Soren Christensen • Photo by Mike Norris

On the cutting edge

Executive chefs can play nearly as vital a role in
the success of a country club as the golf course itself

By Jeremy Gottlieb

Soren Christensen used to work in the kitchen at Jimmy Carter’s Presidential Library in Atlanta. Once, while preparing to cook for a peace dinner between the African nations of Ethiopia and Eritrea that was to be hosted by the former president, Christensen stepped out to the loading dock behind the library where a U-Haul truck making a delivery for the evening’s activities was backing in. The back door of the truck opened and inside, much to Christensen’s surprise, was a live goat.

“You can draw your own conclusions,” said Christensen, now the executive chef at Ipswich Country Club.

Christensen’s journey to Ipswich, where he is now in his second full year at the helm of the club’s three kitchens, took him from Atlanta and live goats, through the Stonehedge Inn and Spa in Tyngsboro and the prestigious Lanam Club in Andover. Though there is no golf at Lanam, his 11-year experience there probably prepared him best for the Country Club life because, “At a place like this or Lanam, you’re cooking for a person or a group of people as opposed to a table number,” he points out.

Such is the state of both cooking and dining at a country club. Of course, high profile restaurants have regular customers, but not to the extent that they are there to eat every weekend and often several days in-between. Creativity and diversity are key. The last thing the chef or the food and beverage manager of a club wants to see is their members becoming bored or dissatisfied with their dining options. New ideas, styles and tricks are required day after day that may not be as important as the golf, but is probably next in line, and climbing.

“I love the ability to be creative on the fly in a fast-paced environment,” said Christensen, who has a staff of 15 during the peak times in the summer.

“And in this environment, you get a chance to accomplish things on a daily basis. It’s fantastic to excel and to execute to people’s expectations. This is a whole different ballgame and it may even be a bit harder. But it’s vastly more rewarding.”

Ron Arnetta, the executive chef at Turner Hill, oversees two separate dining rooms, each with a full-service bar. One is more formal, seats 80-100 people and features a scenic, wraparound deck. The other, the Grille Room, is a more casual environment that features what Arnetta referred to as “comfort food with a twist.” Since February, Arnetta and his staff have come up with between two and five specials per week, per room and have yet to repeat themselves once.

“It’s the same people every day,” said Arnetta, who came to Turner Hill last July, after running a restaurant consulting firm in New Hampshire and has 30 years experience as an executive chef. “You can look at that as an advantage or a disadvantage. I think it’s an advantage. It keeps the creative juices flowing. In this business, it’s very easy to fall into a routine. It’s easy to just throw anything out there. At a club like this, you get immediate feedback from the members as well as follow up feedback later on. Usually, it’s complimentary, but regardless, you take it all to heart and alter things as needed. There are so many different personalities and likes and dislikes. Some may love something that some others don’t enjoy. And you get to see people try something they might not normally eat, and, if they like it, it’s that much more rewarding. This is challenging and exciting and it keeps you on your toes.”

Wearing many hats

Christensen describes his typical day at Ipswich as beginning well before lunch and ending well after dinner. He talks of “rotating toward the business, depending on where the business that day is.” At the beginning of his itinerary, he will check all of the preparation levels for lunch, meet with all of his employees whether they are with him in the kitchen, or “back of the house,” or out on the floor, or “the front of the house.” If there are any problems, they will be addressed before he oversees the “execution of lunch.” After checking in at the club’s swim and tennis facility across the road, he will address some administrative issues before beginning to set up preparations for dinner and any other evening functions. Before service begins, there is a line check followed by “executing dinner or a particular function.”

“I’ll run food if I have to,” he said. “You just have to go in and assess any weaknesses, then plug any holes. I have three kitchens running at night so there needs to be a fluid motion among the three. I have to get a handle on what’s up. Then when the dust settles, I’ll go home, rest up and get ready to do it all the next day.”

For an aspiring chef like Ryan LaValley, 18, the chance to work with a chef the caliber of Christensen has been invaluable. Starting out as a bus boy three years ago at Ipswich, he’s moved on to become a houseman, an expediter, and is to the point now where he will often man his own sauté station.

“It has been an unbelievable learning experience,” said the recent Triton Regional graduate of Christensen who has taken him under his wing.

“I’m going to be taking culinary classes at North Shore Community College next year and I will be coming into it with so much more. You can’t teach in a class room what I’ve already learned from him.”

Contrary to Christensen’s outwardly calm disposition, LaValley says it is often a different story behind the double doors.

“He’s definitely old school and there’s a lot of yelling sometimes,” he said with a grin. “He has very high standards and he expects a lot out of us like he should.”

Ipswich general manager Mike McGillicuddy related that for all his experience and know how regarding the culinary aspects of his job, Christensen is just as strong in all the other pertinent areas.

“Soren brings exceptional culinary skills, sure, but there is also an outgoing personality and member interaction that you don’t always get,” said McGillicuddy. “He’ll hold cooking classes and run wine dinners that allow him to put on his own show in front of the members. They get a lot of enjoyment out of these activities and the way he handles them differentiate him while also being perfect for the country club business. I refer to him as our ‘in-house celebrity.’”

It’s not that Christensen – or any other country club chef for that matter – is expected to be an entertainer in addition to his or her other responsibilities, but it can’t hurt either.

“Every day is different and every day you have to hold the members’ interest,” said Tim Lynch, general manager of Kernwood Country Club in Salem who has been in the hospitality business for 40 years.

“The dining rooms are the social center of the club. We’re always doing something, whether it’s a clambake, or a foods of the world night, or even a dining show, which we will do about once a month. We’re cooking for a captive audience which means that while keeping those for whom you’re cooking happy, you also have to be as diverse as you can while keeping everyone’s individual habits in mind. There is a very social culture here and much of it is centered around meals.”

With that in mind, Lynch has his chef, 15-year Kernwood veteran Jake Sztrykler, as well as Sztrykler’s two sous chefs, travel to the Culinary Institute of America every winter to learn new tricks and trends. Sztrykler likens Kernwood to “a big family,” and referred to what he does as “personal cooking.”

Looking to maximize dining minimums

When you’re requiring members to pay a set amount each month in dining minimums the importance of having both a talented and innovative chef becomes all the more imperative.
At Ipswich, there are three categories of membership with dining privileges: clubhouse, swim and tennis, and golf. Each member has an annual food minimum or required spending of $800, broken up over 10 months.

While Kernwood CC is not open for food year round, Lynch reports that the club still does $1.5 million in food sales per year, which actually works out to just six months (May through October with September and October counting as just one month). Members spend $250 a month on food in the dining room and after Labor Day the formal dining room, which seats 250, is closed.

“We’d rather not have to do it, but it’s a big drain on nights in the fall and winter when there are just 20 people here to eat.” Lynch explained. “We try to funnel it all into the busy period.”

To help avoid any unspent food minimums Salem CC has added a Sunday brunch this year that has proven to be very popular.

“It’s all about value and we’ve noticed unspent minimum amounts going down,” Salem CC General Manager Greg Cincotta noted. “That means members are using the club more. In this economy we predicted that there would be more member usage because it’s something that is already paid for.”

‘From peanut butter and jelly to lobster deluxe’

All chefs and GMs we talked to agreed that variety is indeed the critical spice when catering to a captive audience as is the case at a country club.

“Our membership will eat here but they will also eat at some of the finest restaurants in many big cities,” said Sztrykler. “We want to be comparable to those types of environments. We’ll vary our menu to the point where you can order anything from peanut butter and jelly to lobster deluxe. At a restaurant, someone may come to eat, then just leave and never come back. It’s much more personal here. We’re always looking to expand our horizons and we have a lot of leeway to explore new things.”

Salem CC’s Cincotta agreed with Sztrykler’s assessment of the club’s staff and members as a family but pointed out that this doesn’t absolve anyone from constantly looking for reasons to give members to keep coming back.

“People may eat at a restaurant they particularly like and then want to have a similar kind of experience here,” said Cincotta. “Of course, golf will keep members coming back but what about members who don’t play? There are other amenities than golf that need to be considered in order to accommodate our members, and a large portion of the collective effort goes into dining. We have to keep aware of those other places and make changes accordingly. We’ll always be trying to do that and at a good value.”

At Ipswich there is a major reconstruction of the golf course’s greens currently underway with a target date of a grand re-opening extravaganza expected on August 1, and, as of press time, it appeared that they might even be ready sooner than that. Christensen noted the anticipation of this event at the club and talked of the energy and excitement that is building as the date gets nearer.

“There’s a real buzz around the club,” he said.

That type of buzz is always being strived for, whether it’s at Ipswich or Kernwood or Turner Hill or Salem. Generating that kind of atmosphere is the challenge for Christensen, Arnetta and Sztrykler with the reward being happy, satisfied members who continue to come back for more. It drives them, and those with whom they work, to always keep working and improving.

“We’ll give our members a survey on their dining experience so that Soren and myself can have a direct line for suggestions on how to continue to get better,” said McGillicuddy. “Dining is a tough part of the business. It’s not always the most profitable. The quality of the experience is so important to the members and it can be a determining factor in terms of whether they keep or end their membership. We’re always looking to improve for their benefit and in turn, it’s to our benefit as well.”

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With a wide array of drafts and a scenic view, both the bar and the deck at Gannon in Lynn are always busy. • Photo by Bob Roche

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