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| Kevin Sloan. Photo by Adam Ryan Morris. |
What would you cook for a 10-time Grammy winner? Or the biggest sitcom star of the ’90s?
Kevin Sloan, former owner of Walker’s Point’s groundbreaker The Social, contemplates such questions in his latest endeavor – cooking for the headliners at the Pabst and Riverside theaters.
In the case of award-winning musician Norah Jones, Sloan did an “international and offbeat” spread: grilled lamb loin skewers with Lebanese couscous, seared sesame beef with soba noodles, and olive oil-poached Norwegian salmon with rice tabbouleh. Jones smiled with pleasure. “This definitely isn’t a taco bar,” she told her boyfriend.
For Mark Knopfler, Sloan cooked shrimp étouffée and New York strip steaks. After dinner, the Dire Straits frontman and known food enthusiast popped into the kitchen to discuss the fiddlehead ferns Sloan had prepared. “Probably one of the most in-depth conversations I’ve had on food with a musician,” he says.
Sloan’s catering was “the best EVER in our history of touring the U.S.,” Knopfler later wrote on his blog.
Baby-boomer rocker Jackson Browne and the far younger members of Spoon both had menus including Sloan’s lobster mac and cheese with mascarpone, tarragon and spring peas. The approach was more Asian for cellist Yo-Yo Ma, with Thai fish stew and grilled hoisin barbecued flank steak with marinated soba noodles.
Sometimes, the acts have their own demands (Jerry Seinfeld requested “fish and rice,” which Sloan spiced up by steaming it in ginger-lemongrass tea and preceding it with matzo ball soup), but mostly he has a free hand to create within the confines of the performers’ budgets, which could range anywhere from $200 for a dinner for six to $1,500 for something larger.
When Kathy Griffin did her schtick at the Riverside, Sloan fed 40 people, including the Bravo TV crew that filmed the potty-mouthed redhead’s performance. For Food Network star Guy Fieri’s circuslike show at the Pabst, Sloan was actually the opening act. “Doing a cooking demo for over a thousand people was a real head trip,” he says.
Sloan’s boss, Gary Witt, sees this as a way to offer something “beyond the norm” and leave entertainers happier to perform here. It’s also a chance to showcase the city: Sloan often uses local ingredients like Nueske’s bacon.
Sloan does it all in a modest kitchen on the eighth floor of the Riverside Theater, with just a fridge, a four-burner electric stove with a flat-top and a tiny charcoal grill. He runs the food over to Pabst performers.
Sloan writes the menus, shops for ingredients and enlists the help of sous-chef
Loulou Griffin, who is also head chef at Wauwatosa’s Juniper 61. Pastry chef Julie Thorson makes all the desserts, including the cake presented to Witt while Wayne Coyne, the eccentric lead singer of The Flaming Lips, sang “Happy Birthday.”
Occasionally, Sloan’s industry buddies – like Roots Restaurant’s Paul Zerkel – will co-pilot a meal, especially when it’s a favorite like The Decemberists or Willie Nelson.
Despite the A-list guests, Sloan says he’s not intimidated by his cooking gig. After all, he even seemed to please Anthony Bourdain, the imposing chef-at-large, for his Riverside gig last year. Besides a cream of cauliflower soup with Carr Valley cheese, Sloan served a roast duck and grilled brat dish with pickled red cabbage and spaetzle. Afterward, Sloan says, “I wore a perma-grin for three hours.”
