Roland Henin: accidental master chef shares love of cooking with 'young bucks' at Delaware North Park Services

Nation's Restaurant News, Jan 27, 2003 by Paul King

You can call Roland Henin the accidental master chef.

Henin, who was hired in 1997 as corporate executive chef for Delaware North Park Services, didn't have visions of a culinary career while he was growing up in Turare, France. Henin actually was leaning toward accounting, but after an argument caused him to move out of his father's house, he stumbled into the world of culinary arts.

Some accident.

Henin's resume indicates that he has recovered quite nicely from the abrupt shift in career plans. He has become one of fewer than 60 American Culinary Federation certified master chefs in the United States and coached the 1992 U.S. Culinary Olympic Team that won top honors. His culinary teaching credentials include stints at The Culinary Institute of America and Johnson & Wales University. He also founded the culinary-arts school at the Art Institute of Seattle.

Even today Henin's role in the industry is certainly more high-profile than that of your typical on-site chef. The menus and recipes he helps create--prepared by the chefs he helps train--are experienced by millions of people from around the world who visit such U.S. attractions as Yosemite National Park in northern California, Roaring Springs State Park in the Ozark Mountains of Missouri and the Kennedy Space Center Visitors Complex in Cape Canaveral, Fla.

"I thought when we hired him that he was an excellent choice, but Roland has proved to be flat out the best chef I've ever worked with," says Bruce Fears, president of DNPS. "With chef Roland, it is all about the food, not about him or his attitude. I know it sounds cliched, but he has taken our company to the next level."

For his part, Henin offers no apologies for signing on with a contract company.

"One of the first things I'm often asked is why a certified master chef--and a French one at that--would work for a contractor," Henin says. "I think it shows the dedication on the part of Delaware North to want to raise up the culinary aspect a notch or two. It testifies to the importance Delaware North places on food as part of the guest experience."

It is definitely a world Henin couldn't have pictured as a French youth. But give him credit for being open-minded about a career change, even if he was acting out of desperation.

At the age of 15, Henin fled home after an argument with his autocratic father.

"He thought I was spending too much time with my gang of friends and not enough time on my studies," Henin recalls. "I told him I didn't want to give up time with the gang. My father said that I could either do as he said or go somewhere else to live. I chose to go somewhere else."

"Somewhere else" was a pastry shop that was advertising for an apprentice. Henin saw the opportunity simply as a means to an end: The pastry shop would gain an employee for a few years, and he'd have a place to live and money for school while escaping his father's will.

But to his amazement, he soon became enamored with the art of cooking.

"It was like magic," Henin recalls. "I couldn't believe I could make brioche with my own hands. And croissants--I would put the croissants in the oven, and they would bloom. As I got into it, I found that I loved the smells of cooking and loved the satisfaction of creating things."

Henin spent three years as an apprentice. The irony of his hard-headed choice did not elude him: Although he left home because he didn't want to sacrifice time with his friends, the apprenticeship left him little time to do anything but work.

But Henin survived that education, and, in 1967, he traveled to North America for his first real job, as he puts it. He never returned to Europe for work.

"I went to work at the French pavilion at Expo '67 in Montreal," he says. "There were 10 or 12 of us young guys, and we spent the summer working there."

The men were enthralled with Canada, partly because they were on their own for the first time. That new freedom imbued Henin and his friends with a sense of wanderlust, and as Expo '67 neared its conclusion, they decided to give in to the feeling.

"We told our bosses, 'You promised us new horizons,' "Henin recalls. "They gave us two weeks' pay, and we rented a big car and took off on the trans-Canada highway."

When the crew returned to Montreal, they were expected to return to France. Instead, they met with a recruiter seeking restaurant workers to help open a casino in the Grand Bahamas. They worked the casino for the season and then made their way to Florida. Henin has worked in the United States ever since, holding such jobs as chef de cuisine at The Breakers in Palm Beach, Fla., executive chef at OSF International and executive chef at Truitt Bros., both food manufacturers located in Portland, Ore.

Henin joined Delaware North Park Services in 1997 at Yosemite National Park. He was recommended for the job by his good friend Christian DeVos, who was leaving Yosemite to head Kendall College, the culinary school based in Evanston, Ill.

"Roland is just an amazing chef," says DeVos, who asked Henin to give the commencement address to Kendall's latest graduating class. "He has such a passion for food, and he truly loves to teach the young people."