In The Kitchen With Chef Johannes Klapdohr – Schmackofatz!

This post is my first in a series of interviews with great American Chefs and my second in a series of special places in the Highlands, North Carolina area.
I had the privilege of spending more than half a day last week with Chef Johannes Klapdohr. He truly is one of the Great Chefs in America. Upon arriving in the U.S. (from Germany), he was assigned the position of Chef de Cuisine at Nikolai’s Roof in Atlanta in 1998. He quickly earned himself a place in the best 100 Restaurants in the U.S. by Zagat and the Mobile Four-Star awards in 2000 making it the only four-star restaurant in downtown Atlanta.
In 2004 he became the executive chef of The Lodge at Sea Island, the prestigious Mobil Five Star, AAA Five-Diamond hotel off the coast of Georgia. During his tenure, the Lodge became the # 1 small hotel in the U.S., including fine dining, and the # 1 golf hotel in the world in 2007.
After 25 years in hospitality, Chef Johannes collaborated with The Chef’s Garden, Inc. in Ohio, the leading sustainable farm in the country, as Executive Chef of the Culinary Vegetable Institute. There he promoted the importance of bringing farmers, chefs, and guests together focusing on the education of sustainability—not only in agriculture but as a lifestyle and successful business model through farm-to-table experiences.
He is now the executive chef at The Old Edwards Inn and Spa in Highlands, North Carolina since 2009. This beautiful hotel and its restaurant Madison’s offers a truly special dining experience. Old Edwards Inn is now the Condé Nast Traveler’s #1 Hotel Spa in North America for 2010 with the first-ever perfect score in the 20-year history of the reader’s survey.
I would like to share with you the incredibly interesting and honest discussion that I had with Johannes.
We have dined at Madison’s many times over a five-year period and were treated to a very special evening last year while celebrating my husband’s birthday. This is the first time we met Chef Johannes and we knew then that their choice for the executive chef was a perfect one. This man has to be one of the most engaging and passionate people I have ever met. Johannes truly loves being a chef and looks at cooking as a way of engaging people and making them happy. He believes that cooking and eating is very much a cultural experience that brings people together. He enjoys the interaction and can be found in the dining room frequently visiting with guests. His goal is to touch people with his food and make them feel special.
He says that the core philosophy of his cuisine is “honest food.” At Madison’s, this would be considered an “elegant Southern, yet modern” style of cooking. He also creates menus for special events at The Old Edwards Farm and other locations at the resort, based on customer requests.
He primarily relies on fresh local produce and food sources as inspiration for his dishes as well as phone calls he may receive from fisherman overseas that can have something very special shipped to him within 24 to 48 hours. He looks at the quality of the product and the nutritional value as the most important aspects in creating his dishes.
Highland’s weather (which goes through all four seasons) allows Johannes to prepare dishes that are more seasonally appropriate as the seasons change. He gets excited when things begin to smell different as we move from Summer to Fall and into Winter. He loves being able to translate this to food. “If you have strawberries all year long with average taste it is not as exciting as looking forward to tasting that first beautiful strawberry of the season after nine months.”
Some of Johannes’ food philosophy comes in part from growing up in Germany. He gives examples like the French Paradox, where people create an event around food. Dinner consists of sitting down over long periods of time and eating small portions so diners digest their well-prepared food properly. This is combined with enjoying a glass or two of wine. It is proven that this way of eating is far healthier than having large portions of food. Johannes believes that we overeat in America because of the declining nutritional value in our foods. We keep eating because the refined products (sugar, flours, oils) do not give us the sensation of being satisfied. If there is no nutritional value, the brain does not recognize this as food and you are hungry again.
Johannes thinks Americans see food as secondary in the U.S., whereas it is a priority in countries like France, Spain, and Italy. He said that it was interesting to see young people drive up to a 3-star Michelin restaurant in France in an old, falling apart Peugeot while he was living in Europe. In the U.S., on the other hand, you might see someone drive up to McDonald’s in a Mercedes. Clearly, American values are different. We should take more time to enjoy our meals rather than asking for the check after the entrée is served and appreciate the food we eat much more than we do (especially if it is great food!).
Fabulous post would love to be there tasting these wonderful entree’s you look like your in food heaven!
What a great experience with Chef Klapdohr! Your lunch sounds terrific! We hadn’t been to Madison’s restaurant but we did stay and eat at the Lodge at Sea Island in 2007, I think, it was a fabulous time.
Me and my husband have been dinning at Madison’s for five years and we just love Chef Johannes!! His attention to using the best quality local foods show in every dish he prepares. Not only is each dish delicious it is also beautiful! He truly is one of the best additions to Madison’s! We share every special occassion with Chef Johannes at Madison’s and always look forward to birthdays, anniversaries, and just any occassion to go celebrate with Chef Johannes. In fact we will be celebrating Father’s day tonight at Madison’s and are looking forward to our dinning experience with Chef Johannas. He’s the BEST!
What a great post and exxperience for you! Thanks for sharing 🙂
Gwen – Fabulous interview and post! Chef Johannes reminds me of one of my favorite chefs here, who is also from Germany, Chef Martin Woesle of Mille Fleurs in Rancho Santa Fe. I love the look of Madison’s, with those gorgeous rock walls and view into the trees. Maybe John and I will have to stay at The Old Edwards Inn if we come visit 😉
hey, glad to know his philosophy of dining is very southern in nature, we do like to sit around and eat, and talk and make it an event… your scope and depth into Chef Johannes’ passion is just great and this post is just, well, schmackofatz!
Wow Gwen, what a great post! I kept nodding my head as I read along.
Mr. RGBistro and I just took pledge to go mostly vegetarian… for 30 days… because we know we need to cut a lot of meat out of our diets. Not only is it better for us, it’s better for the planet. 🙂 So 30 days… of mostly plants, and some seafood. 🙂 No meat.
Wish us luck.
Back to Chef Johannes – I love his philosophy. Something to think about as we create our community bistro!
[K]
I had the pleasure of dining at Sea Island Lodge numerous times while Chef Klapdohr was the Executive Chef. The freshness of his selections and wonderfully flavorful foods makes for a memorable evening of dining. Thanks for sharing Chef’s deep concern for nutrition, the environment and the food we eat. It’s great to have a food blogger that reaches to understand the philosophy of the masters rather than just coming up with new recipes for us to try. I love the mix of your cooking, locations and interviews, and your photographs are almost good enough to eat.
Marvelous post. Sounds like such an intereting day with a professional chef. Kudos to Mr. Bunkycooks for some fantastic photos.
Be well…
I read your article on the Lick Log Mill as well. I have to schedule a trip to Highlands. It sounds like such a interesting place with great food and places to stay.
Most of us think that chefs are only worried about how the food is presented and how it tastes. It’s nice to know there are chefs out there (I don’t know how many) that are also concerned about the nutrition and ecology.
Dear Gwen – What a treat! What a marvelous culinary experience. I so enjoyed reading the great philosophy behind the food. You look like you are in heaven and I can see why 🙂
Can’t wait for more in the series from you!
Ciao, Devaki @ weavethousandflavors
AMEN! “…we tend to implement extremes rather than use common sense and that this is the problem. We all need some fat, especially good fats.” GREG
What a fantastic experience for you. The food looks incredible! I love the seafood dish. So colorful!
Such an inspiring post Gwen – congrats! loved the pics and seriously, felt like I was right there!! We eat mostly vegetarian and have for about a year now – it really is better for our bodies but we also know it’s better for our environment so it’s a win-win for everyone!
Gwen
what a lovely day you had …….the pics are great! what a wonderful tour you took us all on! How lucky you were to be able to spend so much time with such an honored chef.
Cheers
Dennis
Excellent post! Food looks amazing, and I am excited that there will be more to come:)
One of these days I’m going to point my car from Winston Salem to the southwest corner of the state and find you and you’re going to have to give me a personal tour of all these amazing places. I’m so very envious of your having spent the day with this wonderful chef. He appears to be a genuinely good person. Thank you so much for sharing this post with us.
Hallo Herr Klapdor!!
Es gab mal eine Zeit da durfte ich noch “Du” zu Ihnen sagen! Aber ich muss von vorn erzählen! Ich hatte die Ehre bei ihren Vater, der Mutter, der Großmutter (Eva) und dem Großvater in der Zeit von 1966 – 1969 den Beruf
des Koch`s zu erlernen. Diese Zeit hat mein anschließendes Leben sehr geprägt! Und 1968 wurden sie ja geboren.
Ich traue mich fast nicht zu fragen, wie es ihren Eltern geht? Übrigens ich war auch auf der Geburtstagsfeier anlässlich des 50`zigsten ihres Vaters. Ansonsten weiterhin viel Erfolg in dem Land der unbegrenzten Möglichkeiten. Und denErfolg scheinen sie zu haben!!