From his native Alsace-Lorraine, France to Virginia, executive chef Bernard Henry, with his resplendent mustache and French accent, has traveled quite a distance.
If you go
Open Kitchen Bistro
7115 Leesburg Pike, Falls Church
703-942-8148
Hours: Lunch — 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday-Friday; Dinner — 5 to 10 p.m. Thursday-Friday; Lunch and dinner –Ê11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Saturday
And surprisingly, considering his skills and passions, not much of his adult career focused on food. As it turns out, commanding a kitchen has been a late-in-life choice, and where you will find him now: Open Kitchen in Falls Church. But Henry, even from the age of 12, harbored a desire to be a professional chef.
“I was born and raised on a dairy farm,” he said. “To this day, my parents don’t have a television. And when I was growing up, we didn’t have a freezer, so we fed ourselves from the farm. As far back as I can remember, I was surrounded by quality food, adding that his family had a huge vegetable garden, a fruit orchard, ducks, chickens, rabbits, geese and sheep. When I was a kid, my parents went to a supermarket only once a month.”
One of four children who needed to help out with the family farm, Henry chose to help his mother in the kitchen from the very earliest age.
“My brothers didn’t want to help cook, so most of the time I did it,” he said, “And I was 12. My mother and grandmother knew the basics of quality and food. When I was 14, my parents asked what I wanted to do, and I said, ‘I want to be a chef.’ They didn’t like the idea, saying chefs had no family life and no time to go to church.”
Dissuaded by his parents, Henry instead got a degree in accounting and finance, and ended up traveling the world “and sampling countless exotic cuisines” working for a French international construction company.
“That was great,” he said. “I loved traveling and I got to taste a lot of [different] food,” he said.
Also, his then-wife was French, but born and raised in Algeria, so Henry became intimately knowledgeable about Mediterranean cooking.
Henry eventually ended up in California as a CFO, and then as the owner, of a vintner in Napa Valley. He took a sabbatical from the business world to decide what he wanted to do next.
“I wanted to be a chef,” he said. “It was a life-long dream, a life-long itch.”
By this time, he was living in the D.C. metro area. He enrolled in L’Academie de Cuisine, earning a culinary degree, after which time he lived and worked in restaurants in St. Tropez, where he really learned about the rigors of the professional kitchen.
When he returned to Washington, Henry worked briefly for chef Yannick Cam at his now-closed Le Paradou.
“I couldn’t keep up with the pace, so I became a personal chef,” he said. “So I opened a small company, a one-man shop.”
Little did he foresee, as he offered graduation parties and romantic dinners, and even worked as a personal chef to Leonardo di Caprio when he was filming in Washington, that his life would change once again.
Answering a survey drawn up by Hue-Chan Karels, the owner-operator of the Open Kitchen — a successful bistro plus cooking classes plus catering company plus rentable professional kitchen business — landed him eventually as the executive chef of this new Virginia business.
“That was it,” he said. “Having a bistro and a catering business is a unique concept. It allows customers to interact with us.”
Fortunately, Henry is a gregarious man, so chatting with customers comes easily, and leading cooking classes and running a bistro kitchen seems like a natural fit, after all.
Q&A with Chef Bernard Henry
What’s your comfort food?
Beef burgundy, or anything that’s stewed.
What’s your approach to cooking?
Fresh and simple. Any recipe with more than 10 ingredients is too complicated and taking away from the main ingredient I am trying to star.
Where do you get your inspiration?
My mind is thinking about food most of the time. … Every Saturday morning, I go to the farmers’ market. I buy ingredients and three hours later, put a dish on the table as an experiment. Also, I am very curious … and I talk to customers so I can pick up hints. How can I tweak? It’s a constant dialog.
What’s in your fridge?
Not much, because I am always at Open Kitchen. Fruits, milk. I rarely cook at home.
What’s your favorite restaurant?
I have go many, including Volt, Rio Grande for chips, salsa and margarita. Cirtonelle, Proof, Marcel’s, Bistro Bis.
From the Chef’s Kitchen
Swordfish Steaks with Lemon-Parsley Sauce
Serves 4
Serve with rice pilaf.
3/4 cup minced fresh Italian parsley
1 Tbsp grated lemon
1 1/2 tsp minced garlic
1/2 cup olive oil
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
1 tsp fine sea salt or other salt and freshly ground black pepper
4 (8-oz.) swordfish steaks (each about 3/4 inch thick)
Fleur de sel or other salt for garnish
Lemon wedges for garnish
Combine parsley, lemon peel and garlic in a small bowl. Mix in oil, lemon juice and the teaspoon of sea salt. Season with pepper.
Place fish in single layer in shallow dish. Spoon half of parsley sauce over fish. Turn fish over to coat with sauce. Cover and chill at least 1 hour and up to 3 hours, turning fish occasionally.
Preheat broiler. Place fish, with sauce still clinging to it, on broiler pan. Broil until fish is opaque in center, about 3 minutes per side. Transfer to a platter. Spoon remaining parsley sauce over fish. Sprinkle lightly with fleur de sel. Garnish with lemon wedges and serve.
