Community Corner
Quintessential Nightlife's Head Chef Shoots for Unpretentious Upscale
Q's head chef Bryan Smith has held almost every job in the business.
Bryan Smith started working in kitchens at the age of 16. No one would have imagined that the teenage dishwasher would one day become head chef at Quintessential Nightlife in St. Charles.
Smith took a circuitous route to success. After years of working in restaurants, he thought of going to culinary school but decided he didn’t want to work every holiday. Instead, he pursued a career in finance and sales. Commission work was very rewarding during the good times, but sometimes unreliable.
“I loved restaurants, and I needed a stable paycheck, so all through my 20s I worked two jobs--my main day job in sales and a night job at restaurants. I’ve done it all, except bartending,” Smith said.
Over the next few years, among other jobs, Smith managed a Subway restaurant, cooked at Pasta House and eventually owned his own business. Along the way, he said he was incredibly lucky to have great managers who taught him how to cook.
“At the Italian restaurants, when the cooks got bored, they’d show us how to make our own food. That way, they didn’t have to cook it. Even a dishwasher can learn how to make something simple. We’d watch them, then learn to do it ourselves,” he said.
That hands-on experience allowed him to gradually work his way up from dishwasher to chef. After years of hands-on experience in a variety of kitchens, Smith opened Basilicos, his own Italian restaurant. Nestled next to a corner grocery store, the location seemed perfect, but as the economy turned sour, the other shops gradually closed and business began to fade. Around the time when he decided to close the restaurant, he heard Quintessential was looking for new chefs. He joined Quintessential the day after Valentine’s Day 2010.
Moving from his own restaurant to Quintessential involved a bit of a culture shock. “Education is great, but a lot of the people here who came from culinary school knew how to make one dish really well. They didn’t know how to make it fast. They didn’t know how to make it 25 times in a night and make it perfect every time.”
Smith said combining his real world experience with the staff’s culinary experience was exactly what Quintessential needed. “One of our guys, his first day here, he didn’t know how to handle lunch. This is the real world. At lunch, people want a burger or a wrap. At culinary school, they never taught him how to make a wrap, and here he was with a dining room full of people who want their lunches right now.”
Burgers and wraps may be Quintessential’s lunchtime staples, but the dinner menu includes artistic dishes such as crab encrusted salmon, panko-breaded olives stuffed with goat cheese and a trio of chicken served three ways. He laughed at the idea people in St. Charles aren’t adventurous eaters.
“This isn’t Clayton. It isn’t Chesterfield. But that doesn’t mean people don’t like good food. Here in St. Charles, if someone comes into a restaurant and can’t pronounce something on the menu, they’re not going to order it. So instead of a fancy French name, we call it a trio of chicken or crab-encrusted salmon. Keep it in layman’s terms and make sure they know exactly what’s in the dish, and people here will try anything.”
On weekends, he’s prepared specials as exotic as skate (a seafood cousin of stingrays) knowing someone else at the same table would have a burger. He said that matches his vision perfectly, which is to offer upscale food in an unpretentious atmosphere.
As head chef, he encourages his cooks to master the basic dishes while also giving them generous creative outlet. “I want to keep them empowered, so I let my cooks bring in whatever recipes they’ve created and use them for specials. If the feedback is good, it may end up on the menu. As long as it fits our theme, and they can reproduce it perfectly 25 times a night, I want to see what they come up with.”
While there was a lot of satisfaction in running his own restaurant, Smith said he’s very happy as the head chef at Quintessential. “Our sales are good enough my staff can be creative. We’re in a great location. People love our food. What’s not to like?”