Imagine you could enjoy a personal dining experience in your own home. You could choose anything your heart desires for the menu, and a restaurant-quality meal comes to you. Afterward, it vanishes, leaving you wondering if it might have been a dream. Now you can, Amelia Island.
Chef Brian Frank calls his fine-dining enterprise Art Culinarian. In my years writing about food, I have known culinary artists, so I wondered what the reverse would be. When I saw his work, I understood. Chef Brian’s emphasis is on the art, with the culinary magic assumed. My friend Lilly and I went to his home for an Early Spring Tasting to see what he would create for us. With his wife Nicole, he demonstrated the kind of art he performs for private audiences.
On the last day of winter, we sat at a simple picnic table among white orchids and candles on his porch. We had discussed our pescatarian preferences. To begin our tasting, we enjoyed a Carpaccio of Squash with Burrata, which came alive with Balsamic Pearls (known as balsamic caviar and filled with concentrated balsamic flavor) and a dot of Vanilla Crunch. Our Scallops were salty-crispy outside and tender inside. Finally, we enjoyed Grilled Octopus with Chimichurri and Butternut, and with the crispy end of the tentacle was delicate tuile, which might have been a lacy slice of edible coral.
Tuile (sounds like tweel) is a gossamer wafer that is moldable when warm to create a variety of shapes. When rolled, tuile becomes the pirouette! Stencils and ideas abound for making tuile art, so I know what I want to learn this fall. The balsamic pearls were also exciting. He ended our time together with a Chocolate Torte, his own version of Julia Child’s famous creation.
During his boyhood in Rochester, New York, Chef Brian worked in restaurants from age 13 on. After cooking school, he trained at Pot-au-Feu in Providence, Rhode Island, said to be the original French bistro in America. In fact, the chef who opened the restaurant in 1972 greatly admired Julia Child, and she visited often. Today, the Pot-au-Feu menu retains several classic French dishes with echoes of Julia, and Chef Brian brings his knowledge of her dishes and style to us.
His tastes lean toward Southern French and Southern Italian, with lighter, brighter flavors. This is not what he asks of clients, however. He welcomes the challenge to cook for people with any dietary needs or preferences. I thought about who would enjoy the new concept that Art Culinarian brings to the community and came up with quite a few: visitors who want to have dinner on their own table after a day of fun; people who want to throw special-occasion dinner parties in their own homes; my childhood friend who lives here, who had a change in diet recently; the doctor I saw recently who told me all restaurants use too much fat; anybody craving a dish they cannot make themselves.
Challenge accepted, Chef would say. Dream it, and he will help you make it happen. Those who are planning parties for the 60th annual Isle of Eight Flags Shrimp Festival next month, book soon for the calendar is filling up. For more information and to book a party, call (904) 780-5568 or visit ArtCulinarian.com.