Vallejo-Bred Celebrity Chef Brian
Stansberry Says, “It’s About the Food!”
By Andrea N. Jones
Brian
Stansberry, 44, Executive Chef of the well-esteemed Augsburg College in
Minneapolis, Minnesota and owner of High End Catering, is responsible for
providing 11,000 students, along with faculty, breakfast, lunch and dinner,
every day. With 43 employees to supervise at the school, he manages a $2.8
million operation. Stansberry has carved out the time to be a celebrity chef to
boot with big plans to take his high end food on the road with his brand new
venture, Flavor Face! Food Truck, with which healthy, locally produced
ingredients and American comfort-classic gnoshes he plans to fill bellies big
and small, up and down the California Coast.
Keen on cooking green, Stansberry wants
African Americans and everyone else to know that they can eat healthy food and
it can still be good to their taste buds.
He will tell you that he is all about preparing the freshest of foods,
grown locally, to create food fare so appetizing that his reputation has come
to precede him. He has been tapped to cook delectable meals for celebrities
such as Snoop Dogg and E-40 as well as dignitary like Rev. Jessie Jackson and
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. Stansberry’s cuisine is not just for
the “Who’s Who.” In fact, the Culinarian from Vallejo has every intention of
taking America’s newest food revolution to the people.
Taking a note out of the playbook of conventional wisdom, he states his motto about cooking, “I believe the best way to a person’s heart is through their stomach.” At 18, while working his first kitchen job he started at first just to pay the bills, Stansberry fell in love with food. At San Francisco’s world-famous Drake Hotel, he was assigned to line setup which involved cleaning 100 pounds of squid, daily. Not everyone could contend with such a demanding task, but Stansberry took it in stride. At 21, Stansberry moved on to Seattle where he was the youngest staff member at the acclaimed Metropolitan Grill steak house. Assigned the broiler, he worked over an 800degree stove and got a taste for high end cooking—the place where fine ingredients, perfectly-timed preparation and skillful presentation meet.
Eventually he settled in Minneapolis, Minnesota. After working at the Radissons Hotel for five years perfecting his craft as sous chef he was offered a position in Uptown Minneapolis at the Green Mill Restaurant and Bar that he had dreamed of, Executive Chef. “I learned the culture of Minnesota. The food they like.” His most popular dishes were the parmesan encrusted Wall-eye, bacon-wrapped jalapeño poppers and tomato-basil soup. While there, he implemented policies that turned a $1 million business into a $3.5 million enterprise in just three years. Stansberry said he made that happen by working closely with his staff, telling them, “It’s not about us, it’s about the food.” Eventually he would move on to Executive Chef at the 4-star Crowne Plaza in the twin cities.
From working at the Crowne Plaza he received an advantageous offer to partner in the opening of a wireless internet coffee shop/deli, wine bar and mid to upscale restaurant, located on the foot of St. Olaf College, the Ole Store Cafe. The accolades began pouring in. Within one year, Brian was in two featured items in the Star Tribune, Minnesota’s top newspaper, a special segment on Minnesota’s CBS affiliate WCCO-Channel 4 and received “Best Restaurant Worth the Drive” honors from Minneapolis-St. Paul Magazine.
So,
it’s no wonder why Stansberry was called upon one night to prepare a meal for
Snoop Dogg when he came through the Twin Cities. “Snoop wanted friend chicken,
rice & gravy and macaroni & cheese,” recalls Stansberry. “People think
fried chicken is the easiest thing to cook, but it’s not.” Stansberry hesitated
at first as to whether he wanted the undertaking. Could he pull it off in the
amount of time he had? Traveling to Snoop’s hotel, would his fried chicken lose
its heat and crisp? In the end
Stansberry knew he could make it happen. ”They loved it,” says Stansberry. “They absolutely loved it.”
When asked about cooking for E-40, Stansberry fondly speaks of the rapper. “I grew up with Earl Stevens,” says Stansberry (Stevens being E-40’s birth name). “When he was touring in Minnesota he called me up and said, ‘Hey, B. What can you do?’ I asked him what he would like and he said he wanted seafood. So we did Garlic Roasted Cherry wood-smoked Dungeness Crab.” 40’s entire team devoured the food. Now everyone from B-Legit, Juvenile and Keak Da Sneak to Too Short call Stansberry when they are in town and Chef Brian happily hooks them up. Recently his team hit the set of his brother’s, the video directing phoneme Taj Stansberry (who directed the YouTube record smashing Hit The Floor featuring Pop Sensation J. Lo) set feeding featured Kingpins of Rap Rick Ross and Lil’ Wayne. 2Chainz and Swiss Beatz (Alicia Key’s producer husband), also have recently enjoyed the chef’s food fare.
He’s also cooked for global politicos. Reverend Jessie Jackson dined on Bronze Salmon, Hillary Rodham Clinton enjoyed the Caramelized Ginger Lemon Torte and for the President of Bolivia, Stanberry prepared an authentic Bolivian dinner, replete with ingredients he had to source out of state. He is currently preparing a menu for the king and queen of Norway. Not star stuck but very humble, Stansberry will tell you in a heartbeat that it’s not about him. It’s about the food.
Right now, Stansberry is really into perfecting his sauces, rue in particularly as he is really into gumbo right now. He also has taken on fusion cuisine—taking two world cuisines and combining their ingredients to create innovative food experiences. “I’ll take two cultures, like Italian and Mexican and create something,” he says.
Stansberry is most excited to throw his chef’s hat into the food truck ring by taking his high end food to the streets. He sees a street food revolution happening in America from coast to coast. “I believe the food truck revolution is really serious,” says Stansberry.” You don’t have to pay the property taxes, you don’t have to rent a big building and you can go everywhere to serve people your talents.” Stansberry states that America is beginning to catch on to street food, but it’s been a common way to chow around the world. “If you travel to Thailand, Australia, Italy, Jamaica, they all have street food and vendors,” says Stansberry. “[The food] is not pretty, it’s not expensive but it’s done well and from the heart. It’s done straight from the soul, like music.” As many as 2.5 billion people around the globe eat street food every day. In fact, Chef Brian will be touring Thailand later this year to do his on study on street food vending.
Stansberry has envisioned a
statewide food tour up and down the California coast in his spanking-new truck
company, Flavor Face!, that will cater to The Stars beginning January 1. The
menu will feature Chef Brian’s signature “Stick-N-In-Movin’“ items:
Mac-n-Cheese on a Stick, Spaghetti-n-Meatballs on a Stick and Tuna Tartar on a Stick.
“Music, food and people go hand and hand,” he
states about his appeal to the Top Artists he feeds. When he goes H.A.M. (Hard as a Mutha) in the
kitchen, he sets his timers to his own playlist. It’s not uncommon to find this
celebrity chef cooking to Sade, Confunkshun or George Benson. However, when he
goes real hard in the kitchen, it’s all about bumping Mac Dre or Ice Cube.
Stansberry might say that the two
hearts he loves nourishing the most with his food belong to his two daughters,
the both of whom he’s is currently putting through colleges. Stansberry sees cooking as both an
art form and a way to make it out of tough circumstances. “A lot of my friends
are dead; a lot of them are in prison. [Cooking] has been a way to stay off the
street and work at my craft. It’s a way to be better as an individual. To
young, prospective chefs, he offers words of advice: “Eat everything, taste
everything and travel as much as you can. Learn other cultures, languages and
terminologies. And look and listen.”
-Contact Chef Brian Stansberry, owner of High End Catering
at bdown66@yahoo.com, on Twitter @FlavaFaceCo or on Facebook.
