories high and embraces 14,000-square feet of space. They certainly don't build firehouses like they used to in 1905 when this historic firehouse first resounded with alarms, and firemen really did plummet feet first down poles on their way to the fire engines. Today what remains of Firehouse 104 is the impressive, restored brick exterior, and, inside, the original fire-glazed tile brick wall, tin ceiling, and the fire poles. But yesterday's firehouse has been transformed by restaurateur Matthew O'Malley into a warm, inviting restaurant with a formal dining room, an informal pub, interesting spaces, large and small for private dining and -- mercifully -- not a red fire hat, axe or picture of a fire engine anywhere in sight. The Chicago Firehouse Restaurant is located in the South Loop neighborhood, the newest dining scene to catch fire in Chicago. The restaurant offers two kinds of menus for two kinds of dining: A pub menu that serves the bar and adjoining dining area, and a fine dining menu that serves the formal dining room. Private dining functions can draw on both menus. Meeting rooms range from the intimate baroque 14-seat wine cellar with its "secret" room for tête à têtes, to the upstairs mahogany-paneled mayor's room that seats 12. There is a second-level banquet room that can accommodate a seated dinner for 135 and a reception for 350. And the banquet room can be divided into two or three dining rooms for seated dinners. The entire restaurant, if devoted to private functions, can comfortably serve 1,000 and the outdoor courtyard with fountain in summertime can host 75. To arrange a meeting, call Karen Day, director of catering, (312) 786-1401.

	SAMPLE PRIVATE DINING MENUS Brunch Buffets (There are two breakfast buffets and also an omelet station): The Buckingham: Orange and grapefruit juices, breakfast pastries, muffins and bagels, cream cheese and preserves, seasonal fruits, house-smoked salmon and its garnishes, scrambled or frittata-style eggs, bacon and sausage, homestyle potatoes with onions, French toast and maple syrup, coffees and teas Luncheon Buffets (Three luncheon buffets): Pub Special: Caesar salad with imported Parmesan, pasta salad with marinated vegetables and fresh herbs, sliced meats and cheeses, garnishes (lettuce, tomatoes, onions, pickled vegetables, carrot sticks), albacore tuna salad with mayonnaise and chives; fresh assorted specialty breads, seasonal fruits, cookies and bars, coffees and hot and iced teas Chef's Premium Dinner Selections (include host choice of appetizer, salad and dessert, chef's selection of potatoes and vegetables, also bread, coffee and hot and iced tea): Filet of Beef with Sauce Bordelaise 12-ounce Strip Steak with Peppercorn Jus Rack of New Zealand Lamb with Rosemary Demi-Glaze Grilled Veal Chop with Tomato-infused Natural Jus Chicken Firehouse with Mushrooms, Tomatoes and Capers Grilled Salmon Filet with Honey Glaze Catch of the Day Roast Loin of Pork with Sweet Onion and Tart Cherries Appetizers:Fresh fruits with lime and ginger, sliced Parma ham with melon, crab cakes with sauce remoulade, rare charred sirloin with arugula and olive oil and imported Parmesan, clam chowder, lobster bisque with Sherry, potato and roasted garlic soup Salads:Classic Caesar, iceberg lettuce wedge with blue cheese dressing; mesclun greens with blue cheese and spiced pecans in Sherry vinaigrette, spinach salad with fresh mushrooms in country mustard vinaigrette Desserts:Flourless chocolate cake with raspberry coulis, cheesecake, lemon tart with creme Anglaise, warm seasonal fruit crisp with vanilla ice cream, carrot cake with cream cheese icing, warm bread pudding with whiskey sauce, gold brick sundae

(For a major restaurant review click here.)

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