Chef Jeff Fuld is no stranger to fine dining.
The Tucson restaurateur has owned two upscale eateries — Elle Wine Bistro and Daniel’s restaurant.
And now he supervises one of the most exclusive venues in Southern Arizona, the private dining room at the Caterpillar training facility in Green Valley. It is open only to center staff, corporate executives and trainees.
He still takes the occasional catering gig as a favor to friends, but the East Coast transplant finds it satisfying to provide dining services for the heavy-equipment company.
“Creating the food, to me, is the passion and joy of the industry,” he said.
What got you interested in cooking?
“My joking/serious explanation is, I chewed my way into the restaurant business. I loved food since I was a little kid. My mother encouraged me. My mother was a phenomenal cook when she made the time to do so. She was and still is a stockbroker and she didn’t always cook for us. When I was probably 11, I started tinkering and I played around with the Toll House cookie recipe on the back of the package of chocolate chips. We played around with it until we made it what we thought was better. My younger brother loved the measuring aspects of it.”
What led you from tinkering in the kitchen to wanting to make it a career?
“I started working in the restaurant business as a summer job. I love eating good food. I grew up going to some good restaurants. Working as a busboy, I got interested in what was going on in the kitchen. I got friendly with the staff in the kitchen. Someone called in sick for lunch one day and the chef said to me, ‘Do you want to work in the kitchen?’ I said, ‘Sure,’ and he basically set up everything and talked me through the evening. There’s an excitement, a legal high to making things work, to make things come out and make people happy. We create edible art and make people happy. That’s what it’s supposed to be.”
Did you go to culinary school or did you learn on the job?
“I was a philosophy-psychology major in college. Philosophy, in particular, is direct training for nothing but being a philosophy teacher and indirect training for everything else in life. In college … I went back to restaurants in the summer. The more I worked in restaurants the more intriguing it was to me. As I was beginning my senior year, I was talking to my parents about maybe I want to transfer to Cornell (School of Hotel Administration) or C.I.A. (Culinary Institute of America), and they said to me , ‘You know what Jeff? You’re so close to having your degree finished, it will never hurt you.’ And unlike many of us at that point in our lives, I actually listened to my parents when they said that.”
What style of cooking do you prefer?
“I can’t really say I prefer one thing in particular. I am more about flavor than pretense. The nouvelle cuisine thing was not my favorite. To me food should make you happy. You eat it with your eyes before you touch it with your tongue, so it’s important that it looks good but it doesn’t need to be played with so much that it’s cold by the time you get it.”
Do you have a favorite ingredient?
“It’s dependent, but my staff would probably tell you it’s garlic because garlic goes in everything.”
Do you have advice for people who want to learn to cook for family or friends?
“Follow the recipe exactly the way it is so you can understand the dish, then tweak it the next time. If you are making something that calls for fresh rosemary and you are not a big rosemary fan, try it with rosemary and if you don’t like it try it with another herb. Spicy is one of my favorite things. Not necessarily spicy food, but it’s very easy to add a little more or put a little bit less in. There’s not a wrong or a right. It’s how you are going to enjoy it.”
