Personalities

Ben De Vries

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Chef, Owner - Luella

Ben de Vries was raised by his mother and grandmother in Ann Arbor, Michigan. While his mother worked full time and studied for her master’s degree, his grandmother did most of the cooking, and de Vries cites her as his first culinary influence. On weekends, his mother took de Vries and his brother to a co-op garden, where he remembers eating snap peas in his stroller while his mother tended her plants. When the boys were just old enough, necessity dictated that they get in on the culinary action. De Vries was only six when he announced, “I would like to be a chef and have my own restaurant.” Pre-made taco mixes and Swanson’s Hungry-Man dinners were a mainstay back then, and 35-year-old de Vries still treasures “Zesty Pizzas,” a cookbook his mother gave him when he was 12. The book’s title was foretelling, as de Vries lends a zestful vitality to everything that comes out of his kitchen.

De Vries’ passion for food runs deep, and he is a man of extremes — his love the perfect pizza is equal to his love of The French Laundry. “I appreciate food that doesn’t try to be something it’s not,” he says. luella’s menu can best be described as contemporary American, with roots in Italy, Spain and France. Dishes are robust and straightforward and not complicated by heavy sauces. “I like bold flavors that are clean on the palate, such as bone marrow and aged balsamic,” says de Vries. “And I’m not afraid of fat. Fat has nutritional value, and flavor binds to it. Things that are lean don’t have much flavor.”

De Vries spent his junior year of high school in Paris, where he was introduced to Caribbean cuisine at a friend’s restaurant. The vivid flavors stuck with him, and he would later apply what he’d learned as sous chef at ThirstyBear Brewing Company, a Spanish tapas restaurant critically heralded by the press. After high school, de Vries attended Vermont’s New England Culinary Institute. He then worked at several East Coast restaurants before moving to San Francisco. He began his West Coast career as sous chef at the popular Provencal restaurant, LuLu. He contributed to the launches of Scala’s Bistro and Vertigo before becoming opening sous chef at the French-Japanese restaurant mc2. He was then recruited to take the helm at Ristoranté Ecco, where his fresh take on Italian cuisine gained the respect of critics, including a three-star review from Michael Bauer at the San Francisco Chronicle. Prior to opening luella, de Vries was executive chef at Andalu, where he reached a creative high with a tapas concept that caught the attention of the national press, including the New York Times, Bon Appétit, Food & Wine and Gourmet.

De Vries considers himself lucky to have had a series of strong mentors, the first of which was Max Von Hartman, a retired restaurant chef at an organic ranch in Colorado, where de Vries worked off and on after high school. “The experience changed my life,” says de Vries. “I learned about organic, sustainable agriculture and ethically raising and harvesting cattle, pigs and sheep. I found that cooking was a focused and meditative endeavor. It was a way for me to express myself and connect with people. Max was a father figure, and I was grateful that he saw me get through culinary school before he passed away.”

Although they were polar opposites, two other chefs also had a profound effect on de Vries: Daniel Olivella, executive chef at Catalan B44 Bistro, with whom de Vries cooked at Thirsty Bear, and Yoshinori Kojima, for whom he worked at mc2. “It was a premeditated plan to work with as many different types of mentors as possible,” says de Vries. “It gave me a broad perspective, and I bring that to my menu and management style at luella.”