Loretta Keller
Owner/Executive Chef, COCO5OO, San Francisco
Restaurant Consultant, Exploratorium, San Francisco
Loretta Keller, acclaimed chef of San Francisco’s COCO500 (www.coco500.com), in partnership with Bon Appetit food service group, will create and serve a menu of seasonable and sustainable fare at San Francisco’s new Exploratorium (www.exploratorium.edu). When the science museum moves to its new waterfront home on the Embarcadero next year, it will feature two cafes and at least three satellite trikes bringing food and beverage to museum-goers.
Meetings Focus California: Describe your partnership with the Exploratorium. What should visitors expect?
Loretta Keller: We will celebrate the ingredients of Northern California, do our best to help preserve the good farming of our locale and support sustainable farming in general. We will feature local and sustainable fish, salads, soups, pizza and tartines, roasted chicken and hot roast beef sandwiches, a bakery selection made on-premise daily, tacos and an array of interesting beverages containing no corn syrup. We are excited to be partnering with such a great institution, where people can come to be inspired, surprised and stimulated.
MFC: Do you feel California is an innovator with regard to culinary trends?
LK: Absolutely. Since the 1970s, California has been setting trends, namely starting the culinary revolution of cooking with local and seasonal ingredients with little or no artifice. I was taken up in this movement in the 1980s and continue to be fixated on fresh, local, organic and seasonal ingredients here in the Bay Area.
MFC: What is your culinary expertise? Do you have any California-inspired specialty dishes?
LK: I consider what I do to be modern or contemporary California cooking, which means it’s ingredient-driven cooking. I know a fair amount about fish, and find finfish and shellfish fascinating, and I love to cook with them. I also really like to forage for things to cook. It’s my love of nature that makes me keep cooking, especially when it affords me time outdoors. A California-inspired specialty I do is a grilled mussel dish I call mouclade, which is French for a bunch of cooked mussels. The addition of French fried potatoes makes this mussel dish a crowd-pleaser. I also love to serve fresh anchovies from our local waters—their presence in San Francisco is a true sign of spring for me. With just a little lemon juice, good olive oil and sea salt, the anchovy filets are ready to eat. I usually give the plate a few nice picholine olives and a piece of grilled bread brushed with a garlic clove. Fish that fresh sings of the sea.