Taste
CUISINE
CHEF CONVERSATIONS In the kitchen with Rochelle Daniel of Fat Ox
Rochelle Daniel serves as executive chef at Fat Ox and focuses her menu on contemporary, hearty fare with bold flavors from throughout rural Italy.
BY ALISON BAILIN BATZ / PHOTO BY DEBBY WOLVOS
You made some impressive stops before Fat Ox – tell us a few. After first getting into the kitchen at age 15 and then taking on the Scottsdale Culinary Institute, I decided to go into what was named the hardest kitchen to work in by Food and Wine magazine: Zinc Bistro, where, eventually, I earned the chef de cuisine role. I then traveled to Sedona to be the executive chef at L’Auberge de Sedona, where I helped rebrand and rename both concepts at the resort, Etch Kitchen & Bar and Cress on Oak Creek, before making my way back to Chef Matt Carter at his newest baby, Fat Ox. But you look familiar from more than just the kitchen. I recently appeared on Food Network’s Chopped Grill Masters. While the show aired in August, we filmed it in freezing New York City in April. Imagine being outside, on national TV for the first time, and grilling in front of all those people and cameras having no idea what you’re cooking. No pressure or anything! Yet that’s not your biggest cooking adventure to date? Nope! That would have to be when I was invited to cook at the Epcot International Food & Wine Festival at Walt Disney World a few years ago. Not only was it the experience of a lifetime, but I was also able to bring my family for all the behind-the-scenes Disney fun. What’s your favorite thing to cook now that it’s getting cooler? I love cooking fish – especially the process of breaking down the whole fish to developing a recipe based on its delicacy, flavor profiles, and even where it was caught. If I could, I would go out and catch it, too! Any foods you hate to eat or cook? In my opinion, thick-cut raw onions overpower everything. Fat Ox, 6316 N. Scottsdale Road, Scottsdale; 480.307.6900; www.ilovefatox.com.
So Scottsdale! November ‘17
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