2001 Ivy Awards - Norman's - Coral Gables, Fla.
By Margaret Sheridan, Senior Editor -- Restaurants & Institutions, 5/15/2001
Only a silver wedding anniversary can take Norman Van Aken away from Norman's, in Coral Gables, Fla. The staff gladly anticipates June when the chef-owner and his wife, Janet, fly to Napa, Calif. for a rare vacation. But no one is holding his or her breath.
"It's hard to leave,'' admits Van Aken. "I've rowed so long to get to this shore, I'm almost afraid to let go.''
His grasp works. Business is flourishing for the six-year-old restaurant. He is writing his fourth cookbook and eyeing the feasibility of marketing a line of products. A $750,000 renovation two years ago added a function room with full teaching kitchen. Now, he can easily cater groups up to 100. A recent innovation is hosting interactive corporate team-building sessions that include a cooking class.
Van Aken enjoys the celebrity status he has attained but can distance himself, philosophically. If ever his wife or their son Justin, 21, even hinted of wanting more of Norman and less of Norman's, he'd chuck it all. "I'd go off and be a hippie,'' he says half-seriously.
Norman's has become a destination for New World Cuisine, a moniker dreamed up in 1989 by a marketing man and five leading chefs of South Florida to popularize what was then called "new Florida cooking.'' It worked then. It continues to work now.
The 10,000-square-foot hacienda-style building at 21 Almeria Avenue sprawls on a street that begs for more palm trees and fewer parking meters. Behind the massive front door is a two-story space in chocolate tones and cool tiles. The darkness of beamed ceilings provides relief from the city's breezy pastels. Decorative touches-door handles carved like geckos; a swanlike deity, preening, by the hostess desk-suggest Bali or Thailand, even Colonial Spain, without committing to any one place in particular. What grabs attention at the rear of the dining room are two chefs framed against a backdrop of wood-burning ovens. The orange fury inside the limestone domes coupled with sharp aromas of toasting spices and chiles intoxicates.
Stacks of cookbooks behind his desk dwarf Van Aken. Titles range from gastronomy to contemporary poetry. A college dropout, he never attended culinary school nor did a "stage" with a great chef. People skills and bookkeeping were learned by running a liquor store in his native Libertyville, Ill. Stints in construction, factory work and landscaping followed. So did shifts in restaurants. The role model who carved his work ethic was Ruth, his mother, recently deceased. She supported three kids as a single parent by waitressing.
He credits Chicago restaurateur Gordon Sinclair, now retired, for inspiring and allowing him to discover his own talent. In 1982 Van Aken was executive chef of Sinclair's (now defunct) in Lake Forest, Ill. There were menus from Spago in Hollywood tacked to a kitchen wall and books by Alice Waters, M.F.K. Fisher and chef-restaurateurs from France to feast on. Van Aken coached many cooks at Sinclair's, including an eager young busboy named Charlie Trotter.
But Florida sunshine ultimately lured Van Aken and then-girlfriend Janet. They settled in Key West, where the flavors of the Caribbean and South America seduced him. He made inroads in several kitchens around Miami. Not every endeavor was star-studded or successful but he endured and in 1995, opened Norman's with $465,000 and three partners.
Carl Bruggemeier is holding court on the restaurant's balcony level. It's the daily pre-operations meeting, attended by servers and Van Aken. The daily specials are discussed. Van Aken introduces a visiting wine distributor who offers samples of ice wine from Ontario. Bruggemeier-Van Aken's partner, chief operations officer and a 35-year restaurant veteran-ticks off guest names and table assignments. A chef from Texas. A couple on their 50th anniversary. A food writer. Servers nod to the names of regulars. One, he reminds, has a dietary request. Another, a birthday. After 20 minutes, including the tastes, the meeting is adjourned.
The Paris-born hostess arrives and silences a ringing phone. Libardo Salazar, head bartender, paces behind the hand-carved bar. His mis en place includes fresh mint leaves for mojitos and a pitcher of freshly made sweet-and-sour mix. For Collins drinks, daiquiris, sours and margaritas, he divulges the secret of froth and good body: enrich the mix with some lightly beaten egg whites.
A staff of 12 runs the kitchen. Food costs hover around 30%. "Anything less, and the customer isn't getting what they pay for,'' says Van Aken. The average check is $75 per guest. Restaurant sales break down as 63% for food, 37% beverages. In the latter, wine comprises up to 85% of bar sales, reports Bruggemeier.
Locals make up 60% of the business; the rest comes from vacationers and business travelers. Combined seating of the bi-level room is 235, served by a waitstaff of six to 12 depending on the season. Though Van Aken experimented with lunch in the early years, competing with the local lunch tab of under $15, typical of fast casual operations, was impossible.
A quarter of the menu, Signature Dishes, never changes. Those include conch chowder with coconut milk, peppered venison with ancho pomegranate jam and Havana banana split with rum, chiles and chocolate, creations that canonize him as a founder of New World Cuisine.
A Tasting Menu rotates every other week. It allows the kitchen to explore another cuisine or whimsical theme, such as Vernal Equinox. Any dish that consistently earns raves is considered for the permanent menu.
He makes no excuses for his work ethic or his striving. You've got to dream big, then back it up with sweat and hard work, he insists. His work is his vocation, not a job. One memory of Ruth makes his eyes well up. When she was waiting double shifts at The Homestead in Evanston, Ill., she would sneak over to the nearby beach, between shifts, and numb her aching legs in the cool waters of Lake Michigan.
"When I think of that, then see how much I have here, I don't mind."
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