24 October 2001

Mike Thomas
Chicago Sun-Times

Hogan's a hero... to Chicago chefs Now the rest of Chicago has to discover him

True story: A couple of years ago John Hogan, one of Chicago's most celebrated chefs, was summoned to a local country club by his 17- year-old son, a caddie there. He'd carried a "double" (i.e., schlepped two golf bags for 18 holes) and wanted a ride home. Now, Hogan, who'd carried doubles many times during his teen years, and who afterwards usually walked home four miles uphill through driving rain, howling wind and forked lightning, was somewhat miffed. These kids today--so soft. Nonetheless, being a devoted father, he set off to perform this most annoying paternal duty.

"So I get to the club and he's standing there with his [frigging] bicycle," Hogan recalls, still bristling. "I go, 'What are you doing? And he goes, 'What do you mean?' And I go, 'Is that your bike?' And he says, 'Yeah.' So I tell him, 'Well, get the [hell] on and ride it home!' 'No,' he says. 'I'll put it in the back of the truck.' I go, 'Get on the bike! I'll see you later.' And I took off. I couldn't believe the kid called me to give him a ride home when he had his bicycle!"

To put it plainly--and plainly is the best way to put it when referring to this utterly pretenseless bear of a man--there are no free rides in this world, in Hogan's world especially. After all, he certainly didn't get to where he is (that would be the top of the culinary heap, in case you're wondering) by tossing his bike in the truck.

On Monday, his newest venture, Keefer's (20 W. Kinzie), backed by Chicago radio mogul Jimmy deCastro and run by veteran restaurateur Glenn Keefer, formerly of the Palm and Ruth's Chris Steakhouse, opens to the public.

Unlike Hogan's previous establishments, namely the much-lauded Savarin on Wells and Kiki's Bistro, Keefer's will stick to American basics, particularly steak and seafood, complemented by Hogan's tasty twists. Nothing too fancy or hifalutin', though. (Sorry, foodies.)

While it's true that such pared-down fare is a far cry from the French haute cuisinein which the chef was schooled and for which he has become widely known, if Hogan's stellar gourmet track record is any indication, every morsel that issues forth from his kitchen is sure to give tastebuds a rattle.

"It's almost comforting to know that it's so simple," Hogan admits. "I don't have to stress every day about coming up with new ideas and new dishes to impress myself or the clientele. A lot of times we're cooking just so people think we're workin' for a living," he quips, grinning. "But this'll be very simple. The challenge will be to do it perfectly. . . . The easiest things done well are harder than the toughest things done mediocre."

As alluded to previously, he is no pansy, this Hogan. Basically, he's busted his share of hump, and thus expects no less of his fellow humans. That's not to say he's beyond letting loose every once in a while. Though Hogan is undoubtedly wiser, more skilled and considerably more focused now, at 45, than he was at 13 or 18 or 25, his fun-loving, frat-boyish demeanor has diminished little over the years.

Judge the tough-talking, wise-cracking, physically imposing book by its cover and such lofty and oft-used characterizations as "award- winning chef de cuisine," "culinary technician" and "charcuterie master" don't exactly leap to mind. Really, he's a movie-ready character from another era, a rollicking bloke who loves to laugh and eat, who cusses liberally and occasionally invades personal space, who dishes out tough love to his three sons and parties hearty into the wee small.

If Ditka is Da Coach and Daley Da Mayor, then Hogan is, affectionately and minus the malapropisms, Da Chef, a quintessentially no-b.s.

Chicago guy through and

through. Lurking not far beneath the blustery joie de vivre, though, is someone considerably more complex, more modest and more talented than most would ever guess.

Says popular film and television actor Mike Starr, a close friend, "He looks like the guy who just came to tow the truck or work underneath the sink. He could be any guy. 'Excuse me, I came to rip out the air-conditioner and heating ducts.' And then people will ask him questions about styles of French cuisine. You'd never cast him in that role, but it's fun to see the tremendous respect and goodwill toward him."

"Out of the guy who was sort of a fun-time partyer, a really serious artist emerged," marvels childhood pal Tony Fitzpatrick, a prominent Chicago painter and former Golden Gloves champ. "Because I'll tell you what, watching Hogan in the kitchen is like watching Picasso paint or Pavarotti sing."

Fitzpatrick, who has known Hogan for 35 years, who egged visiting fellow caddies with him at their childhood country club ("I remember when the movie 'Caddyshack' came out. We kind of looked at each other and

thought, 'Man, this is tame!' "), was there for the early mischief and mayhem, which grew into the present-day mischief and mayhem. He also witnessed Hogan's gastronomic evolution. Early on, he gobbled up the young chef wanna-be's Dijon-slathered grilled bologna sandwiches (what 10-year-old serves Dijon?). Later, he reveled in the seasoned veteran's finest terrines and pates.

"Even when he was a kid, he was pretty passionate about food," recalls Fitzpatrick, adding half-jokingly, "You grow up in an Irish household, you learn how to cook in self-defense."

Food heals

"When there's a crisis or something awful has happened, the best guy in the world to share a meal with is John Hogan," Fitzpatrick declares. "After my dad passed away, I went to John's restaurant and he didn't have to say a word. He just brought out plate after plate and we sat and talked. So this is a guy who knows not only how to make great food, but how to be a great friend."

Almost every week, a group of Hogan's greatest friends assembles in the back room--dubbed the "elegant dining room"--of the storied no- frills carnivore joint Mr. Beef on North Orleans. Participants, who call themselves the "grogans" (loosely translated as "Irish mooches") include Starr, Blackbird owner Donnie Madia and Blackhawks marketing man Jim Sofranko, among others. Half the time, this is a lunch gathering (apparently it's easier to avoid trouble during daytime hours) and therefore fairly low-key. According to Fitzpatrick, the guy who attends the most Mr. Beef soirees without actually paying for one of them is the best grogan. This dubious achievement carries no prize, save for lots of free meals.

When they converge at night, often near closing time, raucousness rises accordingly.

"We look around to make sure there aren't any kids or anything, but, man, the stories pop out of nowhere!" exclaims Starr. "It can be the simplest things, anything." Sometimes, he says, Hogan spins hilarious yarns of his misspent youth.

The chef drew his first breath in mid-September 1956 on Chicago's North Side, near Wrigley Field, whose team he would soon come to despise. While he was still an infant, his folks built a home in west suburban Lombard and relocated their clan. The middle of seven children, a neighbor to many more, Hogan never wanted for playmates.

"We had a big yard in the back where we all played whiffle ball," he recalls. "Between three families, there were 27 kids in our neighborhood, so we never had a problem getting a game together. We'd be playing and I'd have to run in and stir the soup." He was 6 or 7.

His late mother, Betsy, gave earliest inspiration, even though cooking for a veritable army required a largely indelicate touch.

Three meals a day, every day (her progeny were schooled close to home and so returned often for lunch) meant 21 meals a week per mouth, times seven mouths, which equalled 147 meals in all, not including snacks. In short, no time for pommes souffles.

"A lot of it was put it in the pot and cook it till it fell off the bone and then eat it," Hogan cracks.

But cooking for her husband was a different process entirely.

"My father would get home late from work and she'd cook a separate meal for him. She'd cook out of the cookbooks. Better Homes and Gardens, Fanny Farmer, all these old classic American cookbooks. And that's when I really got sparked to get into food. I'd see her making bechamel sauce, or she'd make Welsh rarebit, which nobody eats. And I thought it was killer. It was great. So I was always invited to sit and eat with them if I wanted to because I enjoyed it."

When Betsy Hogan passed away 31/2 years ago, just short of her son's most significant professional milestone, the opening of Savarin on Wells Street, Hogan's dad phoned him with a touching discovery. "You've got to come out here," he said. "I have something for you." And so Hogan did, whereupon he was floored. His old man had unearthed a grade-school folder, clips in the middle, pockets on either side, both of which were jammed with drawings of stick figures. Army guys shooting guns, cowboys and Indians, planes dropping bombs on ships. The kicker: In every masterpiece, in the midst of all the chaos were, quite incongruously, crudely rendered triangular signs reading "Restaurant Open Today." The art was dated August 1960. The artist: John Hogan. He was 3 years old.

He stayed out of the kitchen during most of his teen years. It wasn't until he turned 17 and moved from his parents' home to his own swinging Naperville bachelor digs, which he shared with eight other lads, that Hogan began whipping up some "wild stuff" and seriously contemplating the culinary life. Somehow, and a smiling Hogan won't say how, he and his crew scraped together enough cash on a semi- consistent basis to visit Chicago's finest French eateries, including the old Chez Paul on North Dearborn Parkway.

"I'd gone there and had soft-shell crab almondine and steak au poivre," says Hogan. "And the next day I went and bought all the ingredients and made it and said, 'This tastes as good or better than what I had last night.' It was like, 'Wow, I can do this!' I can still taste the flavor of the steak au poivre."

He followed that up with a string of haute hits: duck a l'orange, flambe with Grand Marnier.

"We were goin' nuts! In the middle of winter we'd be out there in our parkas with the Weber grill goin'!"

Then he got serious. All this indulgent, unbridled experimentation was one thing, but where would it lead? Without formal training, without someone to steer his fast-emerging talents, Hogan would stay a grill-happy punk, and he knew it. So he began scouting for schools, eventually landing at Dumas Pere in Glenview.

On the way up

From there he graduated to the Bon Vivant Cafe, then to the Avalon in Itasca (part of the Stouffer's hotel), then, in September 1983, to France, where for 10 days he absorbed much culture and artery- clogging edibles. When he returned, smarter and very possibly heavier, Chef Lucien Verge took him on at L'Escargot, the French bistro then on North Halsted, where Hogan honed many of the cooking skills he employs today. In 1986, he signed on as sous chef at Chicago's Le Perroquet. The turning point came in February 1987. Hearing of his vast abilities, Chicago-based French master Chef Jean Joho, renowned maestro of Everest, called on Hogan to join his ensemble, again as sous chef.

"Joho was exactly what I needed," Hogan explains. "He threw a ton of responsibility on me, made sure that I followed up on everything. He used to tell me, 'I'm not paying you to cook, I'm paying you to watch.' And he was right. He wanted me to watch everybody and everything. I always say I went in with tunnel vision and came out with 360 vision. That was the turning point. . . . To this day it's still the most important opportunity I ever had in the kitchen."

The cook had become a chef.

"He has a passionate love of food," Joho says of his protege. "He loves to eat, and that's really important, I think, for a chef. You have to eat your own food. Today, not enough chefs taste their own food. How do they know how it's supposed to be? Hogan tests his food really, really well. He's a wonderful cook."

Following a three-year fellowship at Everest, Joho presented Hogan to his friend George "Kiki" Cuisance, owner of Kiki's Bistro on North Franklin. Impressed, Cuisance hired the young innovator and for the next five years witnessed the positive effects of Hogan's menu overhaul.

When Hogan jumped ship in 1995, perhaps prematurely, he now surmises, to open another place, plans fell through and the next year he ended up at Park Avenue Cafe, a thoroughly American establishment. But France was in the blood, and he couldn't stay away for long. Upon securing financial backing and property, Hogan soon left to fulfill a lifelong dream. After decades of learning from someone, of working for someone, he was finally on his own. Savarin, his first solo flight, opened quietly to deafening acclaim, critical and otherwise, in the winter of 1998. Determined to keep it afloat, he ran the establishment with extraordinary vigilance.

"My place, my baby, my dream," Hogan sighs. "That was my whole reason for starting in the business. Savarin was everything I could have ever hoped and dreamed for and it was really right on the money. I thought. The restaurant was beautiful, the menu hit the mark, the service was great, we had a good wine program. . . . We were in Chicago magazine, the Tribune pointed us out as possibly the best new restaurant of the year. But something was missing."

Two years later, despite all the rave reviews and the fact that even Hogan's chef colleagues had voted Savarin their favorite, his dream inexplicably ended, a casualty of dwindling patronage.

"We didn't catch certain clientele that we probably should have," Hogan says in retrospect. "Maybe we somehow p----- off certain groups of people who'd come in. . . . The first year we were packed every day. People would come up to me and say, 'I can never get a table there.' I'd say, 'Have you called lately? And then they quit comin'. The phones quit ringin'."

And now there's Keefer's. It is a large place, 8,600 square feet of cherry wood and terrazzo marble and glass, with a long semi- circular bar, soaring ceilings and a stone hearth. It is a place where someone like Hogan, someone who appreciates fussiness, but also no-frills sophistication, might find him- or herself post weekday grind, or on a laid-back Saturday night.

Its aim: familiar food done perfectly, or so Hogan hopes. The menu will include his mom's famous Thousand Island dressing.

"John's art form," muses buddy Fitzpatrick, "is getting people to the table and letting them enjoy themselves when they get there."

Which is to say, it's all on Hogan. Again. No pressure.

Explains the chef, "You gotta do what you do best. Every day. That's the whole thing. You're on- stage. It's like being an actor or a musician. When you get up there, you gotta perform or people won't come back to see you."

Ladies and gentlemen, direct from Chicago: John Hogan.

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