“Get out in that kitchen, rattle those pots and pans …”
– Big Joe Turner
It was the kitchen battle that changed Kevin Relf from a kid who liked to cook into a young man who knew he was going to be a chef: duplicating his grandfather’s braised Blue Crab dish so perfectly that no one could tell the difference.
“That’s the dish that made me want to be a chef,” said Relf, 26, a Long Island, N.Y., native with degrees in cooking and hotel administration from the Culinary Institute of America and Cornell University. “My Mom freaked out when I told her, but I just love food. I love everything about it.”
That love, combined with hard work and nostalgia for his mother’s Italian heritage led Relf to his first big-league gig: executive chef at West Kitchen & Tavern, the restaurant that opened in July 2012 at Loews Hotel in downtown Annapolis, Maryland.
With their kitchen on view – “I like an open kitchen,” said Relf, “you’re not hiding anything and everybody can see the action” – and a menu emphasizing seafood, West was built inside the hotel’s former lobby and replaces a restaurant called Breeze.
The action: jumbo lump crab cakes for $14; a very popular baby kale salad – with candied pecans and goat cheese – for $8; a $15 artisan board of cured meats and cheeses; rockfish; salmon; local bison short ribs from herds raised in Monkton; tavern steak smeared with garlic and herbs; hearth oven pizza (“We’re striving for the Neapolitan style,” said Relf); and daily selections of local oysters, clams on the half-shell, grilled whole lobster and a lot of crab meat on everything from green salads to bowls of bisque.
“My goal is to use the best ingredients perfectly and not to complicate the flavors,” said Relf, who will be tweaking the menu this Memorial Day weekend. “The food should speak for itself.”
The menu was designed by Relf, who earned the top job in the spring of 2012 during a New York City audition in which he set up a nine-course “sampling” and presentation of the West “concept” for Loews CEO Jonathan M. Tisch. The sampling turned into a dining experience, a meal (Tisch ate and enjoyed) and Relf got the job.
“I cooked my heart out,” said Relf, as he did earlier this month when West served more than 250 parties for Mother’s Day brunch and dinner.
So far, Grandpa Pollio’s Secret Blue Claw Special – perfected in East Quogue, N.Y. – isn’t on the menu in the blue crab capital of the mid-Atlantic. Back in Relf’s Long Island hometown, the meal begins with catching the crabs at the end of the dock.
“We peel off the shell
Garlic? Lemon?
BREAD CRUMBS?
On fresh water hard crabs?
“He never told anybody exactly how he made it,” said Relf, who, before moving to Annapolis, had not enjoyed blue crabs the Maryland: steamed way with Old Bay and kosher salt and black pepper, cracked tableside and eaten with your fingers.
Relf’s girlfriend, Brianna Sucik, a nurse at Good Samaritan Hospital in Baltimore, took him to Cantler’s on Forest Beach Road, for the experience. He ordered the a
ll-you-can-eat and when they arrived was puzzled that the shells were on.
“I’m used to the other way,” he said, though he did enjoy the “mustard” – which the Long Islanders scrub away before cooking.
[What Marylander’s call the crab’s mustard is the creature’s hepatopancreas, part of its digestive system. Relf liked the flavor the yellow goo made when mixed with the Old Bay seasoning and tiny cups of vinegar and drawn butter some restaurants serve with steamed crabs.]Grandpa’s way – the work Anthony Pollio, age 80 – was harder for young Relf to crack than a big Jimmy steamed orange and waiting on newspaper for the mallet.
“I was about 14 and he told me some of the basic ingredients when I was just starting to apply to culinary schools,” said Relf. “It took me about five times to get it right. I knew it was about the garlic. The garlic and the bread crumbs coat the crab. But finally I figured out his secret ingredient – Cajun spice, just a little.”
Grandpa’s Crabs have been codified in a Pollio family cookbook that Relf has put together [he keeps a copy in the West kitchen] but so far is not available to the public.
“I love fresh seafood and appreciate distinct cultures,” said Relf, who isn’t sure how the East Quogue approach would go over here in Crabtown, USA. “Crabs are a Maryland thing.”
-o-
West is offering frequent diners specials to reward repeat customers year-round. The program is called “Hey Neighbor” with free goodies available simply by showing a membership card to your server.
The month of May highlights patio pitchers of sangria, draft beer or spiked lemonade – with a shared plate of appetizers like grilled artichokes – for $13. A new menu also debuts in late May with offerings like aged pork T-bone served with beets and sweet peas with tarragon.
June features a $2 local draft beer and $1 oyster combo with July bringing members a free Cobblestone soda – spiked or virgin – with any other purchase.
If Chef Relf happens by (he enjoys greeting customers near the pizza hearth) ask him about Grandpa’s crabs and the dessert his grandmother Eleanor is famous for: coffee cake with three times the tasty “crumbs” on top than cake on the bottom.
And he’ll likely tell you what’s good that day in the kitchen at 126 West Street in historic Annapolis, Maryland.
“The whole idea of this restaurant is that it’s for the locals as much as the people staying here,” said Relf of the 216-room, regatta themed hotel. “If it’s in season and it’s local, we’re using it.”
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