Chef Adam Stacy

THE INN AT NEWPORT RANCH

Throughout the past year, disconnected from the structures that frame our lives, many of us dreamed of leaving the scaffolding behind. Chef Adam Stacy and his fiancée, Alena Rozanski, a pastry chef, did just that.

Smart move.

Where the duo found their next perch, the Inn at Newport Ranch just north of Fort Bragg, is a far cry from New York City, where they met, and San Francisco, the first place they landed in their westward migration. The Inn holds a kind of quiet space that allows you to listen to the subtler voices of wind and sea. In our tour of the property, which included a delightfully bumpy four-wheel ramble, the Inn’s General Manager Blair Foster took us through some of the 25 miles of walking trails. “There’s no cell service, so I would love to get a GPS tracker on every guest.” It does seem the best kind of place to get lost.

The Inn’s owner, Will Jackson, a 93-year-old New Yorker who still swims half a mile every day, is a preservationist, committed to leaving most of the property in its wild state. It’s a nature lover’s dream. In contrast, the Inn itself is an elegant and eclectic take on Craftsman, with many of the classic arts-and-crafts metal- and woodwork finishes, alongside modern cement and plexiglass floor tiles. Every detail appears well considered, beautiful and often made from on-property resources. “We certainly never need to buy wood,” Foster said, as we looked out on the forested hillside.

When Foster took over as GM a little over a year ago, she took special interest in the Inn’s culinary program. In hiring Chef Stacy, she believed she had found someone with the necessary level of skill, and leadership, to bring the food into harmony with the space.

Stacy grew up in Indianapolis. His parents were busy, but adamant about family dinner every night. Stacy says he helped a bit, but didn’t get the cooking bug until he worked at a pizza joint in high school. It bit him hard, and he decided to go to culinary school. Knowing he needed experience, when his family moved to Long Island he Googled “best Long Island restaurant” to apply for a job. A traditional French restaurant called Mirabelle came up. He says he instantly loved it, despite starting as a dishwasher. He worked his way up to porter, then garde manger. Within a year, Stacy was on the line working hot appetizers.

Though the Culinary Institute of America at Hyde Park then required two years cooking experience for enrollment, Mirabelle’s recommendation was enough to ensure him a spot shy of that milestone.

When it was time for an externship, Stacy scored a stage at Gramercy Tavern in Manhattan. “That was culture shock. Big time,” recalls the chef. He found a loft apartment on Craigslist that turned out to be more of a crawl space with a mattress. He had to climb through a window to get into the bathroom. “It was a great introduction to being a young cook in New York.”

Working under Mike Anthony at Gramercy Tavern sharpened his abilities. “Cooking over an open fire with 400 people crowded around the bar, doing 200-plus covers every 90 minutes, was so fun. I learned to make simple, delicious food without recipes,” he said. He put off finishing school for another six months and stayed at Gramercy.

After culinary school graduation, with a good word from Chef Anthony, Stacy found a position working for the Thomas Keller Restaurant Group. He was initially offered a position with Keller’s Bouchon Bakery & Café in New York, but he told them he was holding out for Per Se, the group’s ambitious fine-dining restaurant in the city. No openings were available, so they talked him into getting to know the “Thomas Keller way” at Bouchon. After a few days at Bouchon, Stacy started showing up at Per Se on his days off—to learn and assist. He was quickly hired and working the hot line within a week, which was “a pretty intense situation,” he recalled. He moved up to executive sous chef and developed other projects with the group, including turning the wine storage room at Per Se into a to-go bistro.

At the same time, Stacy had been following San Francisco chef Joshua Skenes on social media. “I hadn’t tasted half the ingredients they were using,” he told me. Skenes’ Saison is famous for wood-fired preparations, as well as its heated culture. “Sometimes a dish was simply the main ingredient with salt, pepper and acid, cooked over fire. So there’s nowhere to hide. It was a fun, rock-and-roll place, but it was not a place to learn. It was a place to refine.”

To illustrate his point, Stacy recounts a tale of former Gourmet Editor in Chief Ruth Reichl coming to Saison one night. “Chef [Skenes] had just recently killed a bear. He’s a big hunter. And he’s, like, ‘We’re going to cook a bear paw for her.’ I’ve just been promoted to sous chef, and my counterpart says, ‘Just put it on the fire, man.’”

Stacy left Saison and San Francisco to cook at Mendocino’s Harbor House Inn. While he found the location to be soulful, kitchen life was still fever-pitch. Executive Chef Matt Kammerer and team earned a Michelin star during Stacy’s tenure, but there was little time for anything besides cooking and sleeping. It was Kammerer who told Stacy about the opportunity at the Inn at Newport Ranch.

“I was actually very hesitant to take the job because it just sounded a little too good to be true. A month into it, I realized no one had really appreciated what could be done here.” COVID had upended the ritual of guests gathering in the dining room for meals, so GM Foster and Chef Stacy had the opportunity to find new rhythms. “I get to know guests and after a few nights I start to really cook for them.” The chef takes full advantage of the cattle raised on property, the Inn’s extensive culinary gardens and the abundant wild edibles in the area.

“It’s thoughtful,” says Stacy, “but not fussy. We threw the tweezers in the ocean.”

Cooking well is an attribute that can take you anywhere. If you have enough talent and hustle, you can show up in Manhattan and find work, you can cross the country and instantly become part of a culture and community. You can make something delicious from a last-minute delivery of jellyfish from the Monterey Bay Aquarium (ask Chef Stacy about this when you stay at the Inn). And, with a little luck, you might just end up at peace.

Edible Marin & Wine Country: What was the first meal you made that you were proud of?

CHEF ADAM STACY: Six months into culinary school, I returned home to visit my parents for my mother’s birthday. She requested roasted chicken with potatoes. At that time, the idea of roasting a whole chicken was a bit nerve-wracking. Was it going to be cooked all the way? Too dry? I followed the recipe from The French Laundry cookbook with extreme detail, and it came out perfectly. Since that day, if I’m able to celebrate with my mother on her birthday, she always asks for chicken.

EMWC: What was your favorite food as a kid?

Macaroni and cheese. I loved the box stuff.

EMWC: What food do you wish you loved?

Tongue. I always read delicious-sounding tongue dishes—for example, tongue pastrami. I’ve had it a few times, but it’s never won me over.

EMWC: What food do you love unreasonably much?

Cheeseburgers. I can’t go much more than a week without a burger and fries from somewhere. A chocolate malt shake is a perfect match.

EMWC: What is the most difficult cooking technique to do well?

When we have a stagier at the ranch, I always request that they roast a whole chicken, prepare some form of fish and make a traditional rolled omelet. I feel like these three dishes showcase a person’s cooking ability. While they seem simple, they demand significant skill to prepare well.

EMWC: What are you exploring in your kitchen now?

We are always exploring ways to bring out flavor in the simplest form. We often rely on fire and smoke to achieve this, seasoning with nothing more than salt, fat and acid. For us, time and temperature are really the largest variables. We continue to pursue perfect technique.