In The Show's Chef Talk series, we sit down with a chef each month — from fine dining rooms to nightclub kitchens — and find out what makes them tick. And today, we’ve got a big one: one of Phoenix’s few James Beard Award winners, Christopher Gross.
He largely grew up here in the Valley, left to work in some of Europe’s best restaurants and ended up coming back — at a time when he was the only one doing French fine dining in the Valley.
The Show sat down with him recently at his newest concept — Christohper's, a modern glass "greenhouse" of a restaurant at the Wrigley Mansion where it smelled like roasting pig as we chatted in the pristine dining room.
Full conversation
CHRISTOPHER GROSS: ... Tried to convince me Jello is just a popsicle without a stick. I wouldn't touch it. Thanksgiving and holiday dinners was for me, it was just the white turkey meat. And my grandmother would make something like noodles or thick pasta. And that's all I would eat.
But then here I was working in a steakhouse to make money. And when they opened up the Adams Hotel, I got into that and it was all Europeans in the hotel, mostly in the kitchen and I'm seeing food I've never seen before and I started tasting it and I started really enjoying it. And I'm 17, 18 and I realized, I got to find a career. No one's gonna pay for me.
LAUREN GILGER: That's great. OK. But I'm interested in your take on Phoenix because you came here kind of as a kid and, and you know, left and came back as a chef. I wonder why you came back, especially at the time. Like Phoenix must have been not much of anything of that?
GROSS: There's a lot of people who prefer I didn't. So when I was looking to come back, I was here working found a passion for cooking at 17, but I was working in the past and I went to Los Angeles and and then I later on went to Europe and then I'm like, go back to LA and I go, like, I really don't want to stay here.
I was over in Los Angeles and I'm going to go to Phoenix or Dallas for some reason and I went to Dallas, go no, came to Phoenix, found opportunity and you know, it feels like home. The city is growing, it's getting better and better all the time. The food scene is just going crazy here. I think we surprise a lot of visitors when they come here to find that there truly is great food here.
GILGER: But you were one of the first people to really do that here, right. And to become sort of a well known and, and world renowned chef from Phoenix, Arizona. Did people at the time think you were crazy to be here?
GROSS: Yes. Some people, I mean, I mean, I mean, all my life, like growing up in the business, you know, a friend would call, like, where are you at now? And I tell them they like, well, how much money you make. It's always how much money and I go like, I'm not making a lot of money at all, but I'm at the best possible place for me to be right now to learn. I always wanted to be better.
GILGER: Talk a little bit about why you love food. Like why at 17 you fell in love with this business, right? Like you've done it for a very long time. You must really love it.
GROSS: I just fell, I found a passion for cooking and the hotel went to Chapter 11 and all the European chefs said, you know, you're, you're, you're good. You, you could be good. If you want to continue, you need to go to California. And so I went to LA and then started there working in a private club for about a year and a half. And if it had have been any better of a restaurant, I would have gotten fired. So, everything was a stepping stone in my career. If I didn't have the one thing before me, I probably wouldn't have gotten to the next step. So.
GILGER: So you went to Europe, you were in London then Paris learning, right. I wonder when you came back to Phoenix, when was this? Maybe the ‘80s, ‘90s?
GROSS: ‘82 maybe. ‘81.
GILGER: Yeah. What was it like to cook French food here then?
GROSS: Well, I didn't come directly back. I went back to Los Angeles and worked at a restaurant called La Boulangerie. And it was, first I was thinking like, wow, I never have to work that hard again like I worked in, in Paris and found out I have to work harder. But in a shorter amount of time, I didn't have to do split shifts six days a week.
And it was, the owner was from La Boulangerie in, in Paris and it was just a, a killer team and the food went from classic one course, the next course could turn around and be like new wave modern. And so you saw all these different perspectives of cooking. So it was one of the greatest places for me to, to learn.
I remember a friend called me up and goes like, so you're working La Boulangerie? Are you a chef? And I go, no, no. How much money you're making? And I go less then I was making before I left three years ago to Europe. And everyone's calling me like, I'm like an idiot. And I go, no, but I'm really learning a lot.
And then, before I came back to Phoenix, I left there and I went to work for a friend of mine who, phenomenal pastry chef. His dad's one of the best pastry chefs in the world at the time in Lyon. Later I went to work for him, too, over a summer.
But a friend calls me and goes like, what are you doing now? And I go, I'm a pastry shop. I wanna fill in some gaps. I'm returning to Phoenix, I think. And they go, wow, are you the pastry chef? I go, no. They go, how much money are you making? And I go, all the croissants I can eat, you, you know, you like you fool, you're working for free. And I go, yeah, there's things I wanna wanna learn.
So when I came back here I was lucky enough to get that job of being a really a lost leader restaurant promote that there's something really wonderful up in northern Scottsdale.
GILGER: I wonder like what the reaction was like at the time? Were you sort of a stand out? Were you, was it easy to get that kind of national attention because it was, you were the only one doing it?
GROSS: Well, I think it was, it was a surprise to, you know, people come here. They, they had a marking department with the Pinnacle Peak Clan Company. And you know, they would certainly promote it. We got a lot of attention and I also was at a restaurant that was called La Champagne at the Registry Resort that we got a ton of attention. It was fun and it was like very flattering.
You get these great reviews and they're coming from New York, they're coming from LA, they're coming from, you know, the big city reviewers and in Food and Wine magazine and like, yeah, it was exciting. But it never went to my head because every time something great happens like that, a a great article, then there's the fear of like living up to it or someone's gonna want to tear you down. You have to keep going forward.
But I've always wanted to, it's like, you know, I look at a plate we do or something, I go, we can do better or I have a tendency some people like, think I'm taking a nap. Said, no, you're napping. No, no, I'm like daydreaming with headphones on listening to music and thinking about, you know, what can we make for the menu?
GILGER: You do a lot in this food community to sort of train people to run restaurants from all points of view within the restaurant and to go on to better things. What do you hope for that? What do you hope for the future of that and, and your legacy going forward?
GROSS: It sounds selfish. I do everything kind of for me, this is what I like to do and well, not really quite like that. It's, it's really for, for the guests. I want you to be happy. If you're not happy, I'm not happy. So I'm making stuff that makes me happy and I'm hoping it makes you happy and if it doesn't, we'll take it off the, the menu because I can't be here without you.
And it's not for any fame or acknowledgement or awards. It's about the guests really having a good time. I tell my team a lot of times when you put up a plate, it should, in the window that pass before it's taken to the table, it should put a smile on your face. Here we're doing something completely different. We mentor a lot of people here so they're not starting out as … everyone does everything. I guess that's what I'm trying to say.
GILGER: You kind of pioneered this approach, right? Where you're sort of really working to train people and bring people up through your kitchen and then, you know, and then when they, when they leave, they, they go off to something better.
GROSS: So we've had cooks that we've trained as servers. They have to do both as mixologists, learning about wine, you know, they sort of find themselves and we want them to go on to do something better. And it's always been, you know, front and back of the house, the chef, he decides to open his own restaurant, but then he knows nothing about the front.
And what's sad about most chefs, they have no idea what they're making the food for which wine is very important and they don't have a clue what wine is and what they're cooking for. So we try to bring it all together. They all share the, the gratuities and stuff, even the dishwasher, the, so it makes a good team.
