“ALRIGHT GUYS, IT’S 3:18.” There is some urgency to Chef Jonny Black’s tone, but no indication of alarm. He doesn’t even look up from the slab of rib-eye he has been tidying.
Clean down – when stations transition from food preparation to service – should have started three minutes earlier, and the schedule is critical. The first dinner guests arrive in less than two hours.
Already the chef has checked on progress in the kitchen. “I’m going to have to finish the quail in between turns,” Chef de Cuisine Alex Barkley tells him.
On Chez Noir’s menu this particular evening are presentations such as quail with asparagus and morel mushrooms, dressed in a vin jaune sauce, lamb tartare topped with pistachio and Aries cheese or a dessert portion of baba au rhum. The restaurant demands precision – and a rare level of quality.
Black is tending to a richly marbled rib-eye cap, the most treasured cut of beef. Sourced from the grass-fed stable at Stemple Creek ranch in Marin County, the meat has been dry-aged for 42 days. To those who find beauty in such things, this is a gorgeous piece.
“We had to get on a waiting list for this,” he says. “It’s the same beef used at Chez Panisse” – a reference to the famed three Michelin star haven of Chef Alice Waters. “Anything Alice uses, I’ll use.”
The tempo in the kitchen and dining room has picked up. Trays of fried rock cod, orzo in a meat sauce, roasted vegetables and a salad are being set for the staff meal, scheduled at 3:30pm.
Hiccups are common in the restaurant world, so three minutes behind schedule amounts to nothing. Friday had been different. That morning, the compressor keeping the walk-in cooler at temperature failed, sending the team scrambling to secure dry ice.
So the attention to details down to the minute is important. Disasters big and small lurk throughout the day. But, says Chez Noir Assistant General Manager Jenna Dahlquist, “The system itself is pretty reliable.”
To earn a Michelin star, the daily routine needs to be.
CHEZ NOIR EARNED ITS MICHELIN STAR IN 2023, a year after opening, and has kept it ever since. The Carmel restaurant is one of just two Michelin-starred establishments in Monterey County – Aubergine, also in Carmel, has two – and 85 in California. The honor is bestowed upon restaurants operating at a level that sets them apart.
Chef Black and his wife Monique – also a food service professional with experience in the kitchen and front of the house – came to restaurant ownership with impressive resumes. They worked at legendary destinations from New York to the Bay Area such as Quince, Atelier Crenn and Pineapple & Pearls. But Chez Noir immediately ran into trouble.
The restaurant opened in October 2022, late in the season. Winter brought a series of storms, with power outages lasting several days.
“I didn’t think we’d make it,” Black observes. “Nobody knew us.”
The chef’s introduction to Monterey County was a stint at the exclusive Post Ranch Inn in Big Sur. Although he received little public attention, Black’s time at the resort put him in contact with local farmers and ranchers. When the pandemic clamped tourism, he served as a private chef. With many restaurants shuttered, Black readily made relationships with local fishermen. Again, however, he was out of the public eye.
“It saved us,” Black says of the Michelin star.
Clearly the award carries some clout. Yet perception of its value is also changing. Over the past 25 years, a few internationally-recognized chefs such as Sébastien Bras, Philippe Gaertner and Marco Pierre White, among others, decided either to ignore the stars presented to their restaurants or simplify their concepts to deter Michelin attention. Most cited the pressure of maintaining service standards to keep the stars, since losing a star is akin to a demotion held before the culinary public.
Over the same span, diners have been leaning toward a more casual vibe. With recession, refined takes on comfort dishes – meatloaf, mac and cheese – have become trendy.
Chez Noir’s sous chef, Tyler Gore, has spent the past 15 years cooking at Michelin star kitchens. He says the job at fine dining restaurants is to prepare dishes at a high level and offer flawless service.
“Once you’ve honed it in, it’s not hard to get a star,” he says. “But it’s getting to that point that is.”
The team at Chez Noir has its system: The highest-quality ingredients, proper technique, creative presentation, warm hospitality and working as a team to those ends.
“One star is where it’s at,” Black says. “It keeps the restaurant fun.”
He invited the Weekly to observe behind-the-scenes for a day to report what it takes to meld that fun with the discipline required to earn (and keep) a Michelin star.
THE DAY BEGINS AT 6:30AM, even though the first dinner reservations are at 5pm. On most mornings, Black stops in to make coffee and brief the prep staff before heading out to markets or to forage on his own.
Monday is different. A lot of prep work has been completed and the morning crew’s chores include readying for Thursday. So Black has the opportunity to take his kids to school before hopping into his pickup.
It’s shortly after 10am, somewhere south of Carmel toward Big Sur. The chef steps quickly down a muddy trail into a ravine, toting two empty crates. As the narrow valley opens to the Pacific Ocean, dense vegetation gives way to a rugged patch of boulders. This is not a leisurely stroll, so Black sets to work immediately.
He kneels next to crops of watercress next to pools of freshwater that spill from the mountains, searching for good leaves and clipping with a pair of sharp scissors. He doesn’t mind getting wet; before heading out, Black slipped into a worn pair of “dad boots” – his term.
Then he’s on to another brush of green against the gray rocks, inspecting the plant before setting to work.
“Watercress doesn’t get any better than this,” he says as he begins to fill a crate. “This has become like my personal watercress farm. Don’t tell anyone.”
Black forages almost every morning. Besides watercress, on this Monday morning excursion he collects New Zealand spinach, which he plans to use in a seafood dish, wild radishes, mild and nutty African daisies and other plants. Along a trail, Black points out other culinary gems growing wild, but if he is not intending to use a plant in the next few days, he leaves it untouched.
Cruising through a neighborhood on his way back to the restaurant, Black spots an empty lot colored by nasturtium. The flowers are edible and he prepares capers from the seeds.
“If you go to San Francisco, guys charge a ton for this,” he points out.
The chef picks seasonally. Some menu items change nightly, much of the list is swapped out every five weeks.
“The goal of Chez Noir is to represent the area,” he explains.
Wild mushrooms are the only item he rarely forages for by himself. There are already dozens of skilled mushroom hunters in the area, each with knowledge of particular patches of woods, ready to supply local restaurants – although the nicest specimens do not come cheap. Porcinis, for example, cost $37 a pound.
Later in the morning, back at the restaurant, Black – still in casual clothes; he will don his chef’s outfit in the early afternoon – sorts through rough shavings from a batch of porcinis that have been dried for later use in oils or stocks.
“We use everything we can,” he says.
Chef Black first began relying on seasonal ingredients while in college in New York, working at a suburban restaurant that had a garden. Since then he has poked through farmers markets – Black is a regular on Friday mornings at Del Monte Center in Monterey – working with small organic and sustainable farmers, venturing into fields and occasionally attempting to spearfish.
Even though Chez Noir is a small restaurant, this ethic demands more from the team when it comes to planning a menu.
“We work with so many different farmers on a weekly basis, and it changes through the seasons,” he points out.
The restaurant is in contact with more than 50 different vendors. A chart tacked to the kitchen’s bulletin board keeps track of what is expected in the coming week – cilantro blossoms and favas from Borba Farms in Aromas; Bearss lime and Meyer lemon from the Santa Cruz operation Ocean 2 Table; Schoch Dairy is setting aside two gallons of raw milk; tarragon, chives and even wood for the oven are on the Greenleaf bill. The list goes on.
Despite the morning’s haul, foraging is slowing. Purveyors and the farmers market will become more important as the rainy season comes to a close.
“Winter is my favorite time here,” Black says. “There is a lot of good stuff.” Then he pauses. “The power failures – I could do without those.”
He recalls an outage that threatened to disrupt a fully-booked New Year’s Eve service. By 3pm he decided to cancel the first turn (in restaurant terminology, a top is a table and a turn is each guest’s seating at that top) and the team began making phone calls. A half-hour later, power came back.
“It was one of the days when I thought, ‘I don’t think we can do this,’” Black admits. “But that’s restaurants. It takes a lot of work and I love it.”
SOME OF THE PREP WORK IN THE KITCHEN on Monday is dedicated to the next week. Chez Noir is closed on Tuesday and Wednesday during the winter months, so Monday closes out their week.
Still, there are 47 covers booked for the night – a cover referring to each person to be seated at a top during the evening’s turns.
Sous chef Gore came in at 6:30am with the three-person morning prep team. This morning he is assigned to pastry before turning to lamb tartare, among other duties.
“Tyler is very overqualified for his role at the moment,” Black says with a laugh.
Meanwhile, General Manager Nate Cohen, who joined the team a year-and-a-half before Chez Noir opened, sits at a dining room table, eyes glued to a laptop. He is finishing the staffing chart for the next few weeks – between the kitchen, bar and dining room, morning and afternoon shifts, there are 25 people to keep track of.
But he also returns to Monday’s lineup. “Weather is coming in tonight,” he observes. “That affects the patio.”
Yes, the quality of ingredients, the technique, the service matter. But it would appear from Chez Noir’s example that a Michelin star rewards organization.
The day’s menu is in a binder, with recipe sheets for each dish. The morning prep list, tacked to the bulletin board, lists assignments. One prep staff is to shuck a quart of favas, chop a quart of sorrels (saving the stems), assemble 55 abalone and other duties. Another has a quart of peas to shuck, eight quarts of butter to dice and different fruits to juice.
Gore put the list together after food service on Sunday night. It appears very orderly.
“We do a lot of winging it,” Black says.
“Whose fault is that?” Gore responds with a grin.
Laughing, the chef admits, “We try to keep it to a minimum,” but it’s not always possible.
Another log explains why. There are new dishes on for the night, including lobster and crab croquettes, green strawberry with verjus pickle, sorrel and elderflower, as well as brioche souljas – the latter to be plated at 4:55pm.
There is a rhythm to the day, set to the clock. At 1pm the management team – Chef Black, Monique Black, Cohen and Operations Manager Katie Daugherty – sit down to finish planning next week’s special Springtime in France dinner. As the chef mentions each menu item, they discuss types of dishware needed. But Black is still considering additions.
“We might do an avocado sorbet,” he says.
“Oh, stop it,” Daugherty chimes in with an exclamation point.
“You do a grilled avocado with an ounce of caviar,” Black continues. “Call it avocado toast.”
Sounds of approval ring around the table.
As this is going on, Chef de Cuisine Barkley is sauteing morels in butter, the first step on the way to a sauce for next week. Barkley is from Seattle, but has most recently been cooking in Los Angeles. He came to Chez Noir only a month ago.
More of the crew arrive. Black is back at his station with his head down when the kitchen is jarred by a ringing clang like a cymbal as a lid falls.
“Hello Jordan,” the chef says, chuckling privately.
Jordan Chipman is a 19-year-old cook from Santa Cruz who started with Chez Noir two years ago. He begins measuring ingredients for the staff meal.
“Just watch your temperatures and your times,” Black tells him, coaching the young cook. “Hit your marks and everything should be fine.”
Black is now cleaning Monterey Bay rock cod. The restaurant only serves fish caught on the West Coast, keeping it local as much as possible.
“Mackerel is out there – really great mackerel,” he says to Gore. “But people around here treat it as bait fish.”
“That’s weird,” Gore replies, shaking his head.
Both are fans of the oily fish, but few diners agree. Black put it on the menu just once and learned his lesson.
There is choreography to all of this. The kitchen team moves about in a choppy series of “Behind” warnings. Service manager Paige Book arrives for a pre-opening meeting with the Blacks and Dahlquist, going over guest preferences and allergies. Line cook Leno Garcia, who began his Chez Noir career on morning prep but has moved up, begins portioning half a wheel of raw milk blue cheese from Schoch for a sauce that will dress a presentation of mussels.
“It sounds weird on paper,” Black admits. “But if you eat it, it makes sense.”
Later, during the staff meal, Garcia speaks of his new role in the kitchen.
“While you are doing one thing, you are thinking about the next moment,” he says. “The main thing is to keep going, and make sure all around you is organized.”
THE BLACKS’ 10-YEAR-OLD SON JAMES joins the staff meal. He chats about the menu with Garcia, about the cut of beef with his father, about anything related to food.
For his birthday, James wanted to try a three-Michelin-star restaurant. So the family traveled to Quince in San Francisco, where Jonny and Monique Black once worked. The younger member of the family can describe a pasta dish in detail.
Organization and details. On another chart, labeled “Daily Kitchen Pre-Shift,” Black and Gore have listed some necessaries, but much of it is used for encouragement: “Strong finish tonight,” “Niiice sear on beef.” “Let’s go Quinn!”
Quinn Thompson is in the kitchen on Monday. He’s a veteran local chef whose credits include Il Grillo turned super-sub who helps the team out when needed.
“Which is pretty frequently,” Barkley observes.
When doors open at 5pm, everything is in order and ready – routine.
“It’s not about wanting to get a star,” Dahlquist says. “It’s about good food and warm hospitality.”