Dynamic duo: Chad and Amber Burns complement each other in kitchen

Nation's Restaurant News, Sept 8, 2003 by Ron Ruggless

Lajitas, Texas, a little town nestled along the Rio Grande River in West Texas and isolated by the Chisos Mountains on the northeast and the national and state Big Bend parks on either side, is branded as "'The Ultimate Hideout.'"

Steve Smith, a developer in Austin, Texas, bought the town of Lajitas and 25,000 acres of Texas mountains and desert in 2000 and since then has created a master-planned community that includes a spa, golf courses, a hunt club and a 72-room boutique hotel with gourmet restaurants. for guests. Many guests reach the outpost by private jet, landing on the destination's own private, 7,500-foot landing strip.

The husband-and-wife chef duo of Chad and Amber Burns leads the culinary team and executes the gourmet menu at the 80-seat Ocotillo Restaurant, which will be reopening this fall after a fire. The menu of "Cowboy Cuisine Born on the Banks of the Rio Grande" is under the creative direction of chef Jeff Blank, who has owned the noted Hudson's on the Bend Restaurant in Austin, Texas, since 1984 and is the co-author of the cookbook "Cooking Fearlessly."

The menu includes venison chili topped with a jalapeno cowboy biscuit and baked in a tin cup, bone-in cowboy cut rib-eye steak grilled and topped with a West Texas cabrito enchilada and mole sauce, and hot and crunchy trout with a prickly-pear glaze.

Titles: Chefs de cuisine, Ocotillo Restaurant at the Lajitas Resort in Texas

Birthdates: Chad, Nov. 7, 1973; Amber, Oct. 12, 1976

Hometowns: Chad, Hereford, Texas; Amber, Lexington, Texas

Education: Both graduated from the Texas Culinary Academy in Austin, Texas, where they met.

Career highlights: Chad, being executive chef at the Hereford Country Club in Hereford, Texas; Amber, being sous chef at the same club. Both also worked with Jeff Blank at Hudson's on the Bend, Austin, Texas

How do you two work together so closely?

Chad: It works very well. We are two totally different people as far as energy levels go and production aspects. I am involved with overseeing the operation, making sure the walk-ins hold everything we need and keeping employees working. Amber is more involved with the actual production of food. I generally come in and do food orders and scheduling and things of that nature while she's preparing food. When it's time for dinner service, we all run the line together.

Amber: We divide the work. I do the garde manger, and he does the meats and sauces. I'm very high energy.

Chad: She gets everything going, and I come in behind her and make sure it doesn't burn.

What are the biggest differences between the two of you?

Chad: I'm more of a perfectionist.

Amber: And I'm more of a productionist.

What drew you to the remote Lajitas?

Chad: Working with Jeff Blank really drew us out here. We both have a lot of respect for Jeff. He's accomplished a great deal. We treat him as a mentor and close friend.

How did you get this job?

Chad: Jeff just called the country club, and I happened to answer the phone. We got on one of the Lajitas planes out of Austin and flew out and met everyone. We really decided we were ready to do something different. It gave us the opportunity to work together in a creative way.

How do you define the menu at Ocotillo?

Chad: We've got the whole Hudson's on the Bend wild-game cowboy flair cuisine. We try to incorporate indigenous ingredients: prickly pear and chiles. We try to produce a West Texas cowboy cuisine, rather than Hudson's on the Bend Hill Country cowboy cuisine.

Amber: Every item is very rich in flavor. In the wintertime people love it.

You raise some of your own products on the property?

Chad: At the Palo Amarillo ranch, which has a cowboy bunkhouse for dove hunting, they also produce melons, cantaloupe and watermelons as well as some squash. We want to have herb gardens and tomatoes soon.

Where do you get products?

Chad: We get some of it Fed Ex'ed in. The Lajitas jets also bring some supplies to the airport. We get products twice a week on trucks out of Fort Worth or Lubbock.

What are the biggest challenges of working together?

Amber: There are a few areas where we disagree.

Chad: I'm very passionate about plate presentations. Amber isn't necessarily so picky about plating.

Amber: When you work with your spouse, you have to remember you are around other employees. We need to treat each other as other employees in the kitchen, even though we feel very comfortable discussing things. We haven't had major problems.

Chad: We've done it for more than two years, working on three years now, and we just know what each other likes and doesn't like.

Amber: I also want him to do well, and he wants me to do well. We're even doubly on top of what is going on in the kitchen because of that.

What are the best-selling menu items?

Chad: Most definitely, the rattlesnake cakes as an appetizer. We take pistachios and cilantro. We boil the rattlesnake. We mix in bread crumbs. It's like crab cake but rolled in a pistachio crust and cooked on a flat top.

What's the customers' reaction?

Amber: They love it. It has a chipotle cream sauce underneath it. The cake itself has some Dijon mustard. So there are a lot of flavors that make it appealing.