Top Chef winner's food as good as it looks on TV

BOULDER, Colo. -- When I watch cooking shows, I always wonder if the food tastes good.

So when I got a chance to visit the restaurant of Hosea Rosenberg, who won this season's Top Chef show, I wasn't going to pass it up.

Rosenberg is the executive chef of Jax Fish House in Boulder. The first thing I noticed is that Jax is not a fancy, four-star, white-tablecloth establishment. It's a casual, neighborhood restaurant.

The first thing you see when you walk in is trays of ice piled with fresh oysters. That sets the tone for Jax, which serves mostly seafood.

Jax seats just 60 people. Exposed brick walls lined with photos of fishermen and their catches add to the atmosphere.

I was there for a meal with four members of the International Association of Culinary Professionals. The association, whose annual conference was being held in nearby Denver, had arranged with Rosenberg to create a meal just for us, so our table got a fair amount of personal attention.

Life on Top Chef

Rosenberg talked a bit about Top Chef before the meal. He said that the show portrayed all the chefs fairly accurately, but he added, "We had to sign a release saying they could show us in any light."

He called his nemesis, Stefan Richter, a friend, and likened their competition to the way two friends might go at each other on the basketball court.

As far as his cooking on Top Chef, he said, "No one cooked their best on the show, because you didn't have time, you weren't familiar with the kitchens, and the camera was always in your face."

So can Rosenberg cook? Oh, yes.

Our four-course dinner, plus an amuse bouche (small appetizer), was partly taken from Jax's menu, which ranges from such simple fare as a crab-cake burger to more sophisticated dishes, such as Alaskan halibut with sweet and sour beets, blood orange and watercress salad.

Rosenberg started off with a single raw oyster served with crème fraiche and a trio of caviars. One of those caviars was a suspicious green. Rosenberg explained that it was cucumber, pureed and then solidified into tiny gelatinous goblets through dropping tiny amounts into a solution of calcium chloride.

"And that's the closest to molecular gastronomy you're going to get tonight," he said with a laugh, referring to the high-tech trend of haute cuisine.

The rest of the meal was homey in a way, though it revealed Rosenberg's knack of making the simple seem sophisticated and vice-versa.

An appetizer of raw, thinly sliced hamachi recalled one of the impressive dishes that Rosenberg prepared on the show. This had different ingredients, though. Nuggets of sea salt hammered home the fruits of the sea. The dish was rounded out by a little marinated fennel, blood-orange wedges, avocados and cute and surprisingly mild dehydrated olives. Each of the garnishes complimented the fish in a different way without overpowering it.

Next came Colorado baby striped bass that was sautéed and served over purple fingerling potatoes, Brussels sprouts and some pomegranate molasses and brown butter. This offered lots of contrast between sweet, acidic and buttery flavors as well as starchy, oily and vegetal textures.

A sea scallop was simply sauteed, then served with a morel (mushroom) bread pudding, mushroom Madeira sauce and a few morels and fresh pea shoots. Topping it all was a chip of sorts -- a crispy piece of prosciutto. The scallop was surprisingly able to stand up to the heavy mushroom flavor, which tied into the cured pork of the prosciutto, and the light pea shoots balanced everything in the end.

Rosenberg served a mango sorbet in a pool of mango-orange vodka as a palate cleanser. The dessert course was actually three -- a move common on Top Chef.

There was a simple molten chocolate cake with a bit of vanilla ice cream, a wedge of Key lime pie, and banana beignets with chocolate and chicory-coffee custard (an homage to New Orleans). Again, it was all simple elements, but the parts added up to a bigger whole. The beignets were the biggest hit, with the banana, chocolate and coffee performing an especially tasty dance in the mouth.

This was a meal that showed skill and talent in marrying diverse and sometimes unexpected ingredients in ways that keep the flavors distinct and clean. Despite a lot of sophistication, Rosenberg's cooking is down-to-earth -- much like the man.

"My favorite dishes are simple and not too fussy," he said later by e-mail. "I love flavor more than I care about plating. I like to think of myself as a flavor junkie."

He did say he feels more pressure than ever now to do his best, because customers' expectations are higher as a result of his win on Top Chef.

He also said the show taught him that he doesn't know everything. This, he said, is really just the beginning of his journey as a chef.

"One other thing that I learned is this: Stay true to yourself. When I relaxed, believed in myself and cooked what I love to cook, I put out my best work."

■ Michael Hastings, the Journal's Food editor, can be contacted by phone at 727-7394, e-mail at mhastings@wsjournal.com, or mail at c/o Winston-Salem Journal, P.O. 3159, Winston-Salem, NC 27102. Past columns can be read at www.journalnow.com.