Close your eyes and try to imagine the home of a two-time James Beard Award-winning chef. What comes to mind? Maybe a sleek penthouse in the city or a McMansion in a gated community. Zoom in: Is there a basketball hoop on the street, perched near the curb rather than tucked in a private driveway or Sport Court? What about an assortment of well-loved children’s toys and athletic equipment—Styrofoam darts, miniature plastic trucks, baseballs, hockey sticks—scattered around the backyard? Or “Mickey Mouse Clubhouse” playing on the TV?
These charming emblems of a typical Midwestern family are what I first notice upon arriving at Chef Gavin Kaysen’s home in Edina, where he lives with his wife, Linda, and their three sons: Emile (16), Julius (13), and Crosby (3). It’s a Friday in late June, and with the kids home on summer break, Kaysen is watching cartoons with Crosby in the living room before challenging his older sons to a quick game of “P.I.G.” at the basketball hoop—and in just a few hours, he’ll change into chef’s whites and head to Spoon and Stable in Minneapolis’ North Loop to start work for the evening.
Photo by John Haynes
Kaysen’s career has taken him across the globe and back. He attended the New England Culinary Institute in Vermont before working in highly acclaimed restaurants in California, Switzerland, London, San Diego, and New York City. He was named “Best Chef in America” by Food & Wine magazine, competed on Food Network’s “The Next Iron Chef” and “Iron Chef America,” and won his first of two James Beard Awards, all before opening any of his own restaurants in Minnesota—Spoon and Stable, Demi, Mara, Socca Café, and Bellecour—for which he’s now most widely known.
His resume is on par with the most prestigious chefs in the world; and yet, in this brief snapshot of his life at home, you’d never guess it. “When I come home from work tonight, I actually have to prep a bunch of food because Emile has a baseball tournament tomorrow,” he says. “I’ll bring a ton of food and set up a picnic for all the kids.” It’s a strikingly ordinary scene that clues me into Kaysen’s humble, family-first approach to both life and hospitality—shaped in part by his early influences, which include learning to bake in his grandmother’s kitchen and working behind the counter at Subway in Edina.
It’s clear that Kaysen has mastered the art of balance—fitting in the non-negotiables of being a father while still retaining control of his career—and he’s not slowing down anytime soon. In fact, he has three restaurants opening this fall: two reimagined Bellecour locations in Minneapolis and Edina, as well as The Merchant Room, his first out-of-state project at Naples Beach Club, a Four Seasons Resort in Florida. With so much in motion, we caught up with Kaysen to reflect on where he has been, where he’s going, and how he stays grounded through it all.
Photo by John Haynes
Your culinary journey started at the Subway in Centennial Lakes. What was the spark that led you down the path of wanting to be a chef?
There was a guy that moved in next door named George Serra, and he was the one that opened my eyes to the possibility of being able to do such a thing. To be honest with you, I’m 46 years old, so this was 30 years ago. 30 years ago, I didn’t think that this profession was a career opportunity, and certainly in the middle of the country it wasn’t. It never really dawned on me that, wow, you can cook food and make a living out of it. It just didn’t seem feasible.
What I noticed being at that Subway is that people who wore business suits tended to order the same thing every day. So instead of me asking them every single day what they wanted to order, I just made the sandwich that I knew they had already gotten the three days before that. Instead of waiting in line, they would just come in and I would say, ‘Your sandwich is at the register, we’ll see you tomorrow.’ It was sort of wild to see how simple of an interaction could make people’s life just a little bit better that day. So, it felt very empowering to know that food or the act of service, the act of being a hospitalitarian, could make somebody’s day that much richer and better.
I read that someone would come into your Subway everyday and throw away the sandwich you made them. Is that true?
That was George [Serra]. He only did it because he didn’t care for Subway, that’s not even why he was there. He just went there because he wanted to see me talk to the guests. He basically came up to me and said, look, you’re too young and stupid to know this, but you have a gift. You understand food, you understand how to move in the kitchen. That was really his way of getting my attention. It’s kind of powerful when someone comes to you at an early age like that, and they recognize something in you that you didn’t even know existed.
Photo by John Haynes
How have your Minnesota roots influenced the way you see food, as compared to chefs from the coasts and other parts of the world?
The Midwest food culture, when I grew up, didn’t exist in the way it is now. As a kid, I’d go to Kincaid’s, I’d go to Red Lobster. When I moved to Napa, [California,] I was maybe 20 or 21 years old. [Interning in] Napa was probably one of the most impactful six months I had in my young life, because I had never seen such a direct connection from the earth to the plate. I didn’t grow up with a garden. We didn’t grow up going to the grocery store and picking up fresh beets, it just really didn’t exist in my household. So, seeing it firsthand, then tending the garden and being part of it, just changed completely how I felt… it was a different beast.
In your ‘At Home’ cookbook, you mention you love cooking on your days off. How do you stay passionate about cooking for yourself and your family when you’re not on the job?
It’s all about nourishing. That’s the thing, what we do for a living is about hospitality, nourishment, putting them around the table, and having everybody be in the same room. I love it. When we take a vacation, if I’m not able to have a kitchen near me, by probably the second or third day, I’ll be slightly depressed. I need to be able to release that stress, and that’s how I do it—by way of cooking.
When you’re not cooking, what do you do to ‘take off the apron,’ so to speak?
Honestly, with the kids, it’s kind of easy because they’re so busy. They’re all in such different, really cool phases of life right now. The thing is, when you first have kids, you never know how long the phases last, so you never appreciate how hard or wonderful they are when you go through them. All of that to say, so much of my life is very controlled. Everything’s on the calendar. There are more people that have access to my schedule than I probably know. So, the uncontrollable is being around them, and wrestling, and having fun. Like, ‘Hey, let’s go shoot pucks. Let’s go play wiffle ball. Let’s go to a baseball tournament.’
Photo by John Haynes
What does your typical workday look like?
I’m usually at the restaurants no later than 10 a.m. From 10 a.m. until probably 5:30, I’m having meetings with all of my various leaders… I literally am just moving around, meeting everybody and talking to them all. By 5:30, I try to find myself cooking with the team and being on the line. Now, am I cooking every single dish? Of course not. Typically, I’ll be at Spoon from 5:30-6:30, then I’ll run to Demi. I’ll be at Demi until 7:45, then I’ll leave Demi and go to Mara. I’ll come back from Mara at like 8:45 and go to Demi to get the second seating, then I’ll come back to Spoon. I’m floating all night, and I leave when I leave.
Photo by John Haynes
You’ve cooked in restaurants all over the world. What made you decide to come back to Minneapolis to open Spoon and Stable?
I never thought I would move back home, not for any reason other than the fact I had just been gone for so long. But I found this space, I really fell in love with the space. I was drawn to having my children grow up near my parents who live in the house I grew up in, in Bloomington. I just wanted to have that family togetherness because I know my life, and I know that basically five days a week, I’m pretty much nonexistent at home. So, I was drawn to that.
What did you hope to contribute to Minneapolis’ dining scene at the time?
I don’t know if I necessarily knew what I wanted to contribute, but I definitely knew that I would give people a new perspective. I had never worked in kitchens here before, so I was never raised with the history of, so-and-so and I worked at this restaurant together, or so-and-so and I worked at that restaurant as dishwashers together. I didn’t have any of that, none of those connections existed.
So, when I moved back home, I was automatically this chef coming from New York City and moving back to Minneapolis, and I was really adamant about making sure that we did not have this megaphone out there of, ‘New York City chef comes home to teach us how to cook.’ It’s never been a part of it—it never was and never will be. I came back home because I wanted to be closer to family, I saw an opportunity for me to open up one restaurant called Spoon and Stable, and I went after it. Now yes, I’m grateful that one opportunity has created many more. I’m actually more grateful that the one opportunity has created more opportunities for other people.
Your new restaurant, The Merchant Room, opens at the Four Seasons’ Naples Beach Club this fall. What excites you about expanding beyond Minnesota?
As a kid, our family would go down to Sanibel Island every year, and we would spend time in Naples. So, I have a lot of nostalgic memories of that part of Florida. I had a goal two years ago that I wanted to create expansion for our company, but I definitely wanted to do it outside of our state. The reason for that was because there’s only so much you can do before you start to compete against yourself. But it all really goes back to working for Daniel [Boulud]. When I started for him, he had four restaurants… when I left, he had 18. That type of expansion and growth was incredible to watch and be a part of. More than anything, it taught me how I want to grow and what that looks like.
It feels like the different eras of your career have been very defined by location. Does it feel like this expansion is the start of a new era for you? What does this new chapter look like?
I don’t know, we’re writing it now. It definitely feels that way. Spoon is 10 years old, it will be 11 this fall, Demi is 6, the Bellecour brand is 8, our catering company KZ is 9 years old, so I feel like we’re ready. I’ve been pretty thoughtful about what expansion looks like for us, and by that I mean, I don’t go into a room and tell my team, ‘This is what we’re doing.’ I go into the room and say, ‘Here’s what I’d like to do. Here’s what I’m thinking. Here’s my dream. What do you guys think?’ If we expand, it’s not changing my life, it’s changing all of our lives.
What motivates you to keep creating new dining concepts?
Honestly, clarity. Clarity through creativity. What do we want to say with what we’re creating? The world has done a really incredible job of making us look and feel as though we’re celebrities, but when you really break it down, it’s a matter of expression we’re trying to create. This isn’t art; it’s edible. It’s all going away tomorrow; it all starts again.
With two new iterations of Bellecour opening this fall, what’s your vision for this next chapter of the business?
It was heartbreaking to close in Wayzata, just because of the circumstances of COVID. It was so uncontrollable, like everything at that time… It’s going to look different than Wayzata, because it’s a different building. The menu will be similar to what we had at Wayzata in terms of its French bistro and bakery feel. It’ll be smaller because it’s only 50-plus seats, whereas Wayzata was 120 seats. But I love that food, I love that style of cooking.
Do you have a philosophy about food and cooking that you hope to pass on?
For us, it’s community, it’s culture, it’s cuisine. Those are the three things that are really important; they all work with and around each other. We service the community, but we service them by way of having a very, very good culture. Cuisine is our language, that’s how we speak to people. We cook for you, and we serve you, and that’s how we’re able to connect all the dots—by the food. Any chef’s ego will tell you that we hope it’s only about the food, but any smart chef will tell you that it’s not. It is important to cook delicious food, but you have to have great service, you have to have great hospitality, and you have to have an inviting restaurant.
