Some people seem to wedge more life into their life. Robert Price, executive chef at Mill Valley’s Buckeye Roadhouse, is one of those people. Every chapter seems to accordion outward, filled with adventures, friends and a vigorous pursuit of passions.
When we sat down together, I began by asking him how he got his start in the kitchen. “My parents were never home, so if we wanted to eat after school my brother or I had to figure out how to put food on the table. I was not really into it; it just became second nature.
“In England, they want you to figure out what you want to do for the rest of your life when you’re 15, so there was this rudimentary computer algorithm that would tell you what you’d be good at. I think gunsmith came out. I was bewildered.
“I did love art and music. Those are two things that have carried through my life. But I really didn’t know what to do. My mum said, ‘Well, you kind of like cooking.’ So I left high school in 1983 and went straight in full time to learn how to cook, enrolling in a culinary school in Bath. At the age of 16, they gave us sharp knives and fire …
“At the end of two years, I went to London and was hired at the Capital Hotel in Knightsbridge, which had a Michelin star. I was there for a little over three years. The chef was Brian Turner, a big celebrity chef at the time. There was definitely a turn in England in the mid-’80s when the food scene was changing. Gordon Ramsey was coming up. I was starting right on the cusp.
“My gal at the time had a brother in New York, and I went with her when she went to visit him in 1990. I wanted to play music and she told me that the ‘real place for music’ was LA. We got to Port Authority in New York City on a Friday evening and immediately got on a Greyhound bus to LA. It cost $99 and I think I had $200 to my name. No credit cards. I thought LA was a day trip … It took three. I can still smell that cleaner they put in the bathroom at the back of the bus.
“I remember looking up and there’s the Hollywood sign and thinking I had made it. I played music at night and cooked in the daytime. I literally went around to the restaurants in Venice Beach looking at their menus, to see where I wanted to work. I took a job working at West Beach Cafe for Bruce Marder. He is known as being one of the pioneers of California cuisine in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s. It was Alice Waters up here and him down in Southern California. It was cool that I got to be immersed in that for three years.
“I started at, like, $3.75 an hour on the pantry station. I’d come from the Michelin star restaurant in London, but Bruce’s policy was that you had to start at the bottom and work up. I probably learned more from him in the first six months than I had learned in my whole career up until then. It was like someone had taken away the dark glasses—the colors and freshness of the food were things I had never seen before. In six months, I became the executive chef. The prior chef just walked in one day with a stack of cookbooks and put them on the table and said, ‘It’s all yours.’ Bruce came in later that morning and he’s, like, ‘Oh, Mr. Opportunity.’”
Did you experience culture shock coming from London to Los Angeles? “West Beach Cafe was iconic. I met Tom Hanks, Steven Spielberg, Jack Nicholson. We did parties for Angelica Huston. I sat down with Andy Summers from the Police for a good two hours and also got to meet Paul Stanley from Kiss. I will never forget him telling me that no matter where you are in your career, it’s always a challenge. I cooked breakfast for Dennis Hopper every Saturday morning and we would chat and share baby pictures.”
In 1993, Robert moved back to England for personal family reasons, but says he found that the food quality there just wasn’t the same.
He said yes the next year when the opportunity came to move back to the U.S., this time to the Bay Area, to open a restaurant just off Union Square in San Francisco. “I remember getting off the airplane, going straight to the kitchen and single-handedly cleaning it myself with a gallon of Simple Green,” he recalls.
“Soon after we opened Rumpus, SF Chronicle food critic Michael Bauer gave us a three-star review and there was a line around the block. Bauer named me one of that year’s ‘rising star chefs,’ and there were articles in Gourmet. SF Mayor Willie Brown Jr. would come in. Herb Caen [longtime SF Chronicle columnist] told me if I put ‘spotted dick’ on the menu he would write about us and he kept his word. I think the restaurant would still be around today, but we had a major fire and couldn’t reach an agreement with our landlord to renew our lease.”
“My first job with the Real Restaurant Group was opening Verbena in downtown Oakland. That was fun and we received three stars from Bauer there, too. In 2001, I was offered the chef‘s position at the group’s Buckeye Roadhouse. Still here.
“In 2005, I helped open the group’s Bungalow 44, also in Mill Valley. Then Bar Bocce in Sausalito in 2011. I also help occasionally at Fog City Diner San Francisco, which is also part of Real Restaurants. I’m literally a workaholic. I just love making people happy. And the buzz of the restaurant. And the other partners of Real Restaurants and I really work well together.”
Known for his fashion-forward red clogs, the chef is also a guitarist in a “full-on ‘70s” rock band, an avid cyclist logging close to 100 miles each week, an artist and a photographer.
“I’m a super happy guy that loves music, loves food, loves to cook. I’m 56 years old and I’ve just always been like this.”
Marissa LaBrecque is the principal at Hyperflore Brand Strategy + Storytelling.
EDIBLE MARIN & WINE COUNTRY:
What was the first meal you made that you were proud of?
ROBERT PRICE:
It has to be a birthday cake I made when I was about 10 years old.
What was your favorite food as a kid?
Bread and butter pudding that my mum made. It is on the menu at Bar Bocce.
What food do you wish you loved?
Avocado, believe it or not
What food do you love unreasonably much?
Ribeye steak
What is the most difficult cooking technique to do well?
Cooking eggs perfectly
What are you exploring in your kitchen now?
A new vegetable crudite using ingredients foraged from our restaurant hillside, including miner’s lettuce
What non-culinary influence inspires you?
Japanese culture
What is your idea of a very healthy meal?
Salmon filet with crispy skin over roasted broccolini, with garlic and EVOO
What is your favorite ingredient?
Espelette pepper
What is your favorite hangover meal?
Burger
What restaurant in the world are you most dying to try?
Geranium in Copenhagen or Pujol in Mexico City
What kitchen utensil is most indispensable to you?
Microplane
Whom do you most like to cook for?
My customers
If you could do one other job, what would it be?
I’m doing it!
What is your favorite midnight snack?
Ice cream
What most satisfies your sweet tooth?
Ice cream
What would you eat at your last meal, if you could plan such a thing?
Japanese omakase
What’s your favorite place to go (and what is your favorite thing to order) for …
… a splurge meal?
Omakase in San Francisco
… breakfast?
Straus yogurt with really great granola and fresh berries
… pastry?
Arsicault Bakery in San Francisco for kouign-amann
… a late night/after work meal?
Nopa in San Francisco for a burger
… a cup of coffee?
I don’t drink coffee
… a greasy-spoon meal?
Country breakfast at Cinderella Bakery in San Francisco
… groceries?
My wife, Liz, keeps us in stock.
… kitchen equipment?
Sharp knives and a really good butcher block
… ice cream?
Malted Vanilla from Bi-Rite Ice Cream or Malted Milk Chocolate from Humphry Slocombe
… chocolate?
Feve in San Francisco
And lastly but not leastly … what is your favorite local wine or beer for the season?
Honig Sauvignon Blanc is a staple in our house.
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