A high-end food fight between an innovator of ‘Nuevo Latino’ cuisine and his mentor

This article was originally published Feb. 11, 2001.

Imagine what David Mamet would make of these components.

Precocious artist earns his stripes, sets off on his own and quickly flourishes. Then the flashy wheeler-dealer in town decides to make another lunge at glory and summons to the competition none other than Young Artist’s hero.

In the ego-driven world of high-end restaurants, where a fickle, finite public can toy mercilessly with culinary reputations, how can we not stop and stare?

It’s unfolding now in Center City.

Go back to late 1995.

Manayunk is cooking with new restaurants. Greg Pauwels, an ambitious bar manager at Sonoma on Main Street, gives notice. He and his wife, Lisa, buy a shot-and-a-beer down the street and plan to open an upscale diner. They hire the day chef at the Rittenhouse Hotel to cook.

Guillermo Pernot.

The idea doesn’t last that long. Among other things, Greg’s old boss, uber-restaurateur Derek Davis, is preparing to build an upscale diner nearby.

“He’s going to bury us,” Pernot recalls thinking.

Pernot goes home, and stays up all night writing a new menu.

No eggs over easy, no waffles, no creamed chipped beef. Instead: plantains and ceviche and yuca fries and tamales.

Trust me, says Pernot (per-NO), an Argentinian who taught himself how to cook and didn’t begin cooking professionally until his mid-30s, in 1991.

So they trust him, and Vega Grill is the hit of the summer of 1996. Pernot’s bright and bold style, dubbed Nuevo Latino, catches on instantly in Philadelphia. One night that summer, Pernot steps out of his 8-by-14-foot kitchen to applause. The dining room is packed with delegates from the influential International Association of Culinary Professionals, whose convention is in town.

Chefs with those kinds of moves don’t stay employees for long, so in late 1998 Pernot moves on to cofound the swanky ¡Pasión! in Center City. The foodies and the accolades follow, delighting in ceviche, braised goat and savory sauces. Two years later and he’s still riding the wave.

Over the years, Pernot has unabashedly credited as his culinary role model Douglas Rodriguez, the New York-based son of Cuban immigrants who is widely regarded as the godfather of Nuevo Latino cooking. Pernot and Rodriguez have cooked together, talked recipes together, and made food critics’ best-of lists together.

And next month, they will be in the thick of battle, together.

Douglas Rodriguez is coming to town.

With every restaurant, the stakes grow higher for Stephen Starr, Philadelphia’s high-concept, big-bucks, theme-restaurant king: Continental, Buddakan, Blue Angel, Tangerine, Pod.

What next?

Why not go after Douglas Rodriguez?

Young, talented, big name — and Starr always wanted to do a Latin restaurant.

In the tony-restaurant swirl, nobody hasn’t heard of Rodriguez. Born in Miami to Cuban parents, Rodriguez hit the top at age 24 with Yuca in Coral Gables. At 28, he relocated to New York, opened as chef at Patria, picked up armloads of awards, and hit the charts with the 1995 cookbook Nuevo Latino, which inspired Pernot.

Rodriguez left Patria in a huff in 1999 and opened Chicama, a rustic, hauntingly beautiful restaurant dominated by handblown stained glass and wood beams, tucked inside a huge and trendy home furnishings store in the Flatiron District. Next door, he recently opened Pipa, a tapas restaurant.

So why does the toast of New York swoop into Philadelphia?

Starr asked him to. Starr has bucks. Starr has ideas. Starr has cred.

Starr asked Chris Smith, who designed Buddakan, to set up a meeting last year. They sat down. “I gave him a bunch of ideas and just like that, we agreed to do a restaurant together,” says Rodriguez, a sturdy-looking guy of 35, with a mop of jet-black hair and a belly that stretches his white chef’s coat.

Among the ideas — quickly tossed — was House of Castro, with fatigue-clad waiters and murals of Fidel. “It was a parody of communism,” Rodriguez says, thinking of House of Mao, a Chinese concept that worked in Singapore. (And not dissimilar to Starr’s own Cafe Republic, his crumbling-Soviet-empire themer that didn’t last very long.)

Starr secured 1623 Walnut St., the prime Restaurant Row spot occupied by Le Colonial, and they came up with Alma de Cuba - “soul of Cuba.” At first, they thought of opening quickly, after minor cosmetic changes. But they ultimately rejected the idea.

The remake is now in its fifth month. Alma’s first floor will be a lounge, with some table service. The dining room will occupy the second floor; the third floor will become a balcony. Triple the size of ¡Pasión!

“It will be a sensuous place - imagine a restaurant in Havana if Castro had not come to power,” Starr says. “But it’s not going to be a stereotypical Disney version of Cuba.” Starr says he and his investors are investing $1.6 million. Ah, capitalism.

Rodriguez packed off a kitchen lieutenant, sous chef Jose Garces, to get in sync with Starr’s team. In a quest for legitimacy, Starr sent Garces to Cuba on a 10-day culinary scouting trip. Smart move. Alma de Cuba’s menu will be Cuban-inspired, “highly flavored Latin food.”

So when Alma de Cuba opens - perhaps late next month - it will join a parade of lively Latin newcomers, including Cibucan and Cafe Habana in Center City, and Cuba Libre in Old City (whose menu Pernot, as the top gun in town, developed).

Guess what! The vibe at ¡Pasión! was not good in the days after Pernot and partner Michael Dombkoski learned that Starr was backing Rodriguez two blocks away. What will this mean for the 58-seat restaurant? What about that planned 40-seat expansion?

Indeed, the accepted wisdom among Philadelphia restaurateurs is that the clientele is static - that is, new restaurants must steal from others.

John Mariani, who as Esquire magazine’s restaurant critic is one of the best-known observers of the scene, thinks Pernot and Dombkoski have little to worry about - from Rodriguez or any of the crop of recent competitors.

“There aren’t too many people who have the passion that Guillermo has,” says Mariani, who chose Pernot as Esquire’s chef of the year in 1999.

Mariani also considers Rodriguez a “notable addition to the American gastronomical scene,” and acknowledges that his name “helps enormously from a promotional standpoint.” Mariani simply is skeptical of chefs who have their names on restaurants in different cities.

“He says he’s sending his `best guy’ there. How many `best guys’ does he have?”

Rodriguez counters that he will be in Philadelphia to open Alma de Cuba and will stay around “however long it takes - three, four months - to get the food fantastic.”

Dombkoski: “Competition is good. I am confident.”

Rodriguez: “Even in New York, I’m not far away. . . . I welcome them all.”

Pernot: “I just hope people don’t forget who was first in town.”