Dallas Food - Upscale Vegetarian: Q&A with David Uygur

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Upscale Vegetarian: Q&A with David Uygur
Posted on Sunday, January 20 @ 18:20:46 PST
Topic: Vegetarian

Chef David Uygur of Lola graciously agreed to respond to some e-mailed questions about his approach to vegetarian cooking. On to the questions...

Q: I've read that you were a philosophy major before going to culinary school. What prompted the change in direction?

Uygur: I have always been interested in cooking. I grew up in East Texas, but my father was Turkish, so the meals that I had as a kid weren't your typical southern food. My wife and I threw dinner parties in high school. When I went to college, the most interesting field for me was philosophy. After studying philosophy for a couple years, I realized that I could do the same thing with an undergrad degree in philosophy as I could with a high school diploma...fry things. So I came to my senses and decided to make a career out of my lifelong hobby.

Q: Of the chefs you've worked with or studied under, which have been the most influential and why?

Uygur: Scott Annand at Terra Cotta in Atlanta--he was a great leader...he knew his stuff, but really his strength was in getting the best out of his staff and the situation.

Kevin Gibson at Castagna in Portland---his knowledge of food, seasonality, and tradition opened my eyes to a completely different way of thinking about food. He owns the restaurant with his wife Monique and they both have discriminating palates and are fastidious with the details of owning and operating a restaurant.

Jim Halim at Angeluna--he is now my sous chef at Lola. I worked for him in Fort Worth and he was a great example to me of two things that I aspire to: he is unflappable and has wonderful food knowledge.

Q: For those who may not have dined at Lola, how would you describe your style of cooking?

Uygur: I would describe my style of food as heavily influenced by Italy and France, but I also use as many Texas ingredients as possible.

Q: When you're coming up with new menu items, where do you look for ideas and inspiration?

Uygur: Generally the ideas for new menu items are prompted by the change in seasons. My travels and reading books are also factors.

Q: Let's talk about vegetarian fine dining, The bottom of the menu at Lola states: "Vegetarian entrees available on request." How frequently do you get those requests?

Uygur: We get requests for vegetarian meals a couple times a week.

Q: What do you think vegetarians expect or hope for in a fine dining setting?

Uygur: In traditional fine dining restaurants, dishes are usually centered on a protein: smoked salmon salad, seared scallops, or grilled steak. That being the case, I would think that a vegetarian going into a traditional restaurant hopes a good portion of the menu would easily adapt to their dietary restrictions. Best case scenario: they hope for a whole vegetarian menu. But realistically speaking, they should expect a good selection of vegetables--side dishes and salads that are carefully and respectfully prepared. Unless a large portion of a restaurant's business is based on people that eat vegetarian or vegan, it doesn't make fiscal sense for most restaurants to plan entire menus around that approach to dining. It would require additional money spent on both labor and food that would be wasted.

Q: How much of your kitchen's response to vegetarian requests is based on advance preparation and how much on improvisation?

Uygur: It would be great to be able to plan special menus for customers that have dietary restrictions, but the truth of the matter is that very rarely are they forthcoming about all necessary aspects of their preferences. From what I understand, vegetarians eat vegetables, fruit, dairy, and eggs. Vegans eat nothing but vegetables, fruit, and grains, but no dairy, honey, cultivated mushrooms, or any other animal by-product.

It is a very rare case, indeed, that people who make these requests keep to one set of rules about dietary restrictions. I have had customers that say they are vegetarian, but eat chicken and fish. One customer said he was vegan and said that butter and cheese were fine additions to his meal.

We can plan a certain amount of their meal if a customer calls ahead; but generally customers change their minds or clarify their needs further when they actually sit down to eat. I instruct the waiters to find out what foods are verboten and work my way around.

Q: What's your thought process in creating a vegetarian entrée, as opposed to a salad or appetizer?

Uygur: Coming up with vegetarian dishes within the framework of fairly traditional French and Italian dishes can be challenging because truly vegetarian dishes in these highly developed food cultures are few. Generally speaking, the reason there are vegetarian dishes in these cultures evolved from the lack of meat rather than the choice not to eat it. That being said, I still try to incorporate some of the same components in the composition of a vegetarian dish that I do for one with meat--try to involve multiple tastes and textures, with respect to combinations that traditionally work well together. As for an entrée, a vegetarian protein replacement is relatively hard to come by. (Since we don't do Asian food at Lola, we don't have tofu, tempeh, or seitan sitting around to be tossed into a veggie stir fry.) Entrees are larger portions with a starch base (such as olive oil mashed potatoes, fresh pasta, or polenta) and with a variety of whatever vegetables we have in season that would make sense with the dish.

Q: How do you work with the waitstaff to make sure they understand and respond to the needs of vegetarians?

Uygur: The waitstaff is quite good about gleaning the exact dietary restrictions of a patron. Even when a customer calls ahead, the waiters know to show the customer the menu and find out what exactly the offending foodstuffs are. Once the waiter talks with the customer, I discuss what the issues are and we determine what substitutions or omissions can be made to existing menu items (while maintaining the integrity of the dish), or if a menu must be customized to fit the customer's dietary restrictions.

Q: Can a vegan get a good meal at Lola?

Uygur: The number of true vegans that have dined at Lola in the years that I have been there could be counted on one hand. However, with the format of the menu, the tasting room would be a good place to expand on a number of vegan dishes to fill out a well-balanced menu. Of course, my question would be, "Can a vegan get a good meal anywhere?" The idea of eschewing all meat is one thing, but throwing out milk, cheese, honey, and cultivated mushrooms (because some are grown with the use of animal by-products), without some religious reason, is ludicrous to me.

Q: Are you satisfied with the quality and variety of produce you're able to get for your kitchen?

Uygur: Summer in Texas affords us a great variety of fresh/local ingredients that are of very high quality. We are a seasonal restaurant. You won't find asparagus or tomatoes on our menu in January. Seasonality without locality doesn't make sense. The whole idea is that the less your vegetables have to travel, and the less they are handled, the better they are. Here in Dallas, we are forced to import much of the produce used in the winter. That is due to the fact that on the West coast they have much more favorable conditions for a longer growing season. I think that for many Texas farmers, winter vegetables aren't as much of a priority, so things like winter squashes have been relegated to the back burner. But, with more boutique gourmet farms popping up, I think that the whole seasonal and local thing is gradually catching on and our winter produce here in Texas is going to improve.

Q: Kind of out of left field, but I think I've had more pickled items at Lola than in all other Dallas fine dining restaurants combined. What role does pickling play in your cooking?

Uygur: I'm fascinated by the art of preservation. Because of refrigeration, canning, and rapid transportation of foodstuffs, we can get strawberries at any time of the year. But to me, that doesn't compare to the old way of having a strawberry in the winter--making a jam with local berries that were picked in season. Making pickles, jams, salting, drying, and smoking are all methods of preservation that affect the way food tastes, and they have remained popular through the ages because that effect is good. Cheese was just a way of keeping milk longer. Bacon, salami, and ham were just ways of making use of every part of the hog so there would be meat to eat in the winter.

Q: Do you do any gardening?

Uygur: Yes, I do. A few years ago, I brought back some vegetable seeds from a trip to Italy. (Yes, they were declared. And yes, it was legal at the time.) In the dead of summer, my cardoon and artichoke plants don't do so well; but they produce in the spring. I always have onions and garlic going. I grow the bronze fennel for the pollen and seeds. The basil does well, marjoram tends to run amok, lavender isn't the best in the summer...in other words, I've got all kinds of herbs, including funky ones like borage and sorrel. Last summer, I planted some chile Padron (a Spanish pepper) and paprika peppers.

Q: Does this mean we can expect to see homemade paprika in some dishes? Chorizo?

Uygur: The paprika peppers didn't produce many peppers last year, because of the lack of sun. I have however made my own chorizos--fresh and dry. I'll make another batch of dry next week that should be ready in a month or so.

Q: If you were to become a vegetarian, what animal would be hardest for you to give up and why?

Uygur: I think that for someone who has seen our menu change over time, it would be obvious: pork. Pork is easily the most useful meat, from head to foot, in applications both savory and sweet. I don't always use pork as the star of the dish, but its flexibility, flavor, and texture can improve many dishes. The ubiquitous starter for any meal in Italy is a plate of salted meats, primarily pork hams and sausages. Arista and porchetta are two of the most famous Italian fresh pork entrée preparations. Pancetta is everywhere in Italy. And be careful if you want a vegetarian meal in Italy. They may laugh, or they might not know what you are talking about and put some pancetta with your fagioli. A lard piecrust is delicious. We've even had bacon ice cream on our menu. There are restaurants in Spain that only prepare suckling pig. I didn't grow up eating much pork, since my father was Turkish; but as I learned more about food, I found out more about its flexibility and ubiquity in developed food culture.

Q: If you were to order vegetarian in a Dallas or Fort Worth fine dining restaurant other than your own, which one would it be and why?

Uygur: If I had to eat vegetarian in any other restaurant in DFW, I would probably go to York Street. Sharon Hage has a seasonal/local menu and a great touch with vegetables.