Specialty Of The House: The Laundry

What happens when an old favorite like the Laundry gets a new chef? Very little, loyal patrons will be happy to know. That isn't to say the new chef, Rob Rawleigh, doesn't have ideas of his own, but, having filled just about every role from dishwasher to sous chef at the restaurant, he also knows that longtime customers expect consistency.

"I subtly include my own influences," he said, noting that big changes to the familiar menu could equal a few unhappy customers. Some regulars, for example, know the menu so well, they'll call in the afternoon before coming to dinner to ask if there's liver meatloaf that evening.

Dennis MacNeil, the former executive chef at the restaurant and Mr. Rawleigh's first culinary mentor, made sure everyone in the kitchen understood they were there to give the customers what they want.

"I think we're going to have fun building on the reputation the Laundry already has," said Mr. Rawleigh.

The sous chef before taking the reins from Mr. MacNeil, he admits that settling into the new position isn't without its rough spots. First, the 1990 graduate of East Hampton High School is probably the youngest person in the kitchen, and second, he works with some of the same crew members who've been there since he was a prep cook or busboy.

The crew has a different rapport with each other than with the chef. "It's tough to work with a chef on the line," he explained, and he's a very hands-on part of the kitchen, working on the line five nights a week.

But now he's wearing the chef's hat and calling the shots. "I'm maturing into it," he said of his new role.

"I don't consider myself executive chef, I'm chef du cuisine," he said modestly. "I think the higher position I achieve the more humble I become about it."

Mr. Rawleigh has been at the restaurant on and off since he was 17, but even when he first came to the Laundry, he had already worked in kitchens for almost three years. It was sort of an early calling.

In his first two-and-half-year stint there, he helped with grounds work, washed dishes, bused tables, made pies, "just about everything short of bartending and waiting because I was too young." After Mr. MacNeil became the executive chef, he took note of Mr. Rawleigh's talent and sent him to train under Matthew Tivy at the newly renovated Maidstone Arms.

"Dennis knew it was more upscale, had a little more finesse. He wanted to help me learn from other people and Matthew was very highly regarded."

Plans for culinary school were put on the back burner when he got the opportunity to spend a month in a Michelin star French restaurant in Amsterdam. He was in the kitchen constantly, one of the few there who didn't speak French. He'd go home at night and study everything on the menu so he could understand when orders were called out.

At the end of an intense month, which he "almost regrets" wasn't longer, he returned to the Maidstone Arms and made his way from garde mangier to sous chef under Jim Litman. "I chose life experience over schooling," Mr. Rawleigh said. His choice seems to have served him well.

After a brief stay at the famed Aureole in Manhattan, under Charlie Palmer, he came back to the Maidstone Arms. The city got him down. "Six days a week, 14 hours a day underground. I wasn't happy."

He took his first vacation ever. "I had just worked, worked, worked," he said, laughing about all the parties he probably missed in high school. With time away from the kitchen, however, he decided he just wasn't happy doing anything else. "I knew this was where I was supposed to be."

He returned to the Laundry in part because he knew he could learn a lot about the business side of the restaurant from Mr. MacNeil.

There is something well-tuned about the Laundry that he is proud to be a part of, too. "The entire crew is working together. . .they have a personal investment in the place, they want to make it better all the time."

As for his part in that, Mr. Rawleigh encourages everyone to taste everything, to know what's wrong and how to fix it. He, the general manager, or the manager will often sit down and eat at the end of the night, "so I know my crew is putting it out the way I designed it."

"Taste is everything, and it's important to me that my crew like it. I always ask them that. Do you like it? I want them to educate their own palate."

Pear Salad With Saga Blue Cheese

And Toasted Walnut Halves

Ingredients:

4 very ripe Comice pears

1 bunch baby arugula

1 bunch upland cress

1 head Belgian endive

1 cup walnut halves

4 oz. Saga Blue cheese

1 oz. sherry vinegar

3 oz. walnut oil

Remove stems from the baby arugula and upland cress. Wash them well twice, then dry. Remove the core from the endive and fine julienne the leaves.

Place the walnuts on a sheet pan in the oven at 375 for about five minutes.

Cut Saga cheese into bite-size squares. Set aside.

Whisk walnut oil into sherry vinegar, season with salt and pepper. Mix cress, arugula, and endive strips in a bowl with the vinaigrette.

Place a bed of greens in the center of each plate and put a hollowed-out pear in the middle of them. Fill the pear with the remaining greens. Sprinkle the cheese squares and toasted walnuts decoratively around the plate.

Serve with cracked black pepper, if desired.

Serves four.