Executive Chef David Kesler of Fullerton's The Cellar Restaurant is on the line this week. Here's a random fact for the readership: people who excel at both cuisine and pastry are rare in the extreme. Every culinary arts student studies pastry, but it's like being both an outstanding brain surgeon and a top-level heart surgeon at once: rare, and not to be missed. That's a hint.
Meanwhile, if you missed the first part of the interview, click back to read it.
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OC Weekly: What's your favorite music to cook by?
David Kesler: 70s and electronic.
OCW: What's the best food city in America?
DK: New York City.
OCW: What's your favorite restaurant in America?
DK: Chanterelle in New York.
OCW: What would you like to see more of in Orange County or Long Beach from a culinary standpoint?
DK: Fine pastry shops.
OCW: What would you like to see less of in Orange County or Long Beach from a culinary standpoint?
DK: Frozen yogurt shops.
OCW: What are your favorite cookbooks?
DK: Larousse Gastronomique, Le Bec-Fin Recipes
OCW: What show would you pitch to the Food Network?
DK: Ice carving idol…competition for the best ice carver on the globe.
OCW: What's the weirdest thing you've ever eaten?
DK: Dirt sauce. I was at the National Chef Congress in New York and a chef from Argentina showed us how to make a pretty tasty sauce with red clay from Argentina.
OCW: You're making an omelet. What's in it?
DK: Salt, Emmentaler
OCW: You're at the market. What do you buy two of?
DK: Artichokes.
OCW: What was the weirdest customer request you've ever ordered?
DK: Escargots and mushrooms appetizer, no escargots.
OCW: What's your favorite restaurant other than your own?
DK: La Tour d'Argent, Paris; Joe's Restaurant, Venice.
OCW: What's the hardest lesson you've learned?
DK: Thinking there's enough time and being way ahead of the game.
OCW: What would be your last meal on Earth?
DK: Grilled artichokes and steamed lobster.
OCW: Who's your hero, culinary or otherwise?
DK: Chef Jacques Pépin.
OCW: What cuisine that you are unfamiliar with would you want to learn more about and why?
DK: Anything from the African continent from Egypt to Morocco to Ethiopia to Botswana, because that is the area of the world that I really know absolutely nothing about culinarily.
