The House that Kurt built: The recipe for Chef Fleischfresser's legacy in shaping OKC's dining scene

Entering through the bright red door of The Crown restaurant on April 26, laughter and chatter filled the room as about a dozen highly trained Oklahoma chefs gathered together, milling in the narrow walkway between the bar and dining room.

Competitors from popular culinary television competitions, restaurant owners, culinary instructors, an executive chef at a prestigious Napa Valley winery and more all gathered to reunite and raise a glass to one man — Kurt Fleischfresser.

From training chefs in the Coach House apprentice program to opening restaurants and consulting on concepts, Fleischfresser's continual investment in Oklahoma City's culinary industry has helped spawn and sustain the culinary growth of Oklahoma City.

Who is Kurt Fleischfresser?

When you think of the culinary lineage of Oklahoma City, your mind probably doesn't go to some of the world's most revered French chefs in modern history, but it should.

Fleischfresser, who is from the Midwest and attended Oklahoma State University, honed his classically French skillset under the tutelage of Bernard Cretier at his Le Vichyssois restaurant in Chicago.

"I took that job, went and did the two-and-a-half-year apprenticeship program," Fleischfresser said. "I knew I didn't want to go to school for cooking, because I figured that out in high school ... I'm not a school learning type guy."

Cretier was trained under the legendary French Troisgros brothers — Jean and Pierre — and then Paul Bocuse, for whom the biennial world cooking competition for chefs, the Bocuse D'Or, is named.

Bocuse is the "George Washington on culinary Mount Rushmore," said Eric Smith, one of Fleischfresser's former Coach House apprentices.

"I had a great mentor that was very good," Fleischfresser said. "He didn't have to put on airs about anything, he was really good, really well trained, he was a chef's chef."

Fleischfresser has himself become a chef's chef. A master craftsman trained under French juggernauts, Fleischfresser moved back to Oklahoma in the mid-1980s, about the time the state passed liquor by-the-drink law, hoping to be a part of creating something distinct for the state.

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"When I came back, I really wanted to develop an Oklahoma cuisine, not something everybody else is making everywhere else. I wanted to use local products, and put a twist on it that made it local, and the (Coach House) apprenticeship kind of grew out of that," Fleischfresser said.

"It gave me an opportunity to cultivate the people, and farmers and everything else at the same time, because you couldn't get fresh fish here. ... You know, exotic vegetables were mushrooms — like button mushrooms — and lettuce."

The Coach House and its apprentices

One thing that Fleischfresser is quick to remind people of is that he hasn't done anything without strong partnerships. It was while working at the Skirvin Plaza in 1988 for Michel Buthion, who would become one of his best friends, that Fleischfresser was introduced to Chris Lower, who had started the Coach House three years earlier.

Lower and Fleischfresser sparked an instant connection, and the Coach House apprentice program took off.

The two also became consummate business partners, opening numerous restaurant concepts together, including The Metro Wine Bar & Bistro, seven locations of the Ground Floor Cafe, Iguana Lounge, Mango, Earl’s Rib Palace, The Museum Cafe, Portobello, The Deep Fork Grill, Irma’s Burger Shack and Montrachet in Tulsa.

Smith, owner of The Crown and The Crown Room, was the seventh Coach House apprentice under Fleischfresser.

"How did he impact my life? Multiple ways," Smith said. "He was the first probably true Renaissance man that I knew. ... He wasn't very old, you have to remember that. He was like 35 years old, and this is a guy that is a master of all things in the kitchen because he knows all the old (expletive) — trussing stuff — all the stuff that's a fallen art now."

Smith was followed shortly thereafter by Chris Kennedy, apprentice No. 9 who is now the executive chef of famed Napa Valley winery Trefethen Family Vineyards.

Kennedy recently returned to Oklahoma to take over local kitchens at The Hutch and The Tasting Room (both still in Fleischfresser's portfolio) and The Crown for a series of wine dinners.

At one of those dinners, he recounted tales of his time with Fleischfresser — including an incident in his earliest days when he was asked to grab cucumber for a starter dish.

"I'm like 'All right Kurt, here's your cucumbers,' and he looks at me and he goes, 'That's zucchini,' and he said 'Oh, I get it, I know where we're starting,'" Kennedy said. "So we commenced, and to his credit, he spent 45 minutes with me in the walk-in going through product identification."

After finishing at the Coach House, Kennedy went on to work for years with another master of French cuisine, Roland Passot, at Passot's restaurant La Folie in San Francisco.

"The French technique that I learned with Kurt and the French nouveau that I learned with Roland have legitimately gotten me every job that I've had since then," Kennedy said.

Creating a brotherhood of learning

Every apprentice was different, Fleischfresser said, all capable of performing the same tasks, excelling at varying things, and with unique personalities.

Whether it was the quirky, artistic apprentice who initially bucked at the idea of working as part of a team or the apprentice who "didn't know foie gras from a doughnut," when he started but who was like a sponge once he joined the program, they all stood out to Fleischfresser for their own reasons.

And much like with his own two children, Fleischfresser said he learned to give each apprentice what they needed.

"I didn't treat any of them the same. They all had the same criteria to go through, but they all were different people," he said.

Every apprentice who speaks of their time with Fleischfresser mentions their mentor's no-nonsense attitude and his unique way of conducting himself in the kitchen.

"Kurt is not like most chefs. He's obviously very stern and strict with certain things, but he has a charisma about him," said Kevin Lee, one of the final apprentices to go through the Coach House program.

"To me, Kurt's like my second dad, literally feels that way. He's like family, not just him, but with his wife, ... and it always feels like family. I think that's what the apprenticeship program was — brotherhood and family — more than just being trained. Obviously the respect for him as a chef helps, obviously him being a great chef helps, but his personality, his charisma, his love for balance in life, that's always Kurt."

Lee now owns his own restaurant, Birdie's by Chef Kevin Lee, and has seen significant success in the television competition space with appearances on Food Network shows, including "Beat Bobby Flay," "Guy's Grocery Games," "Superchef Grudge Match," "Alex vs. America" and most recently "Tournament of Champions."

For Smith, who met Fleischfresser at a time when he was ready to leave Oklahoma to attend the Scottsdale Culinary Institute, the mentor-turned-friend offered him an alternative.

"He was like, 'I can teach you everything that they know, and I'll pay you while you go. You won't have to get a student loan ... what do you think?'" Smith said. "So he takes me with him, and we go to the Coach House and he's giving me tastes of stuff that I did not know existed. My first sort of 'I didn't know things could taste that good' ... was Basil Beurre Blanc at the Coach House."

Smith said as he watched the apprentices before him work, clad in their white chefs' coats, preparing dishes like rack of lamb and potato dauphinoise, it was everything he'd thought he'd have to leave Oklahoma to find.

"I'm watching all this and I'm like 21 and I can't believe that it's real," Smith said. "He takes me back to work and he's like, 'Let's get together again this week.' And I was like 'I'm in.' That's it, I withdrew my enrollment to Scottsdale and I started the next week."

Fleischfresser said it all came down to one thing — the same concept he keeps as a cornerstone in his kitchen to this day.

"I work under respect. I give everybody respect until they don't deserve it anymore. I think some of the people that came in the program aren't used to getting respect," Fleischfresser said. "Some of these younger guys ... had hard lives and they're kind of punks, and when somebody shows them respect and has expectations for them, that's sometimes all it took to turn some of these guys around."

From the earlier waves of apprentices to those who joined in the final years of the program, Fleischfresser has built a network of chefs throughout Oklahoma extending across the country who not only have respect for him, but for one another and the art of cooking.

"He always told us, 'You're never going to make enough money to live like royalty doing this, but you'll always eat and drink like royalty,'" Smith said. "He used to tell us that all the time. He just had so much (expletive) wisdom for a guy in his mid-30s."

A titan of the restaurant industry and life after Coach House

Even as the Coach House apprentice program ended and his time working with Lower in their partnerships ran its course, Fleischfresser's work on building an Oklahoma cuisine carried on through his work establishing other restaurants in Oklahoma, including Vast and Cafe Cuvee.

A secondary partnership also was formed with Carl Milam and Western Concepts Restaurant Group, which continues today.

For Fleischfresser, the end of the Coach House program has led to opportunities for even greater growth in culinary instruction.

"Putting out two or three guys a year, that's great, but now there's programs like Francis Tuttle and Pro Start that are planting more seeds than I could have ever," Fleischfresser said. "Anna Banda, who's over at Francis Tuttle, she's doing a great job ... she's holding the light up there a little bit, so that's kind of fun."

Banda, who was a Coach House apprentice, is one of Francis Tuttle's culinary instructors, and she helped train Oklahoma's two-time "Master Chef" competitor Gabe Lewis.

Lee said that's something you'll find all across the city: Chefs who never apprenticed at the Coach House, but were nonetheless impacted by Fleischfresser.

"Now, it's not just the apprentices but all the people who are working for the apprentices, and, like, it just keeps bleeding through," Lee said.

Without Fleischfresser, Lee said, Oklahoma's culinary scene would not have made the strides it has.

"I think Kurt should be very prideful of that and be very proud of what he's created," Lee said.

"Now the younger generations are starting to blossom, and I think he really now gets to sit back and tell people 'These are my guys,' and be proud of what we're doing and how the city's growing and know that he's always going to be part of everything that's ever going to be happening from here on just from his legacy."

A broader impact on Oklahoma City

That legacy continues in Fleischfresser's ongoing charity work and mentorship of rising chefs through programs, including the ProStart competition and events like the Oklahoma Restaurant Association's Odyssey de Culinaire.

It also shows in Fleischfresser's time working with the Southern United States Trade Association leading to months spent overseas taking over and cooking in restaurants in places that include Singapore, Hong Kong, China, Chile, Paris and Germany.

And his list of accomplishments is lengthy, including two trips to the finals of the American Culinary Gold Cup Competition — the first portion of The Bocuse d’Or — and being awarded the Medaille de Merite by L’Academie de Gastronomie Brillat-Savarin, a prestigious award for those in various aspects of the culinary world. He also has cooked at the prestigious James Beard House on more than one occasion.

His thumbprint is even evident, as Smith points out, in the relationship between local restaurants and the Oklahoma City Asian specialty grocery store Super Cao Nguyen.

"Kurt's ... populating this city with all these dudes that are going there and buying stuff — I spend $1,500 a week in there, right now, every week — and that's all out of that tree, it's trickle-down Kurt stuff," Smith said.

Fleischfresser, in his typical way, shied away from taking credit for much of that connection, instead pointing to the hard work of the Luong family who own the store to source quality products that restaurant owners need.

"The current generation of Super Cao's (ownership), they're great guys, and then everybody becomes friends. So, all of a sudden now, your suppliers are your friends and you're working together, and they're doing charity stuff. I mean, it's great," Fleischfresser said.

Having just celebrated his 64th birthday, Fleischfresser is at a point in life where he says he no longer has to "work on being fine dining." Accomplishing so many big things in his career has led him to a place of being able to enjoy the ride, though he isn't convinced he'll go down permanently in the annals of Oklahoma history.

"I don't have to prove anything to anybody. I just want to cook the stuff I want to cook, and have fun with it, and I'm really comfortable with that. And another thing that happened a few years ago is I was really comfortable just focusing on Oklahoma," Fleischfresser said.

"I'm sure it will fade with time, but it's great, and I love having these guys as friends now. To go from that mentoring to friends and see them all do well, and that just gives me a sense of pride."

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: One man's indelible mark on the restaurant industry in OKC