Chris LaBelle is the first to say he’s not the traditional chef.
The 25-year-old prefers a beige Adidas cap to a huge, white chef hat.
And the executive chef at Evergreen Grill, 327 Abbott Road, doesn’t bark orders at the people who work under him.
“I don’t think of myself as their boss, though I guess I am,” says LaBelle, dressed in an old black shirt and green-and-white-striped pants covered in front by a small apron. “We all work together.”
He doesn’t even have a workstation.
“We work wherever we can find space,” he says, cutting carrots into slices for a pickled Japanese vegetable dish. “I’ve worked with chefs that are very egocentric - I run a more laid-back system.”
At 11 a.m. Thursday, LaBelle is “prepping” for lunch and dinner. Because there is a home football game this weekend, there is more prepping to do than usual.
“I’m getting ready for tomorrow, whereas on a normal day I’m getting ready for tonight,” he explains as he goes into the “walk-in” - a 35-degree room where fresh vegetables and meat are kept - to get some red and yellow peppers.
As he slices the red pepper, LaBelle says a restaurant is a constant learning environment: “You’re always learning something new.”
“I like hands-on more than a classroom,” he says, adding yellow pepper slices to the mix. “Working with chefs, you get to know their style.”
He checks the reservation list to see what to do next.
“It gives you a basis of what to make,” he says, looking over the orders. “It doesn’t tell you everything but you know what you will need more of.”
Jim Hansen, his sous chef - or assistant chef - who is working next to him, has a list of dishes to prepare.
“Every day I look at the menu to see what I need,” LaBelle says as he checks food off the list.
Manager Jim DeRose says he leaves menu decisions up to LaBelle.
“I give him feedback about what’s good and if something’s in season, I’ll remind him about it, but he pretty much does the menu by himself.”
LaBelle changes the menu about once a week.
“We change at least six entrees, three appetizers and some salads,” he says.
He approves a special order from a regular customer. “It’s not all about food,” he says. “A large part is business in general - making sure the food costs are OK, the labor costs are OK and making sure people are happy.”
He grabs an armful of carrots, celery and onions from the walk-in.
“You want to get everything in place, put everything together so you don’t have to run around,” he says as he dumps the vegetables on the counter.
He then rushes to tweak a stewed tomato sauce he is working on. “I have a general idea of what I want, but it’s all about flavor: You’ve got to get in there and taste it.”
LaBelle says he usually has about five projects going on at once.
“I’ll be roasting potatoes and making soup or doing like this: making sauce and vegetable dishes and meat dishes.”
He begins cutting carrots into squares for the next dish: a French mixture of vegetables.
“We’re going to make ravioli,” he tells Hansen.
As LaBelle cuts tomatoes into squares, Hansen begins making pasta from scratch. He adds five eggs to a lump of semolina flour and starts mixing the ingredients together.
LaBelle works anywhere from eight to 12 hours a day, and Hansen usually works about 10 hours a day, helping make the needed dishes.
“Chris usually has this list right here and we just blow this out as fast as we can,” Hansen says, pointing to LaBelle’s list of foods that need to be made.
Hansen begins writing down what he needs when he comes in in the morning.
“I’ve got to figure out where I’m at,” he says. “I scout around, see what I need and make a list.”
LaBelle keeps a pencil behind his ear and adds to the list as the day goes on.
“I’m always writing stuff down: Stuff I need to prepare, stuff I need to do,” LaBelle says. “You’ve got so many projects going on at once, you don’t know what you’re doing half the time.
“Speaking of which
