Chris William brings seasonality to Franco

"I was just looking to be a chairlift guy,” responded chef Chris Williams when asked how he landed his first kitchen job. A chance encounter with an executive chef at Colorado’s Keystone Ski Resort (Williams was simply asking the stranger for directions) is just one example of how happenstance has played a role in Williams’ culinary career. But it’s his adventurous spirit and willingness to follow unique opportunities that led to a CIA degree, an externship at the famed Le Bernardin in NYC, being part of the kitchen brigade that opened Larry Forgione’s now defunct An American Place, and cooking stints abroad in France and most recently in the Galapagos Islands and mainland Ecuador. Williams returned to his native St. Louis last year and recently assumed the top spot at Franco, where he looks forward both to the little surprises that Mother Nature bestows upon those who cook seasonally and to creating a few surprises of his own for guests at the French restaurant.

You were a sous chef at Franco when it opened four years ago. Of all the places you could return to in St. Louis, why Franco? It fit my personality as a chef, that sense of a living menu that we have here. We have the market across the street, the connections for local ingredients. I got away from it for three years in Ecuador, but something I kept talking and thinking about was coming back to cook with the seasons. I can’t wait for the first peas, the first asparagus. Right now, I’m enjoying having the cabbages, the squash. Seasonality is fun.

But weren’t you cooking seasonally in Ecuador? We had abundant fresh food – cherimoya, fava beans, peas bursting with flavor, Andean fruits, half of which I don’t know the name for in English. But seasonality is entirely different here than it is when you are living on the equator. There, it’s really a wet or dry season, not a hot or cold. There is no real fall or winter or summer or spring. You have everything year-round. Some things do go out of season, but it’s subtle. You don’t notice it unless you’re really watching, and you just wait a month or two and it comes back.

Talk to me about the concept of Franco as seasonal food with a French influence. French is seasonal. French food has always been about using the best ingredients at their peak. We are like a restaurant that would have been around the Les Halles markets in Paris. And as much as our food has the French technique, there is accessibility to it.

Will we see any Ecuadorian influences? Right now I’ve got a barramundi dish on the menu. It’s a coastal fish and comes with a potato croquette – inspired by an Ecuadorian dish called llapingacho. The pumpkin seed béchamel that comes with it is a take on an Ecuadorian pumpkin seed sauce.

What dishes will stick around? The ribeye will stay at least through March or April, but the garnishment will change as we get into spring. That’s something that we have done at Franco since the word “go.” We always have the steak and frites. Maybe the sauce changes or the vegetable that comes with it changes, but you trust that we are always going to have that steak and frites. The lamb shank: When it’s wintertime, there will always be the braised lamb shank. We might change the accompaniment, but we’re going to have that. Just like the cassoulet. The escargots, the pâté, French onion soup, Caesar salad … there are certain things we are identified with here.

Are you going to stick around St. Louis? Yeah, this is home. I don’t how long, but I’m going to be here a while. I think St. Louis has limitless potential as far as ingredients. Every year it just keeps getting better. And the dining public just keeps opening their minds to more and more things. You’re never going to see on our menu molecular gastronomy craziness. For some people, that’s intimidating; they don’t know how to understand that as food. Ultimately, Franco should be food that is approachable, friendly and warming to you regardless of the time of year.

Franco
1535 S. Eighth St.
St. Louis, 314.436.2500