collage || chef
Homeward Bound One of New York’s standout chefs brings his talents back to where he started. | BY DAVID MAHONEY
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tart spreading the news: Chef Gavin Kaysen is making a brand-new start of it back in his hometown. Having definitely made it in New York, where he’s been the top toque at the Michelin-starred Café Boulud for more than six years, he’s returning to Minneapolis to start his own restaurant in the North Loop. Called Merchant, it has the potential to be a game-changer for the city’s already flourishing dining scene when it opens later this year. While other local chefs have put in time at renowned restaurants across the country, none have helmed such a high-profile kitchen over an extended period of time in the glare of the New York spotlight. And few have had the opportunity to rub shoulders on a regular basis
with superstar chefs like Thomas Keller and Daniel Boulud as Kaysen has, not only in his day job but also as head coach of the U.S. team competing in the Bocuse d’Or, the biennial culinary Olympics. Kaysen’s move back to Minneapolis is the culmination of a plan he set in motion 20 years ago, around the time he got his first restaurant job. “It’s been my goal since I was 15 years old to open up a restaurant,” he says. “I actually put an age limit to it, that I would do it by the time I was 35 years old.” He’s hitting it right on the nose: He just turned 35 this spring. George Serra, who hired a teenaged Kaysen away from a Subway shop to work as a line cook at Pasta Time in Edina, realized from the beginning that he had stumbled upon a natural talent. “The way he
natural talent Chef Gavin Kaysen has shined at Café Boulud and as head coach of the U.S. Bocuse d’Or team. artfullivingmagazine.com Artful Living
| Summer 2014
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