Meet the Chef: Andrew Bryan
Title: Executive chef, River Oaks Restaurant.
Age: 32.
Hometown: San Ramon, Calif.
Photo by Michael Donahue
Executive chef Andrew Bryan's style is simplistic, rustic and easy; nothing fancy with no more than seven items on a plate.
More Dining News 
Share and Enjoy 
Who or what was your first cooking influence? Probably my dad making beef stew on Sundays. It was more the family gathering that signified that my mom, my dad, my brother and I would all sit down on Sunday and eat. ... The stew was basic beef, tomatoes, nothing fancy. It was more rustic than anything else.
What was the first thing you ever cooked or baked? My brother's birthday cake. ... I think I was 14 at the time. ... It was a lemon angel food (box) cake.
What made you decide to become a chef and when was that? I think it was when I got tired of school. I realized college wasn't for me. International banking. ... The restaurant industry was a different route.
What was your first food-related job? Dishwasher, Downtown at Ciao Baby Cucina.
What was something important that a fellow chef taught you? The teaching aspect of being an executive chef is probably one of the most important things. I can't cook everything by myself. I can't plate everything for myself. So I for sure need the fellow brigade to kick in and help me out with it all. Unless I teach them and show them the way that I've been taught, it's not worth it.
What is the Andrew Bryan style? Simplistic, rustic, easy. Nothing fancy. No more than seven things on a plate.
Describe one of your dishes. I enjoy the weird cuts, cheeks, necks, shanks, any of that kind of thing. ... I cooked lamb neck last week for a regular.
What do you cook or bake at home, if anything? "Toad in the Hole" I'm not scared of. Where you take the bread, poke a hole in it and you fry the egg in the bread. Very simplistic things.
What's your least favorite ingredient? Calamari. I hate it. I hate it. I hate it. The cleaning aspect to cooking it. ... I think that's the one thing that if I never ever touched or tasted ever again, it would be calamari for sure. Hands down.
River Oaks Restaurant is at 5871 Poplar; 683-9305.
Contact Michael Donahue at 529-2797 or e-mail donahue@commercialappeal.com.
Comments
Share your thoughts
Comments are the sole responsibility of the person posting them. You agree not to post comments that are off topic, defamatory, obscene, abusive, threatening or an invasion of privacy. Violators may be banned. Click here for our full user agreement.