Restaurant Insider Magazine Current Issue

Cover Story: Michel Nischan

Most chefs are all too familiar with the unremitting conflict between their desire for the best and most wholesome ingredients, and their restaurant’s bottom line. They will eagerly do battle with the scrappiest of general managers or the cheapest of accountants, and are often fortunate to escape from these encounters valiantly clutching the remnants of imported truffles or the properly farmed meats and veggies that they crave. The increase in the incidences of these noble conflicts can cause irreconcilable strains on the precarious culinary partnership between the financial and creative forces, and are often a sign of trouble, especially in recessionary times such as these. Michel Nischan first recognized a sign such as this, not while he was at work, but ironically during the creation of an enormous backyard garden on his 1-acre lot in Connecticut. The garden was designed to honor his mother, who had become very ill at the time. In establishing the garden he hoped to instill in his children some of the same memories he was blessed with growing up in rural Missouri. The idea was to have it built and flourishing while she was still alive, a goal that unfortunately fell short. But its creation seemed to put the finishing touches on an intuitive feeling that had been building ever since he began to experience some of his own cost versus ingredient problems at Heartbeat in New York, where he was the executive chef. Influenced by repeated outside offers due to his flourishing reputation as a proponent of organic and healthful food, he could no longer ignore the waves of internal pressure to institute significant changes in his life.