Host chef of Uncorked started as dishwasher

By Wanda Adams
Advertiser Food Editor

Khamtan Tanhchaleun offers his lemongrass encrusted chicken. He is executive chef for Ko'olau Catering Partners and host chef for this year's Hawai'i Uncorked benefit, set for May 23 at Ko'olau Golf Course. Deborah Booker • The Honolulu Advertiser

His first job, as a dishwasher at Michel's at the Colony Surf, didn't help much: Everyone on the lower rungs of the kitchen ladder was also Laotian. Tanhchaleun, who already spoke Lao, French, Thai, Chinese, Vietnamese and Cambodian, had little chance to practice the English he was struggling to learn at McKinley High School.

"When they talk to me in the kitchen, I keep smiling but I have no understanding of what they are saying," said the man who now runs a kitchen of his own as executive chef for Ko'olau Catering Partners and host chef for this year's Hawai'i Uncorked Hawai'i Public Radio benefit, a wine-and-food tasting and silent tasting and silent auction from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. May 23 at Ko'olau Golf Course.

As he has done throughout his career, Tanhchaleun will work alongside name chefs for this event, including Randall Ishizu of the JW Marriott Ihilani Spa & Resort, Mariano Lalica of Meritage and Karen Syrmos of Island Epicure.

But "Chef Kham" (pronounced like "calm") — as he is known to folks who find his name a bit hard to pronounce — has never forgotten what it's like to be the lowly dishwasher.

Tanhchaleun continued to work for Michel's while he attended Kapi'olani Community College's culinary program, graduating in 1976. Michel's was then THE Honolulu restaurant for fine French dining, and he rose from dishwasher to sous chef and part-time wine steward ("so I see the outside of the house, too").

"I learn everything from there," he said. His boss was the perfectionist Paul Grutter, a member of the fraternity of Swiss-born chefs who were ubiquitous in fine-dining establishments at the time.

Grutter was a stern taskmaster but Tanhchaleun was eager to learn. He still considers Grutter his primary role model —"even if, sometimes, he is a role model for what I don't want to do. I remember thinking, 'I am never going to do that,' " said Tanhchaleun.

"The thing I learned from him is, even if you only the chef, you must treat the restaurant as though you were the owner. You don't just come in and put in your time and leave, you have to be like it's your own operation," said Tanhchaleun, who recalled a time that another cook got a tremendous scolding for wasting about two ounces of butter. The point wasn't just that particular two ounces, but the way waste can add up and cut into profits.

His career has included service in eight different kitchens, as well as various exchange and internship programs in the United States and France — from Colony to the Beverly Wilshire, the Halekulani to the Moloka'i Ranch Lodge.

The really tough job is managing people, he said, and the day of the autocrat in the white toque is over.

Chef Michel Saragatta, with whom he worked briefly at the Mayfair Regent Hotel in Chicago during an exchange program run by the Regent International hotel chain, taught him that taking care of employees, making them feel valued, is key. "He reminds me of local-style; he's not one for screaming and yelling, he teaches." He got the same message from Piet Wigmans, for whom he worked during a similar exchange at what was then called the Kapalua Bay Hotel.

"You need people to work for you, that's the hardest part, to get the good crew behind your back. No way executive chef can do it alone," he said.

Tanhchaleun has also had to deal with some of the harsh realities of the restaurant world: long hours, hot kitchens, being away from the family in the evenings (he and his wife have two teen daughters) and — for an Asian chef in a French-dining world — discrimination.

"When I start in this business, I never think I can be executive because you don't see Asians as executive chef of fine dining in those days," he recalled. "I think maybe I can go as far as sous chef and that's it." And that's as far as he did go at Michel's.

In 1980, after dining at Michel's and enjoying Tanhchaleun's menu offerings, chef Wigmans hired him away to the Halekulani, then a Regent International hotel. The chain was interested in mentoring younger local chefs, offering them training and exchanges with other hotels, in preparation for the opening of the "new," remodeled Halekulani, Wigmans recalled. Tanhchaleun would later open La Mer, the Halekulani's award-winning fine-dining restaurant.

"Khamtan is a very good cook, his food tastes very, very good, and he also gets along well with people and that's why he's been as successful as he has been," Wigmans said. Later, when Philippe Padovani took over at La Mer, Tanhchaleun decided it was time to move on and rejoined Wigmans at the Kapalua Bay Hotel in the Third Floor fine-dining restaurant.

Tanhchaleun moved on, choosing other jobs for the opportunities they offered to advance his skills. He spent seven years as executive chef of the Pacific Beach Hotel, for example — a move that some considered a step down from the high-endjobs he'd previously held. But he wanted to return to O'ahu to be closer to his Laotian friends and family, and he wanted to learn about a volume operation (during the holidays, the hotel's restaurants and catering operations sometimes do 4,000 covers a day, and he was in charge of more than 100 employees). He consulted with the Moloka'i Ranch Lodge to stretch his skill and menu planning. He opened several hotels — an experience considered key in the hospitality industry — including the Hawai'i Prince with Gary Strehl.

Khamtan Tanhchaleun tosses the sauce for his lemongrass-crusted chicken. His career has included service in eight kitchens, as well as exchange and internship programs in the United States and France. Deborah Booker • The Honolulu Advertiser

He hasn't placed any specifically Laotian dishes on the menu, though he thinks the world ought to know about laab — a classic Lao dish of finely chopped or ground highly spiced meats, herbs and spices served over rice with lime juice and fish sauce. He notes that Laotian food is similar to Thai and Vietnamese, but spicier than Vietnamese and not as full of coconut milk as Thai food. He does use a Southeast-Asian-style master marinade recipe that is the starting point for barbecue Thai chicken or beef and for satay.

Tanhchaleun calls his cooking style Eurasian and a typical example is a dish that many clients choose for their menus: a Chicken Proveneal made by grilling chicken breast just long enough to "mark" it, brushing it with Dijon-style mustard and then coating it with a crust of minced lemon grass, garlic, parmesan cheese and panko (Japanese-style crisp bread crumbs) before roasting it to doneness. This he serves with a variety of sauces, depending on the theme of the menu. One is a Pommeray mustard sauce, another is a mustard reduction. For Hawai'i Public Radio's Hawai'i Uncorked event, which has a Spanish theme, he's doing a version with a light, saffron-accented tomato-based Mediterranean-style sauce with capers, black olives and bell peppers. He's also planning to make roast lamb and an oolong-tea-smoked sirloin with ginger-peppercorn sauce.

"All these things we talk about today are important for the chef to know, but for the customer, there's just the food and the experience," he said. "All these things have to work together to make that right."