Chef Michael Bennett - Chef of the Month

Chef of the Month

Michael Bennett: The Left Bank, Fort
Lauderdale

"Food reflects your relationship to life. When you create food, you also create memories," says Michael Bennett, chef at the Left Bank in Fort Lauderdale.

Bennett came to the Left Bank two years ago after 26 years of experience, including The Doral and Epicure Market in Miami, where he became famous for his Tropical Cuisine. "My friends would talk about the dinners they had at The Left Bank, and I wanted to work for one of the best places in town," says Bennett. The unassuming burly-looking giant – Bennett is 6' 4"- has since then successfully filled the famed Jean Pierre Brehier's apron, and his modern global cuisine is creating delightful memories for The Left Bank's habitués.

Bennett's earliest cooking memories - he has been working in restaurant kitchens since he was 15 - date back to when he was nine in Fort Lauderdale. "My brothers and I would make Saturday breakfast for my folks," he recalls. While preparing omelets for those Saturday morning feasts, Bennett discovered why food works or doesn't work. "I found out why butter burns if you don't clarify it," he remembers.
"It was one of the first things I learned about cooking." Since then, Bennett has made it a point to learn not just whether ingredients and techniques work or not, but why. He encourages younger cooks in his kitchen to take the same approach. "I tell them, 'don't question why I tell you to do something. Instead, question why things work the way they do.'"

Bennett wants to provide those who work for him with a better experience than he had during his learning years in the 1970s. "Chefs then were demanding and overbearing. I became the direct opposite. I try to train the younger guys from the start to think like independent chefs, because I remember what it was like when it was my turn to ask. I try to get them to move headlong into inventiveness. That can't be taught, but it sure can be molded."

Great food, simply cooked athough he enjoyed cooking as a child, he didn't expect then to become a professional. "I thought I'd be a baseball player," he recalls. "It became so easy for me to create new things in the kitchen that I've never thought of it as a job."

While formally trained at the Culinary Institute of America, most of what Bennett has learned has been on the job. "You have to have the basics, and they sure pound them into you at the CIA," Bennett admits. But great food is more the result of creative techniques than exotic ingredients. "You can make uncommon dishes out of simple ingredients," says Bennett, who shuns heavy sauces and creams. A aster at preparing fish and seafood, he combines fresh local ingredients, like mango with an Asian lumpcrab; turns a macadamia-crusted mahi-mahi into a Mediterranean entree fragrant with goat cheese, sun dried tomatoes, capers and Greek olives; and draws passionate sighs for a plantain-crusted Gulf grouper prepared with passionfruit juice and rice vinegar.

Meeting every challenge
Bennett, who moved to Broward after being hired at the Left Bank, finds that the main difference between dining in Broward and Miami-Dade is the timing. "Here, dinner starts at 6:30 and ends by about 9 p.m.. In Miami, we didn't even get busy until 8:30 p.m.!"

Being a chef is a challenge for most, but in particular for husbands and fathers. Bennett has been married to his wife Vicki since 1983, and has two daughters, 9 and 11. "My culinary profession is my life, but I'm really proud of these other things too."

A pioneer of Floridian cuisine, Bennett has received numerous awards and honors, among which Miami's Chef of the Year by the American Culinary Federation, in 1994; and in 1996, he was named one of six Best Cooking Light chefs in America by the ACF.

He is currently writing a book about cooking with South Florida ingredients, and is a correspondent for the James Beard Foundation. Over the past two years, he has written about 370 on-line restaurant reviews. The variety of his work is what he loves best, and what make the profession continually fresh and exciting for him. "The job changes every day, so much so that every day is brand new," he said. "That's what's kept me going all these years."

Shrimp and scallop "Scampi"
serves 1
Ingredients:
4 each U-10 scallops, marinated in rosemary oil
3 each U-12 shrimp, p/d, marinated in rosemary oil
2 tbs. haricot verts, cut on severe french bias
1 Tbs. plum tomato concassée
1 Tbs. black beans, cooked in chicken stock until done
1/2 cup baby spinach, disregard stems
1 Tbs. shallots, finely diced
1/2 pinch nutmeg
1 piece Brie, cut 1 " by 1/4 "
2 oz. sweet potato, cut 1 " square, blanched
2 oz. boniato, cut 1" square, blanched
2 oz. baby bliss potato, cut in half, blanched
1 oz. basic vinaigrette, simpler the better.
1 Tbs. potato flakes
1 tsp. chives, chopped
1 tsp. bell pepper mélange (2 color), brunoise
1 pinch Kosher salt
black pepper, from pepper mill
2 oz. mirin, sweetened sake
1 oz. sherry
1 tbs. shallots, finely diced
2 each passionfruit, scoop out seeds
1 Tbs. Ponzu
1 piece ginger, peeled, smashed
2 oz. heavy cream
1 piece Brie, 2 " by 1/4 "

Preparation:
Day before you are ready to use: Blanch the potatoes, cool. Mix potatoes with the vinaigrette, potato flakes, seasonings and herbs. Form into cakes with a 3 " round mold. Refrigerate overnight to solidify. Preheat oven to 400°F. Bake for 12 minutes or until the center of the cake is warm. Clean and marinate the shrimp and scallops. Refrigerate until you are ready to put the plate together. To serve: Place the cakes in the oven to heat completely. Sauté scallops and then the shrimp, just searing the edges lightly, while keeping the middle of the scallops medium rare. Remove the shrimp and scallops and keep warm. Heat and reduce the sauce ingredients in the same pan; add sherry, mirin, passionfruit pulp, ponzu and smashed ginger. Reduce by half and add the cream. Reduce again by half. Add the 2-inch piece of Brie and stir in well. Strain the sauce onto the plate when ready to serve. Serving: Drop the blanched veggies into a warming bath of water. Place cake in center of the plate (11" round plate does nicely here) and surround with the strained sauce. Garnish sauce with veggies. Quickly sauté shallots and baby spinach together in another pan. Add the seasonings, then the 1-inch piece of Brie, heating enough to wilt the leaves and melt the cheese. Place over potato cake, then pile the shrimp atop each other on top of the spinach. Use a skewer of rosemary to secure the shrimp. Place the scallops around the cake, sitting atop the veggies that are now garnishing the passionfruit sauce. Wine selection: a Riesling, late harvest Riesling, or fruity yet dry Fumé Blanc.