Jaik Hunt was a picky eater growing up.
He was still a picky eater after he grew up. “I really didn’t start eating vegetables until I was in college,” says Hunt, 29. But, with the exception of bananas (“I like the flavor,” he says. “I don’t like the texture.”), Hunt overcame his pickiness. Even so far as to become a chef.
Hunt is chef de cuisine at the upcoming Rosie’s Tavern, the second floor bar/restaurant, at the new Andrew Ticer/Michael Hudman establishment. Josephine Estelle, the Italian-American restaurant, is on the first floor. Both are slated to open in early June at 6695 Poplar Avenue.
Hunt was a picky eater, but he says, “Cooking was always something I did growing up.” Every so often, Hunt made breakfast in bed for his parents. “Comprised of whatever was in the pantry. Putting a bunch of stuff at the bottom of a bowl and covering it with cereal. From gummy bears to chocolate.” Those breakfasts were “always welcomed with a big smile. But I don’t think the bowl was always empty.”
Hunt’s first restaurant-related job was a delivery driver at Windy City Wieners on the campus of Illinois State University, where he majored in audio engineering and minored in film studies. He also prepared food at home. “I lived in a house off campus with some friends. I’d cook, but pretty simple stuff. Cooking was always an interest, but I didn’t take it seriously until I went to work at a farm-to-table restaurant.”
That was at the appropriately named Epiphany Farms Restaurant in Bloomington, Illinois. “I started expediting and food running, and never looked back.”
He remembers eating his first radish, freshly pulled from the ground 10 minutes earlier. That’s when he began “really tasting instead of just eating. I think once I started doing that, everything just clicked and I wanted to try everything.”
It was like only ever eating mushrooms from a can, he muses. “That’s not very appetizing. But once you get to try some well-prepared mushrooms you can understand how beautiful a mushroom can be. Your standard is only as high as what you’ve been exposed to.”
Hunt also realized cooking could be a career “and not just hobby-oriented” after he began working in the kitchen at Epiphany Farms.
He moved on from there a little over a year later when two of his favorite colleagues went to work at a new restaurant, Lexington Social in Lexington, Illinois. The chef doing the hiring didn’t recognize him, Hunt says. “He was my soccer coach when I was a kid.” Hunt didn’t tell him until over a week later. “I didn’t want to get the job based on that.”
Lexington Social, a bistro, was “the only fine dining restaurant” in town, Hunt says. “One of my favorite parts was the focus on local vegetables and produce. We would wake up, meet the farmer at 8 a.m., and go shopping for all of our seasonal produce. And then go to the restaurant and cook the vegetables.”
When he was “ready for the next step” in his career, Hunt moved to Chicago, where he went to work at Lardon. He staged (worked without pay) with Walt Stallings, now executive chef at Josephine Estelle. They were both line cooks, but Stallings also taught English at DePaul University. And he was a vegetarian at the time. “I really admired this well-spoken vegetarian teacher who moonlights as a grill cook on the weekends. He has these two passions.”
They both looked up to Chris Thompson, their executive chef. “He’s somebody that Walt and I talk about just about daily. He’s another one of those guys who’s a great guy that hasn’t lost his drive and passion for cooking. Somebody to learn from.”
Like Stallings, Hunt left Lardon when Thompson left to open The National Restaurant in Telluride, Colorado. “[I] kind of bounced around Chicago a little bit before I went back to Lardon when Walt was head chef.” And, he says, “That’s kind of how I’ve progressed in my career. If I find people I really admire and look up to, and I want to do what they’re doing, I’ve been thankful enough that they want me to follow.”
That’s what happened when Stallings got the job at Josephine Estelle. He told Hunt how impressed he was with Ticer and Hudman. “That’s when I knew that I would feel the same way about them. We share the same values when it comes to cooking.” And, Hunt adds, “If he was willing to take this leap of faith, I wanted to be a part of it.”
Stallings then told Ticer and Hudman that Hunt was interested in working in the kitchen at Rosie’s Tavern. “They said, ‘Let’s do it.’” Hunt, who’d never been to Memphis, drove here, talked to Ticer and Hudman, and ate at one of their restaurants, Hog & Hominy. “And that was enough,” he says.
He was also impressed with the way Ticer and Hudman “spoke about food. People as successful as they are, and they’re still very much hands-on and have that same love for food that they’ve always had. They’re constantly raising the bar — and setting the bar high — for themselves.”
Painting in the stairwell at the new Josephine Estelle/Rosie’s Tavern.
Hunt describes the fare at Rosie’s Tavern as “Americana, tavern-style” food — “burgers, steaks, and seafood.”
The TV show, Cheers, has been thrown around a lot in regards to Rosie’s Tavern, Hunt says. “A tavern is really a place where you can feel welcome and go have a dining experience. You can go to a football game and then have a burger. Or come back on a date night and share some seafood.”
Working with the Ticer-Hudman duo has been “a true collaboration. Michael is just a waterfall of brilliant ideas. He usually gets the ball rolling. And we all sit around a table and pitch ideas and thoughts. You want to use all your tools around you. We’re always working toward a similar goal.”
That goal, Hunt says, is “really hard to describe. It’s more of a feeling, to me, than anything else. Being proud about what you’re serving. And making guests happy.” And, he adds, “When you can do both of those at the same time, it’s the most rewarding thing.”
Hunt took his parents to eat at Catherine & Mary’s, another Ticer-Hudman restaurant. “They’ve never had an experience like that. They were blown away.” They were especially impressed with Maw Maw’s Gravy, made from Ticer and Hudman family recipes, and enjoyed the restaurant owners’ stories about helping out in the kitchen as kids and sitting around the dining room table with family.
“You can elicit the memories of your childhood through food,” says Hunt. “It takes you back to spending time with your family. Being able to do that through food is really beautiful.”
