Escoffier Questionnaire: Chefs Melissa and Sean McGaughey

QUAIL & CONDOR AND TROUBADOR, HEALDSBURG

Melissa and Sean McGaughey, owners of Healdsburg’s Troubadour and Quail & Condor, definitely share the madness that compels seemingly normal human beings to stay up all night and make hundreds of perfectly laminated pastries. They also share 2 children and 2.5 businesses.

Sean moved to Sonoma County to cook at SingleThread in Healdsburg before it opened and stayed through its Michelin-star ascendency. Melissa baked at SingleThread and then began their side hustle turned Healdsburg institution, Quail & Condor. The couple, both in their 30s, opened their second location—Troubadour Bread & Bistro, a sandwich shop cum restaurant—and are consulting chefs on the newly opened Molti Amici, in the former Campo Fina space.

Did you grow up in a food-focused family?

Melissa: I’m from LA. My mom made a lot of Filipino food.

My grandma was a cake decorator and my dad could make tuna casserole. He was the one who pushed me to go to pastry school in Colorado.

Sean: I grew up in Kansas, Nebraska and Colorado, the epicenter of nothing. There was wholesome cooking that I honestly took for granted. I got into cooking from “Great Chefs of the World” on PBS. There was this raspberry coulis with a glaze on it, and little toothpick hearts. And I was, like, “That’s what I want.” I figured out there was culinary school. Maybe through my dial-up internet. I came up with Johnson & Wales [University in Denver]. They had a degree that was college-level classes and culinary.

Melissa: I went there, too, but we met later.

Are your sons restaurant kids?

Melissa: They know where the treats are. Reed [5 years old] is happy to crack the eggs.

Sean: Danzig [3 years old], our younger one, loves cooking with me. He gets all up in it.

Tell us about your early days in the industry.

Sean: For me, it was a country club snack bar, by the pool. I had three parallels running in my life: BMX, punk rock and food. I toured with a punk rock band from 15 to 25, playing guitar and then drums. Then I got kicked out because I cooked too much.

At the snack bar, I immediately rose to the top and they brought me to the main banquet kitchen. I remember going home after my first shift and thinking about how I cut two buckets of potatoes. I still love reflecting on those very menial tasks.

After school, I moved to a ski resort with some friends. Just by chance, the job that I applied to was with a guy that was fresh out of Charlie Trotter’s. I learned so much. Then a chef recommended me to a place with his golfing buddy. And I landed there for eight or nine years, until I was a partner in the business.

What was that restaurant?

Sean: Oh, it doesn’t need a name. It was very fine dining. And, like, a little ’90s. Colorado was still catching up as a food scene. It was always a battle to not serve meat and potatoes.

Where did you start, Melissa?

Melissa: I ended up getting hired on at the restaurant where I did my externship and then stayed. It made me fall in love with the restaurant dynamic. I just love the camaraderie on the pirate ship. Somebody’s always there to bail you out. And I love the pranks.

We try to treat it like a restaurant at Quail & Condor. We’re still planning two days ahead in our brains but we’re selecting the right produce at the right ripeness. We have our Ratatouille moment every day. I created the dream job for 2012 Melissa.

After I finished school, I went to cook at a ramen place. That was my first “pastry chef ” job. That’s in air quotes because we only made one or two things. After three-plus years, I moved to this place called Mercantile, which was in the heart of downtown Denver, working for maybe the best chef in Denver, Alex Seidel.

Sean and I met at Mercantile. We had these games where whoever saw each other first had to yell the other person’s name. And then he mentioned that he was getting a divorce. I was getting out of a long relationship. We became roommates with two other guys and we lived in this house we called the Lonely Hearts Club. Sean and I had the same days off, so we really bonded and talked about food. The first couple seasons of “Chef ’s Table” came out and we would nerd out over that. I don’t think I realized that we were so in love.

I opened my first bakery in the spring of 2015. I called it La Fillette, “little girl,” because my boss at the ramen place called me that. I was 23. I got some really cool awards but I was ready to leave Denver.

Sean introduced me to Zach Golper at Bien Cuit in New York. I sold the bakery to someone who worked there. It was a pretty hardcore peace out.

Sean moved to Sonoma County. We were, like, half dating. I have these journals and I would mention him all the time, wondering how he was doing.

Sean: There was an explosion in the restaurant scene in Denver plus my own life explosion. I was around 30. I needed a hard reset. I called my best friend who was crushing it out here. He’s, like, “You would like it in California.” He did not dangle the carrot that long.

Melissa: I moved to New York and had an amazing time for, like, 10 months. And then it was too lonely. Sean came to visit me once and really solidified our relationship. I decided to at least move back to LA. I loved my time at Gjusta. It was my first real-deal Pastry Chef job.

And then we got pregnant pretty quick—three months into the job. I worked up until two weeks before I gave birth. Sean would come down twice a month, and I would fly up here once a month. He was there for every ultrasound and doctor’s checkup.

Sean: If you need to know about the first flight out of Santa Rosa, I’ve got you.

Melissa: And then I worked in SingleThread as the hotel baker for exactly a year.

Sean: I got here pretty early on in the life of SingleThread.

It was so small that Aaron Koseba, our chef, was going out to dive for sea urchin every week. It’s still evolving but there were some shapes that we created in those early days. We really fell in love with the community and the landscape.

How did Quail & Condor start?

Melissa: I needed some more flexibility because of our baby. I left SingleThread after realizing that the farmers’ markets were so fun and lucrative for us. But it was gnarly. I got pregnant again. If I write an autobiography it’s going to be called Blood, Sweat, and Amniotic Fluid. Sean would go to work from 11am to almost midnight. He would stay home with our son, Reed, while I would go to Trading Post in Cloverdale to make scones, do the bread and laminate croissants until about 6:30am, so there was time to break down and clean before they needed their kitchen back. And then I’d schlep everything in the car, go home and nap. Then Sean would set up at the market and I would take over so he could get to SingleThread to work until midnight again. And then we had our second baby. We pretty much did that for two years.

Sean: We needed room. So we took a chance on getting the space. And we had both owned something before. We knew we wouldn’t screw it up as hard. Lessons learned. We could cover rent from our farmers’ market sales, so it made sense. I always loved that a bakery is a quick way to experience a chef. It’s 10 bucks and five minutes. But I didn’t understand you’re really a part of daily life. All of a sudden, I have 500 names that I have to remember. It was super awesome. We were also doing the best guerilla marketing because we had built relationships before we ever opened our doors.

Melissa: Everybody’s backyard had Meyer lemons, or crazy varietals of oranges. And it just turned into this cyclical thing where we take it off their hands and turn it into something.