Chef is a cut above the rest

If you have read the engaging book by Bill Buford entitled “Heat, An Amateur’s Adventures as Kitchen Slave, Line Cook, Pasta-Maker, and Apprentice to a Dante-Quoting Butcher in Tuscany,” you will find in its later pages a description of butchering, a fine art that many believe should be learned by all chefs in training.

So coming across Nathan Anda, the butcher and executive chef at the Red Apron Butchery affiliated with Arlington’s edgy Tallula restaurant, you find a young man who has already passed the chef test, and is now perfecting the art of dressing animals for Vermilion, Rustico, Columbia Firehouse, Tallula and EatBar, all restaurants that are part of the Neighborhood Restaurant Group. (Note that the animals he selects are not just any animals, but ones that Anda purchases from the various local farms that practice sustainable and humane rearing.)

That Anda takes so well to this phase of his career is not so surprising. New Hampshire natives, Anda and his family moved to the Midwest, where he grew up on a ranch. There, he says, “I was always outside near farming and livestock.”

As a teen, he cooked with his mom, whom he credits as his biggest influence.

“Mom had a big stash of cookbooks,” he says. “Sometimes she would let me help out. I made biscuits that were horrible, and that messed with my head.”

But his mother’s encouragement was not enough to inspire Anda’s eventual career choice. Eating “bad” food in college, however, was. “That’s when I decided I wanted to cook,” he says. “I bought cookbooks and went to the New England Culinary Institute.”

Anda began his culinary career working in restaurants in Charlottesville, later moving to Washington, where he worked for Todd Gray at Equinox and with Gray’s affiliate, Market Salamander in Middleburg. By 2004, Anda found himself tapped to open and cook for Tallula, where his trendy and offbeat style earned him plenty of kudos, and also the chance to open its next-door sibling, the gastropub EatBar. If for nothing else, Anda won immense local praise for EatBar’s truffled hamburgers, which, he admits, are really top-notch.

As for his butchering, Anda thanks his lucky stars that he worked in restaurants that required him to learn. “At Tallula and EatBar,” he says, “I started with a 300-pound pig, and gave parts to each restaurant. Then it was lamb, and then to cows. I read a lot, and once you learn the basics, you can figure out the big pieces of meat.”

Anda has also spent time at the Five Dot Ranch in California and at a charcuterie, where, coincidentally, his boss had trained with the very same Italian butcher that Bill Buford extols in “Heat.”

Of course, an obvious question for Anda is this: Does he miss the kitchen and his cooking?

“When the shop opens [to the public],” he says, “I can do both. I miss aspects of cooking, the creating and the doing. I go out to eat and get ideas. But I have no place to play with them. So I go home and cook.”

(Note: Anda’s meats and charcuterie products are on NRG’s menus. His cured meats are sold at Planet Wine in Alexandria and at some area farmers markets, including the Penn Quarter FreshFarm Market; the Ballston market at Welburn Square, North Ninth and North Stuart streets; the Crystal City market at Crystal Drive between 18th and 20th streets; and in Glover Park at Wisconsin Avenue at 34th Street NW.)

Q&A with Chef Nathan Anda

What is your comfort food?

Mexican food. Any type does it for me. Or pizza.

Where is your favorite place in the world?

Bed. Or Tuscany. I was there and ever since, I’ve wanted to go back. Been looking for an excuse to do a stage there.

What is your luckiest moment?

When I met my wife. My brother dragged me to a party that I didn’t want to go to. Fortunately, I met her there.

What do you do in your leisure time?

I am usually here. But I like to travel, and I am trying to learn to play the acoustic guitar.

Which chef do you admire most in the world?

I guess I would say Thomas Keller for his attention to detail and his use of ingredients. His books — I open a page and get inspired.

From the Chef’s Kitchen

Anda’s condiments flatter his charcuterie but will embellish any meat product.

Beer Mustard

Yield: about 1 1/2 cups

1 1/2 cups Murphy’s Irish Stout or other dark beer

6 eggs

1 1/2 cups dry mustard

2 teaspoons salt

1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce

1/4 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup apple cider vinegar

Whisk all ingredients together in a bowl, and place in the top of a double boiler with the bottom filled with water, and cook over medium heat. Cook and continue to whisk the mixture until it has thickened enough to coat the back of a spoon. Chill before serving.

Chipotle Ketchup

Yield: about 1 1/2 cups

2 tablespoons butter

1/2 onion, coarsely chopped

1/4 cup brown sugar

6 cloves roasted garlic, mashed into a paste

1 (16-ounce) can peeled tomatoes

6 chipotle chiles en adobo

1/4 cup red wine vinegar

Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

Heat the butter over medium-low heat, and cook the onion to caramelize it. Once the onion has started to brown, add the sugar. Cook until the mixture starts to bubble and turn dark brown; add the garlic. Add the tomatoes and the chiles, and cook until there is no moisture left in the pan. Puree the mixture in a blender until smooth. Season with the red wine vinegar and the salt and pepper.