Every Day's an Adventure: Life (in and out) of a Rocky Mountain Kitchen
By the time the lights go down and the candles cast their light on Café Diva, everything is mise en place and ready for the fine dining restaurant's nightly performance. In the front of the house, it is show time when the first guests enter. Orders in hand, sommeliers and wait staff ferry bottles and plates from kitchen to table, sliding into the rhythm that will carry them all through the night.
In the back of the house, another dance is in progress, and in the close quarters of Café Diva's galley kitchen, the choreography is tight and efficient. Chef Kate Rench, in black chef pants and jacket, works with her team to plate each dish with an eye toward a balance of colors, flavors and height. If the halo of verjus vinaigrette seems to encircle the lemon, black lentil and burrata salad with an artistic flair, it is because Rench is an artist both in and out of the kitchen.
A ceramics major and ski team member at Colby-Sawyer, Rench shifted her focus from studio arts to culinary arts when she followed her sister to Colorado in 1998. The move to Steamboat fed her love of mountains and skiing, and she found work (and her future husband, Craig, a potter and woodworker) at the Ceramics Design Group. Restaurant gigs in Steamboat Springs and Boulder supported her ceramics work, but then Rench found a creative outlet in cooking strong enough to stake its own claim.
“I always ended up trading my shifts to cook instead of having to work front of the house,” said Rench. “I really enjoyed it. I asked my mother what she would think of me going to culinary school, and she said, 'I think that is the best idea you've ever had.'”
Three years in New York City yielded a diploma from the French Culinary Institute and an internship and job at the legendary restaurant Jean-Georges, holder of three Michelin stars, plus corporate experience that pulled her out of the kitchen to supervise a large-scale prepared foods department at Baldacci's, a gourmet food market. “When I went corporate, I missed the banging of pans and screaming of tickets and the whole feeling of making it through the night,” said Rench. “I missed the camaraderie of the kitchen and how it keeps you going. All I wanted to do was be back in the kitchen.”
Flying back over the mountains to visit her sister and new niece in Steamboat in 2001, for Chef Rench, the feeling of coming home was too strong to deny. She landed at Café Diva and has been there ever since. Rench became a business partner in 2004, and the year after that she bought into the place.
Café Diva is a 65-seat, fine-dining American fusion romantic getaway at the base of the Steamboat Ski Area, 160 miles northwest of Denver. The menu changes with the seasons, and wine dinners are popular. It is regarded as the best restaurant in Steamboat Springs, and Rench's curiosity, born of her sense of adventure, is the most important ingredient in all the dishes.
“All my dishes are creative. What drives me is to make them fun and interesting, not just a plate of food,” said Rench. “I like to take a classic recipe and twist it up or find something that I'm curious about, so I put it on the menu and make it. I read a lot of cookbooks and have every cooking magazine possible sent to me to keep up with trends. I always want to try something new.”
While Rench has to outsource most of her ingredients, summer brings a bounty of Colorado peaches and corn as well as other local products she includes in the menu and in an August farm-to-table dinner. The same mountains that attract visitors to Steamboat Springs can jeopardize her supply lines, though.
“I can't stock more than I need on a daily basis, so it's hard in winter,” said Rench. “I'm usually up in the morning watching the news if there's a storm coming. If I hear highways are closed, I'm at the grocery store first thing to buy ingredients.”
To be a good cook, said Julia Child, you have to have a love of the good, a love of hard work, and a love of creating. Life in the restaurant business can mean up to 80-hour weeks in the busy summer and ski seasons, always dealing with the unexpected, and solving problems. A product order coming in wrong is inevitable, but Rench has more to contend with: Hot-water heaters go on the fritz; sink faucets snap off; ovens fail; electricity shuts off; and, sometimes, employees quit in the middle of a shift. “It's always something,” said Rench. “I've learned to be plumber, electrician—whatever's needed.
The daily surprises make it hard to get away for long periods of time, even when “Top Chef” comes calling. Rench turned down the chance to appear on the popular television show because they would have needed her for at least six weeks, plus time for promotional events.
“I just couldn't do that, but to be asked was pretty cool,” said Rench. “The day I would have had to go down and interview with them, we got 32 inches of snow overnight. It was the best powder day ever, and I was pretty happy with my decision to pass.”
While “Top Chef” may have recognized Rench's superstar status in the kitchen, she makes no bones about the fact that the restaurant's success depends on more than anyone person's role.
“In sculpture, it's really just you and the piece. In the kitchen, it's more about how all the pieces come together. You can have four people forming one dish, so being a team is a huge part of this restaurant,” said Rench. “It's not the front of the house versus the back of the house; we all make it happen. It is all about team playing, what you start with and what you end with, and at the end of the night, just enjoying your coffee and being satisfied with the service.”
If the thing Rench likes most about being a chef is seeing and hearing how her patrons enjoyed eating at Café Diva, then, long hours aside, her schedule is a close second. Every day, she gets out for a few hours to enjoy the beauty of Colorado before going into work.
When the sun rises over the Rockies and the hours stretch out before the restaurant beckons, it's time for Rench to hit the trail, and it doesn't matter what kind: Snowboarding and skiing, both cross-country and telemark, fill her winter months; hiking and biking the summer and fall.
“I do a lot of my thinking on my bike or on a hike. I'll think of recipes or things to do when I'm outside,” said Rench. “Enjoying nature inspires me. I have a very supportive and loving husband, and two dogs, and we have a very good life. The restaurant is my family; all the boys and girls who work in the kitchen are my children.”
And soon, it's time to head back to that kitchen, where Rench knows that food is just another way to create adventure.
-by Kate Seamans, senior director of College Communications
-Reporting and Photos by Michael Seamans.
Colby-Sawyer College is a comprehensive college that integrates the liberal arts and sciences with professional preparation. Founded in 1837, Colby-Sawyer is located in the scenic Lake Sunapee Region of central New Hampshire. Learn more about the college's vibrant teaching and learning community at www.colby-sawyer.edu.
Colby-Sawyer College, 541 Main Street, New London, N.H. 03257 (603) 526-3000
