Ris Lacoste Brings a Life with Food to New Washington Restaurant
RIS
The New Bedford Standard-Times
Courtney Hime
Boston University Washington News Service
November 17, 2008
WASHINGTON – Ris Lacoste drew her first inspiration for cooking from Peanuts.
“I started making these cakes when I was a kid, Charlie Brown cakes. I would sell them for like $5, to parents or whoever wanted them,” she said.”
And while Ms. Lacoste no longer bakes, she certainly cooks. She was executive chef at Georgetown’s upscale 1789 Restaurant and worked alongside prominent seafood chef Bob Kinkead, establishing herself as one of Washington’s most high profile and well-respected chefs.
“There are a lot of people who come in through your door that should be thinking about careers in something else, not the restaurant industry, but Ris clearly had it,” said Mr. Kinkead, who served as a mentor and boss to Ms. Lacoste for a number of years.
Recently, Ms. Lacoste reflected on her 39 years in the food industry, and her future which includes the chance to open her own restaurant in Washington this summer. .
“Everything that I did brought me to where I am today,” Ms. Lacoste said, “which is odd to me.”
Odd only because when she was growing up in New Bedford no one would have pegged her as a chef. Or maybe because even though all the signs were there, no one, not even Ms. Lacoste, picked up on them.
Ms. Lacoste’s career as a chef formally began after her graduation from France’s La Varenne Ecole de Cuisine and with her first position cooking under Mr. Kinkead at the Harvest Restaurant in Cambridge, Mass.
But layered within her childhood, adolescence and early adulthood are details that, in retrospect, signaled her love of cooking and career path much earlier.
Doris Lacoste – called Rissie as a child and later just Ris – was the fifth of seven children and the youngest girl in her family.
With a family of nine to support, her parents worked hard to make sure that everyone ate three hot meals a day. Rene Lacoste worked as a fireman and part-time handyman while Yvonne Lacoste, who still lives in New Bedford, spent many years at home supporting the family before eventually going back to work as a secretary.
Because of their busy lifestyle, food became the centerpiece for the Lacoste family.
“We were poor, but there was always enough food,” older sister Cathy Lacoste-Hamel said. “The kitchen table was a major focus in the house.”
But even beyond her family’s kitchen, the young Ris was finding herself drawn toward the food industry. At age 12, she got her first job working as a cashier and shelf-stocker for Johnny Gorka at his Polish market near her childhood home.
At 16, Ms. Lacoste was hired as a waitress at Friendly’s Ice Cream shop, where she began to develop her way with food.
“She made the greatest cheeseburgers,” said Brian Pepin, a high school friend, who still lives near New Bedford. “If she was on the grill, I ordered lunch. If she wasn’t, I didn’t.”
Friendly’s also instilled in her the love of food service.
“I loved waiting on people. I loved knowing what they had to eat,” she said. “It was a great neighborhood place, and the same people came in every day. I loved that.”
Ms. Lacoste juggled her job at Friendly’s throughout high school and still managed to graduate as valedictorian from St. Anthony High School in 1974. Then she headed to the University of Rochester in New York with the intention of becoming a doctor.
“It was just that that was something you would do if you were smart,” she said of her decision to go pre-med. “It really did not mean anything to me. I had no vision of it.”
When Ms. Lacoste realized she lacked the passion for medicine, she moved to San Francisco to live with her sister Cathy. She attended the University of California at Berkeley, where she majored in French.
While she was there, she continued working with food as a waitress and then assistant manager of the university’s faculty club where she worked for a while after she graduated from Berkeley in 1980.
In 1981, with money she had borrowed from her older brother Roger, Ms. Lacoste went to Paris to perfect and practice her French. After a few weeks there, she found herself at the doors of the cooking school La Varenne looking for work.
She was initially hired as a part-time typist, but was then offered a position as the school’s full-time receptionist. The position was unpaid, but she was given room and board and the chance to receive a grand diplôme in French cooking in exchange for her work.
After graduating from La Varenne, she came back to the U.S. and went to work with Mr. Kinkead at the Harvest. After two months he called her in for her first review. “He said, ‘Your knife skills suck, but your cooking is magic. It’s innate, either you have it or you don’t and you have it,’” Ms. Lacoste recalled. “And that solidified it. I never looked back.”
She worked with Mr. Kinkead for 13 years, helping him open 21 Federal in Nantucket and following him to Washington to help him open a branch of that restaurant in the capital city.
The Washington branch of 21 Federal closed in January 1993, but Ms. Lacoste assisted Mr. Kinkead with the opening of Kinkead’s, an upscale seafood restaurant, the following September.
In 1995, Ms. Lacoste was offered the position of executive chef of the 1789 Restaurant in Georgetown.
“I was so scared cutting those apron strings from Bob,” she said.
But Mr. Kinkead said he knew the transition would be good for her, though he described it as bittersweet.
“It was time for her to get her own place and do her own thing with 1789,” he said. “You don’t want to lose good people like that, but at the same time, it’s kind of like ‘This will be good for them.’”
While she was at the helm at 1789. Ms. Lacoste cooked for a number of luminaries including Woody Allen, Diana Ross, Nicole Kidman and Bill Cosby. She was even asked to prepare the 90th birthday dinner for Julia Child, one of the food world’s superstars.
Ms. Lacoste stayed with 1789 Restaurant for 11 years before leaving in 2006 with larger ambitions of opening her own restaurant.
In August 2007, she signed the lease on the property, which shares space with the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Washington’s West End. The restaurant will be called simply Ris, and is set to open in late July.
“I characterize it as a classy neighborhood joint,” she said. “I really want to create that feeling that I will know everybody that comes in.”
The goal of her restaurant is simple, but many would say that’s not a surprise.
“She’s a simple person,” her mother said. “She really is. She’s not a fancy-dancy girl.”
That simplicity comes into play with Ms. Lacoste’s food and her ability to make basic things taste better.
“She makes food taste good,” Mr. Kinkead said. “That’s something that a lot of chefs just plain don’t do.”
Her friend Michelle Jaconi, a producer at NBC’s “Meet the Press,” said, “She makes these sandwiches with like ham and butter, and it’s my husband’s absolute favorite thing. And I can’t replicate it. It’s like the most simple thing, but it’s just her touch.”
That touch, Ms. Lacoste would say, is a little bit of herself.
“Your heart does go into your food,” she said. “So much of you goes into what you make. And that’s what people taste, is you. And, I truly believe that.”
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