David Burke

Nation's Restaurant News, Jan 25, 1999 by Andy Battaglia

Bypassing both the short-order counter and the mess tent, Burke foiled his dad's plan by getting an assistant's job under his teacher and introducing himself to the international cuisine he would later twist and turn to his own liking as New American cuisine came into its own.

Before graduating from The CIA as a "Most Likely To Succeed" nominee, Burke had procured a tightly wound string of jobs in locales as diverse as New Jersey, Texas, France and Norway. Studying under legends like Gaston Lenotre and offering to peel vegetables to get in the kitchens of his French idols, he filled his notebooks with tips and customs before returning to the New York area to work as a fish cook for the famed Daniel Boulud at Hotel Plaza Athenee.

Finding his burgeoning creativity stifled by Boulud's strictly traditional French fare, though, he moved to become a sous chef under Charlie Palmer at River Cafe in Brooklyn.

As a team, Palmer and Burke pulled Manhattan-bound foodies across the East River to the restaurant's location near the Brooklyn Bridge with adventurous takes on the New American cuisine that they helped create.

"It was difficult working in a restaurant famous for its view," Burke says. But owner Buzzy O'Keefe granted generous freedom for what he calls Burke's "whirlwind of ideas" which produced dishes like one involving a snifter full of smoked-salmon consomme.

Chef Hogan still remembers his first contact with Burke's work while he was eating at River Cafe after Palmer's departure and Burke's promotion to executive chef.

I just went to go eat dinner there, and he absolutely blew me away," Hogan says. "The first course came out in a cigar humidor, and I said, 'What is this?' Then I opened it up, and there was this beautiful fragrance coming from warm oysters and roasted peppercorns. I can almost remember every dish, and I probably had 15 dishes. And this was 10 years ago."

It was during his five-year stint as executive chef at River Cafe that Burke began to wow his New York audience with flavors and presentations as dramatic as the city he called home. His modernist take on culinary tradition at River Cafe was influential in both its health-conscious approach, which stemmed from his use of flavored oils in the place of heavy sauces, and its aesthetic flourish. Despite the attention that flourish gains, though, Burke says he has become increasingly cautious not to overemphasize the form over the food.

"Every dish doesn't have to be a high-wire act because it can become overwhelming," he says. "I don't like things to be overworked, but a few years ago I wouldn't have thought that way. At the same time, if you can make something beautiful, why not do it? But some things are better left simple."

When Burke set out to open his own restaurant with well-known restaurant operator Alan Stillman in 1992, he says he wanted to open a place "where you could get a great meal without worrying what you're going to wear."

Turning 350 to 400 covers daily and set in a relatively modest, folksy Americana decor, his Park Avenue Cafe eschews the chandeliered ostentation characteristic of restaurants run by many of his culinary equals. Such a setting seems a suitable home for Burke, who, despite his worldly travels, maintains a trace of a fuhgeddaboudit New Jersey accent and at least a small, earthy bit in common with the Mel his father watched on TV.