Brendan Noonan has left his post as executive sous chef at Eclipse Restaurant to assume a position as Harvest’s sous chef. Noonan, who shared the news last week with Sauce and St. Louis Magazine‘s George Mahe, worked briefly with Harvest chef and owner Steve Gontram and executive chef Nick Miller between departing from The Shaved Duck when it temporarily closed in January 2009 and joining Eclipse in The Moonrise Hotel that April.
In an official statement released today, Noonan said: “I have enjoyed the process of opening Eclipse and helping to set standards that are bringing the establishment to the top of the game, but [I] am very excited to get back into the kitchen at one of the best established venues for American cuisine in St. Louis. … I am eager to delve deeper into the nightly doings at Harvest and get a chance to learn from and with the entire team there.”
The change also marks the end of a three-year close working relationship between Noonan and Eclipse’s chef de cuisine Wes Johnson. The pair first met in January of 2007 when they were hired at The Scottish Arms within a week of one another. A year later, they both left the CWE venue to open The Shaved Duck and have worked together at Eclipse for more than a year.
“We’ve created some great meals together,” Johnson said. “I will miss working with him on a daily basis. We’re a good fit – his strengths are my weaknesses and my strengths are his weaknesses.”
Noonan and Johnson do not expect the job switch to mean that they won’t join culinary forces again. Noonan said in his statement that he will continue to work with the Eclipse team “when the occasion arises” and that “Wes and I are always exploring the best way to get a stove between the two of us on our own terms.” Johnson echoed those sentiments: “I cannot wait till we work together again at another project down the road.”
– Ligaya Figueras
This article appears in Jun 1-30, 2010.