Photography by Victoria Gomez.
What does a good kitchen look like?
For most people, it probably includes a standard, four-burner stove atop a capable oven, complemented by ample counter space and an array of appliances.
For restauranteurs, it takes on a different meaning.
Past well-cleaned prep stations, fully-stocked walk-ins and organized expo stations, chefs and general managers alike know what truly makes the heart of a restaurant pump: the dynamics and culture.
“I think what really makes any restaurant successful is the staff that’s in their restaurant,” says Chef Andrew Savoie, sitting in one of Resident Taqueria’s sturdy wooden booths.
After a culinary career spanning decades in classic French Quarter eateries, high-tone Napa establishments and Michelin-starred Northeastern heavyweights, it’s fair to say Savoie knows what he’s talking about.
Originally from Long Island, Savoie didn’t grow up in a scratch-made household. His mother was mainly serving meals out of the freezer or a can, so she wasn’t the one who sparked his interest in the culinary world. He gives that credit to PBS.
“I would watch Jacques Pepin and Julia Child, Emeril Lagasse was in there, Yan Can Cook,” Savoie says. “So these are all kind of really fun TV shows that were on PBS.”
“I would always kind of watch those and see food from those perspectives, and then my family’s perspective as being a nuclear-style family cook. So it was very kind of odd. Kind of a yin yang effect of looking at how food was done, and then realizing that that’s not what I was growing up with.”
His curiosity didn’t lead directly to a career in hospitality. While studying business at Towson State University, now Towson University, something was out of place. Although he wasn’t cut out for business school at the time, he did enjoy his job in a pizzeria kitchen.
“I was just always a hands-on kid,” he says. “Art was one of my major subjects. And I took the other road to go to business, which is probably the biggest mistake I made at that age.”
He dropped out and enrolled in the now-defunct Baltimore International College’s culinary school for two years, without his parents’ knowledge at first. There, he learned the basics of gastronomy and worked for the Baltimore Association of Engineer’s catering department.
Additionally, Savoie was required to complete an externship in a professional kitchen as part of the program. Describing it as a “Mecca,” he packed his bags and headed to New Orleans to work in a prestigious hotel. Immediately unsatisfied with the environment in the kitchen, Savoie handed in his two weeks notice.
Still needing an externship, he and a friend walked the streets of New Orleans, searching for “white tablecloths and fine silverware.” They found both at Dominque’s in the Maison Depuy Hotel.
Savoie knocked on the back entrance, and a door opened in more ways than one.
“I mean, everybody was just into food, so much different from the last restaurant where it seemed like it was a job for people,” Savoie says. “This restaurant was career-based. Everybody was in there for a career. And you saw the difference.”
He and his friend were taken under the wing of an established chef de cuisine, Michael Bruce, learning how to work each of the kitchen’s stations.
Savoie worked in New Orleans for two years, honing his fundamentals and acquiring a wider knowledge of “what good food looked like.” But the New Orleans lifestyle can be taxing, especially for a young man in his early twenties. He decided to leave the French Quarter in search of something new.
That something turned out to be the now-Michelin starred The Inn in Little Washington in Virginia. After his mail-in resumes were rejected several times, he left The Big Easy and headed north.
Once again, he found himself at the back door.
“One of the sous chefs walks out,” he says. “And goes ‘What can I do?’ And I’m like, ‘Hey, I sent applications in three times and I’ve gotten denied,’ and he starts laughing, he’s like ‘yeah, that’s not us. That’s HR.’ I said, ‘okay, well, I’ve been denied. I really want to work here. I’m willing to give you three days in my free labor, just to see what I am and who I am.’”
The tryout was successful, and he was hired as an overnight baker. Savoie describes it as a seminal moment in his career, especially given the closeness of the staff.
“It is probably my best experience as a cook,” he says. “In the strongest family I’ve ever been part of. It was probably about 22, 24 cooks total. And we’re basically just living among each other because we had nothing else to do. The shifts were long, and days off, this little town had nothing near it. The nearest bar was 45 minutes away.”
The togetherness and camaraderie at The Inn left a lasting impression on him. But after other coworkers headed west to work at The French Laundry in Napa, he decided to follow them. With an over 20-chef-long waitlist for The French Laundry’s kitchen, Savoie took a job at Bouchon, working the meat station. It was there where he experienced the Spartan-style discipline and fiery “encouragement” most people think of when imagining high-class kitchens.
After Napa, he made a stop working for his mentor in Portland, Maine at Hugo’s, learning the ins and outs of managing a restaurant. Then, he went to New York to work for the widely-acclaimed Jean-Georges restaurant, which he describes as an extremely polished mix of the community found in The Inn’s kitchen, and the accountability of Bouchon.
Along the way, Savoie had met a girl. A girl from Lake Highlands to be exact. They dated long distance for a few years while he was in the Northeast, but that wasn’t going to cut it. So, Savoie left Jean-Georges to be with his now-wife Amy, settling down in Dallas.
He sold wine and worked as a private chef for a few years before being approached by a recruiter from The International Culinary School at The Art Institute of Dallas. Coming on as an instructor, he developed a course on plating techniques. He was later asked to lead the school’s Latin Cuisine class.
“I was amazed because it was a cuisine I was never familiar with, never really understood,” Savoie says. “You know, Latin cuisine. And that’s really why [Resident Taqueria] is where it is today. Is because I kind of just absorbed myself into the research. And from there, I would go out in Dallas and try to find all these regional places, hole in the wall taquerias. I was so in love with the idea of food that wasn’t so heavy, but yet really refreshing.”
He earned both his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in hospitality management while at the school. Sensing a lack of opportunities for advancement, Savoie again decided to make a change. He just wasn’t sure what it was going to look like yet. It became a little clearer for the Lake Highlands resident after a game at Moss Soccer Park.
“We’re leaving Moss Fields and we’re all hungry and just wish we had a breakfast taco,” Savoie says. “So at the time Green Spot by White Rock Lake down there had breakfast tacos. I don’t want to drive there. I don’t want to drive if I can just make it myself if I have to. And my wife’s like ‘we’re all trying to think about what the next steps were, so why don’t you open up a taco place?’”
And that’s exactly what he did.
Opening in 2015, Resident Taqueria has become a long-time neighborhood fixture serving adventurous tacos to Lake Highlands neighbors, more aptly referred to as residents. Using the tortilla as a vehicle, Savoie’s creations are not bound by convention, and are instead guided simply by what tastes good.
“There’s no limits,” Savoie says. “I mean, it’s fun. The taqueria is a name. We specialize in tacos but it’s much more than that.”
Beef short rib, paneer kathi, falafel, caramelized cauliflower. No, these aren’t just a collection of items you can get at the Farmer’s Market on a Sunday. They’re all taco varieties you can find at Resident Taqueria. Savoie says that customers have been pretty open to experimenting with his creations.
One thing that has helped Resident thrive for nearly a decade: the staff. Savoie says his kitchen is a mix of his career stops, combining the camaraderie of The Inn, the accountability of Bouchon and the attention to detail of Jean-Georges.
“These guys love what they’re doing, you know, a sense of ownership,” Savoie says. “It’s amazing for an employee. I have fully given that to these guys. Yeah, I’ll come in and create specials. You know, I’ll kind of have an idea and say, ‘Hey, let’s execute this.’ But those are the guys running it day to day, tasting the food, creating the relationships. You know, it’s a wonderful thing and that’s really what I wanted.”
“They come with new ideas. They come up with new techniques, they’re learning. And I think that’s one of the coolest things in here and the culture that we bring is that they’re all learning. It’s not just a job.”
That’s what a good kitchen looks like.
