Recipe for Success: Eric Bein

What was your biggest food influence? My grandparents had the biggest influence on me. They lived on a farm in New York, and as a kid I’d go there in the summertime. My grandfather had a garden. They’d do these pickled beets and make other things from the garden.

When did you know you wanted to become a chef? I don’t have a romantic I-am-a-chef-because-of story. I do remember those summers in New York as a precursor and maybe not realizing it at that age or time period. After high school I didn’t have much of a direction so I took a job in a restaurant and felt that energy. It was something I hadn’t experienced before, and that was exciting. The chef was tough, but I looked up to him and said, “Hey, maybe I could try that,” and I did.

What is your experience before Station 400? I went to the Culinary Institute of America in New York when I was 19. I graduated from the four-year bachelor’s program, which was more business oriented. From there I went to New York City because I wanted to get experience; to get beat up and have tough jobs. I basically knocked on people’s doors and said I’d work for free hoping to get a job and I did. I was in New York City for two years and came back here tired and burnt out. I was in need of more of a vacation job to recoup, which ended up being at this location under previous ownership. It was great because I had full reign in the front and the back. Then the owners kind of fizzled out in the bad economy and ended up closing the doors. I had moved on at that point but approached them and worked out a deal to take this over five years ago.

Do you remember the first meal you cooked as a chef? Yes, a sticky, gloopy risotto for my parents on my first spring break from school. You know, you think you’re hot stuff and want to make something cool, and it didn’t turn out right so that was an epic fail. But it was my parents, so it was OK. And luckily I’ve gotten a little better than that.

Where do you get inspiration for your menu and specials? We do the classic breakfast dishes, but our niche is just outside of that box, so while we have the eggs Benedict and the French toast and all of those things that you associate with breakfast, we wanted to bring different elements. The inspiration for that goes back to my farm days in New York and true raw ingredients in their purest form. So we came up with different flavor profiles that would work in that sense: blackberries and lemon on the pancakes, eggs Benedict with mushrooms and truffles. Personally, I stay up on the industry with cooks magazines and Pinterest, and for Christmas I got the Noma cookbook, which is a restaurant in Demark whose chef is probably the best in the world right now.

Do you have a favorite meal? I’d probably say the most satisfying thing for me would be roasted bone marrow with some crusty bread and sea salt.

Do you cook at home? I do cook at home. We just remodeled the kitchen, so it is a lot easier for me because I have all my gadgets there. We designed it like a test kitchen for me. And since my job has changed with the two locations and I am not doing a lot of the cooking (at the restaurant), my home is my area to go where it’s quiet and I can cook.

What is your favorite kitchen gadget? I use my 10-inch global knife the most, but my favorite gadget would be my sous vide machine, which is a water bath. It circulates water to a perfect temperature. It’s an old technique, but it’s very popular right now, and it essentially cooks things in their own juices under vacuum.

What is on your gadget wish list? A Pacojet ice cream and gelato machine.
If you were trapped on a desert island and could take three ingredients what would they be? I am a simpleton really … if I could have an egg, a potato and a tomato, I could do a lot with that.