Jeff Houck

The Tampa Tribune’s food writer since 2005, Jeff Houck covers the way people live through their food. He also hosts the Table Conversations food podcast and believes that everything crunchy is good.

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Norman Van Aken Adds To Orlando’s Famous Tastes [New World Cuisine’s Papa Talks Food]

Posted Jan 17, 2010 by Jeff Houck

Updated Jan 17, 2010 at 03:01 PM

In today’s Tribune, I wrote a story for the Getaway section about restaurants operated by celebrity chefs. The genesis of the story was the realization after Cat Cora opened her Kouzzina restaurant at Disney’s BoardWalk resort that Orlando had a grown number of eateries centered on famous chefs.

It’s nothing of the magnitude of what happened in Las Vegas during the past decade, of course. But Orlando’s near-constant stream of tourists (diminished though it might be by the recession) is a lure for chefs to plant their flag.

I talked with Emeril Lagasse for the story about what brought him to Orlando and with Cora about how her Greek-themed restaurant came to be at Disney.

I also had a chance to chat with chef Norman Van Aken, famous for being a pioneer of New World Cuisine. His restaurant Norman’s made him the de facto leader of the so-called “Mango Gang” of chefs who put South Florida cuisine on the culinary map.

I became aware of Van Aken not long after I started writing about food. Everywhere I went, I’d ask who the state’s food pioneers were. His name kept coming up.

Then after seeing him on “Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations,” I decided I needed to get to know him and his food:

Van Aken opened Norman’s Orlando almost seven years ago at the Ritz-Carlton Grande Lakes in Orlando, next to the giant J.W. Marriott resort. (He plans to open Norman’s 180 in Coral Gables later this year.)

We talked recently about how the restaurant came together and how his culinary celebrity sets his restaurant apart.

Q. Why this particular location?

A. We were invited. It was an interesting evening in Miami. Seven and a half years ago. I was running up and down the hot line expediting. It was a nice busy night and a gentleman walked into the kitchen. It was not a theater kitchen, so he had to kind of come back in. A tall guy. He said chef can I talk to you for a second. I said, “Sure.” Tickets are hanging all over the board.

Q. Yeah, sure, man. I’m not doing anything.

A. [laughs] Why not?

He says, “I can see you’re busy, but we’re part of the Ritz-Carlton and we’re doing a new hotel in Orlando. Have you heard about us?” I hadn’t. He says, “Well, we’d like to talk to you about doing a Norman’s there.” He says, “Quite frankly, we run great hotels, but we don’tt like the restaurant business as much.” I’m like yeah, sure, dandy. I thought maybe he’d played some golf and had a couple rounds of Cuttys out there and was feeling real good about Miami.

Q. “I love you, man!”

A. Yeah. Next day he calls up and he was serious. We came up here three weeks later and it was a shell. It was done up through the bar, but that was just a round room. The hotel was not open yet so everything was being constructed. It was like looking at a ship before its launch. It was huge. It was almost eerie to see how big and vast this whole thing is.
Have you been here before? Have you been to the J.W. [Marriott resort next door]?

Q. No.

A. I mean, it’s a 1,000-room J.W. and it’s a 585-room Ritz-Carlton and they’ve added meeting space on and it’s been extremely positive as far as the business side goes.
I guess originally it was going to go to Wolfgang Puck, but then “The Mouse” roared and they said, “You’re going to be over here.” Apparently they had a non-compete [contract clause] and they were fast-tracking to bring in a chef and have an outside relationship.

Q. Is there anything at this restaurant that matches a theme in décor to the one in Miami?

A. No, the original Norman’s, which opened in 1995, was opened on a shoestring budget with seven investors. It was a failed restaurant four or five times in a C-minus location. Everybody was, like, “You’re crazy. No one’s made it there.”

When you look at the restaurant for the first time, there’s a slight bit of theater kitchen. That’s the only thing I’d say is similar. To build a round restaurant created a dynamic we had never experienced before.

Q. That’s what got me in addition to the height. Wine is obviously a huge focus visually as you walk through.

A. Right.

Q. In terms of the menu, is it similar to what you have in Miami?

A. Oh, yeah. As it’s evolved, Orlando is a much different thing than Miami. We have so many guests who come here on business or relaxation, they come here once and their expectations of menu change are much different than the people who live and surround us in Miami and the soon to emerge Norman’s 180.

There, the requirements and their expectations are that change is good. They want some signature dishes, but here, the signature dishes exist untrammeled, oftentimes by me. My predilection is to change everything all the time.

Q. Seasonally or experimentally?

A. Both. But I know how I would feel if I went and saw Bruce Springsteen or Tony Bennett. There are certain songs I’d like to hear them perform no matter how many times or how many cities in which they’ve performed.

Q. I want to eat “Born To Run.”

A. Exactly. Or “Badlands.”

Q. So, your “Born To Run” is what dish?

A. [exhales] I don’t know if other chefs feel this way, but there are probably at least a dozen that would be that way. For this restaurant, probably the “Born To Run” dish is the pan-cooked filet of Key West yellowtail. Which is funny because it’s one of the simplest dishes and a dish I learned while I was a breakfast cook at The Pier House in 1978 or ’79 from a Bahamian woman named Betty Howard.

We don’t plate it the same way. She didn’t make a citrus butter sauce, but the way she handled the fish is patterned after what Betty showed me back in those days.

Q. As opposed to being in a separate facility, how much do you have to play to the Ritz patrons and how much are you trying to attract locals from Orlando? I imagine it’s a different dynamic than what you have in Miami.

A. It is. The relationship with the Ritz-Carlton has been phenomenal. We are not owned or operated by the Ritz in any way, shape or form. None of the employees are contracted by Ritz. So, that was a leap for them. They are used to having everybody being Ritz-Carlton employees and they took it on faith that we would operate in a way that was consistent with the expectations of their guests.

Q. Emeril’s has a constant stream at city walk. He has a subway stream. It’s a different dynamic. Wolfgang Puck’s got a different thing at Downtown Disney. I would imagine this is a little trickier.

A. Yeah, it is. There are other things at play. Emeril having worldwide celebrity certainly helps people know exactly who he is when they see his picture. The majority of our business, I’d say 90 percent, is business and tourist traveler. Somewhere around 10 to 15 percent are local to the general area. It’s great – and this is going to sound like a lot of sunshine - because they are so appreciative of Norman’s. When I’m in the room and meeting local people, they’re, like, “Thanks for giving credit to us who live in Orlando but who don’t want to go to chain restaurants.”

The other well-known chefs who are here, I don’t think they’re saying that about them. I think they’re saying it about the chain restaurants. The other chefs down here tend to have many more restaurants than one or two. With the exception of Melissa [Kelly], who’s not as well known as Todd [English], she’s probably reticent to have more than two or three restaurants.

The locals often are here for birthdays and wedding and anniversaries. Lots of anniversaries.

Q. Do you get many from Miami who are familiar and who then come here?

A. Oh yeah. We got a Town Car to pick us up and bring us from the airport yesterday. I wasn’t halfway out of the car and some guy from Miami was, like, “Hey, Norman! You going to be here tonight?”

Q. Having done “Top Chef” and the various television stuff, how has that changed the visibility for you up here? Has it at all?

A. Yeah. In many ways, I think I’m just “The Florida Guy.” I’ve been doing this, as you know, a long time. My work has been consistently about our state. I felt that was my responsibility and my role.

We were just down at Louie’s Backyard in Key West having a little goodbye session for a guy who came to work with me in Key West. We were there with our son and rain was coming in. Dramatic weather, interesting day and a ship going out to the horizon. I reflected back to a sunnier day earlier in my life where I sat on that deck with a stack of cookbooks and saw a smaller ship going out to the horizon. That day it occurred to me that I needed to change what I was doing.

I brought that up to my son, and he was much much younger on that original day. He went over and sat at the same table and looking out of the horizon. I guess he was channeling an earlier me or something and thinking about life in the same way.

Back then I was struggling with whether I wanted to go to California wine country.

Q. Be who you are here versus other places?

A. Yeah, would the audience here, would the audience get here. Because I saw that it had happened in New York, and I saw that it was happening in San Francisco and less so in wine country. But I was attracted to what was happening in wine country. I was attracted to what Alice Waters was doing. Then I thought, you know, about guys like the Mondavis who went out to California and created the California wine industry when they could have done a great job back in Italy and live that life. But they didn’t do that. What made them do it? I think what made them do it was that they didn’t want to be one of 12. They wanted to be one of the pioneers if not the pioneers.

Q. They planted the flag.

A. Something in my personality and how I was raised by my mom and dad made me want to be the independent guy starting up something than following.