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Dmitry Elperin’s TV-viewing habits as a child were hardly what you’d call typical: While most kids get revved up weekend mornings on action-packed cartoons, young Dmitry watched culinary programs.
Decades later, Mr. Elperin’s performance in the kitchen is also far from typical. In October, it was announced that the restaurant where the 38-year-old chef practices his impressive art — the Village Pub in Woodside — has won a star in the 2010 Michelin restaurant guide.
A Woodside institution that remains popular and lively despite the economic downturn, the Pub was one of only four Bay Area restaurants south of San Francisco to win the single-star honor.
The Pub also won a star — its first ever — in the 2009 guide. The review in that guide cites the restaurant’s “irresistible rustic fare,” and declares the food “California cooking at its best.”
Mr. Elperin will celebrate his third anniversary as the Pub’s executive chef next March. He’s come a long way from the land of his childhood to arrive on the local culinary scene — about 5,800 miles, in fact. But parallels between his early food-related experiences and his professional life today make it clear why he feels at home in the Bay Area, and at the Village Pub.
Growing up in Minsk, Belarus, Mr. Elperin was decisively influenced by his grandfather’s cooking, which emphasized the seasonal foods the family grew just outside their house. “The garden was the primary source of cooking, and the produce-driven (style of cooking) was my education,” he explains.
When he was 9 years old, the family moved to Madison, Wisconsin, where the tradition of a home garden continued and his mother played a bigger role in helping young Dmitry develop his kitchen skills.
Both his grandfather and his mother “expressed creativity in the kitchen,” he says, and he was eager to grab the wooden spoon, the skillet and the kitchen knife before he was 10. By age 12, he says, he was actively helping in the kitchen, and two or three years later, he regularly took charge of preparing the family meal.
During this time, he was developing his own style. “I put two and two together” in coming up with his dishes, he says. “It was comfortable to be in the kitchen.”
His kitchen is much larger these days, and the people benefiting from his culinary skills are much greater in number, but one thing that hasn’t changed is the emphasis on fresh, locally grown produce on the menu. In fact, in recent years the Pub has developed a farm-to-table cuisine through a partnership with a five-acre organic farm in the hills above Woodside.
“Much of the produce (the Pub serves) comes right from the soil to the truck to the restaurant,” Mr. Elperin says, adding that the truck runs on biodiesel. On the menu this season are dishes that incorporate the farm’s leafy greens, broccoli raab, carrots, Brussels sprouts and other winter crops. Mushrooms are brought in by local foragers, he says.
The Pub, the flagship restaurant of Bacchus Management Group, is also becoming increasingly self-sufficient in other areas: It gets its bread from Mayfield Bakery in Palo Alto, also part of the Bacchus group; charcuterie is made in-house; and Bacchus roasts its own coffee for its restaurants, which includes Spruce in San Francisco.
“I’m very proud to be in this company,” Mr. Elperin says.
The road West
Mr. Elperin graduated from the highly regarded Culinary Institute of America in New York before beginning his career working for Mark Miller at Red Sage in Washington, D.C. He gained valuable experience there, but headed west after about four years. “One of the reasons I’m here in California is that I saw all this produce coming to (the East) from California — the best and the freshest produce,” he says.
Once here, he worked at Sans Souci in Carmel and Hawthorne Lane in San Francisco. He returned to New York to work for Daniel Boulud, whose restaurant Daniel in New York City just won a three-star Michelin rating.
But San Francisco had won his heart, and he returned. It was a chance meeting with the Village Pub’s then-executive chef and current partner Mark Sullivan that led Mr. Elperin to Woodside, where he took over the Pub’s kitchen. He has complete control over the menu, he says, and he enthusiastically approaches the challenge of making that menu conform to the seasons.
“It’s not difficult — it motivates me,” he says. “It’s important to be true to the seasons.” That means the food “is not trend-driven — it’s solid, fundamental cooking,” he emphasizes.
His cooking, he says, is deeply rooted in the French classical style. “French classical cooking is something that is important to me and should be for every cook in our industry.
“You need to have an understanding of the basics in order to take your cuisine to the next level of creativity. If you don’t have the basic training or fundamental understanding of how ingredients work with one another, then how can you create or be creative?”
His menu changes often, not only to accommodate the changing crops of the seasons, but to satisfy patrons who return often to the Pub. “My role at the Pub is to provide an experience that evokes memories,” he says.
“I create dishes and change the menu often so that our guests come back with a sense of excitement and anticipation.”
The food
On a recent chilly night, the dining room was warm and buzzing with a full house of diners, many of whom appeared to be regulars. My partner and I were there to see what the buzz — and the Michelin star — were all about. By the end of the meal, we understood.
Beginning with the sauteed crispy sweetbreads with poached egg, black truffle jus and celery cream, we agreed that of all the sweetbread appetizers we’ve tried — and they’ve been many — nothing has surpassed this one. The meat was slightly crisped but perfectly tender, and floated in a frothy broth whose flavor was enriched by the egg yoke once it was pierced.
The seared duck breast was served on a bed of toasted farro with crimson turnips and date chutney. The maple brined grilled rack of pork was served with speck-wrapped braised Belgian endive, roasted gamboni mushrooms and caramelized diced quince. In both dishes, all the ingredients worked harmoniously, and their preparation brought out the best of their fresh and scrumptious flavors.
Dessert was beautiful and delicious: a plate meticulously arranged with tiny poached pears, a pistachio genoise, and a goat cheese fritter.
What’s ahead
Mr. Elperin says he’d eventually like to open his own restaurant. For now, though, he’s happy to keep his creative juices flowing and patrons coming back at the Pub, located on Woodside Road, between Whiskey Hill and Canada roads.
When asked if he could share any stories about cooking projects or experiments that went wrong, he looked slightly perplexed. What? Even Michelin-star chefs must have had a few kitchen disasters, right?
No. “I’ve been fortunate to be in the company of great chefs,” he says after a pause. His approach to food has been studied and deliberate “since I was a kid — there’s no guessing, it’s all precise,” he says.
“You know what will work, and what won’t.”
INFORMATION
The Village Pub is at 2967 Woodside Road in Woodside. For information, call 851-9888, or go to thevillagepub.net.
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