Chef Ben Whelan cooked the five-course meal in an alley, plated it in an art gallery, and survived the sudden loss of heat on an induction burner in the middle of searing scallops for 85 hungry people.
It’s not extreme cooking. It’s Dinner Lab, the pop-up restaurant club that started in New Orleans and spread to 30 cities — including New York, Austin, Chicago, Baltimore, and San Francisco — and has about 18,000 members.
The idea is to give up-and-coming chefs a creative platform to try new ideas and experimental menus. Since starting in Denver six months ago, more than 250 people have paid $125 for an annual membership, which gives them the ability to attend one dinner a month — which costs about an additional $75 per person, including alcohol and gratuity — at venues ranging from a warehouse in Englewood to the Infinite Monkey Theorem on Larimer Street.
Memberships for the Denver iteration, as well as those for nearly 30 other cities, are available through .
“It’s a lot of fun,” said Whelan, who recently cooked at Walker Fine Art in the Golden Triangle neighborhood. “You’re sitting down at a table with people you don’t know, to eat food you don’t know much about, from a chef you don’t know. There’s an ethereal quality — food served only on one night, in one place, and you get to be part of it.”
His meal included beef tartare with Vietnamese nuoc cham and lotus root chips, and braised short ribs served with spicy Brussels sprouts, pickled red onion and Chinese black bean jus.
When Whelan, sous chef at , introduced himself to diners, he explained how his menu — called “Far East Puritan” — reflected both the comfort foods of his native New England and the Asian influences he experienced growing up in Boston, when his mother often took the family to Chinatown for dim sum.
“Chinatown was like a whole different world, with ducks hanging in windows,” he said. “I started hanging out in Chinatown, and taking home weird stuff to play with (in the kitchen).”
Wynne Stuart, a sales consultant who describes himself as “obsessed” with food, listened intently to Whelan’s words.
“That was cool,” he said. “I’ve never really met chefs, or heard about the background that influences their cooking.”
Stuart and his wife, Holly, signed up for Dinner Lab the day it came to Denver. They’d heard about it from their friends in New Orleans, among the first members of that first city to launch. “They’re always posting on Instagram,” he said.
This was their third dinner. For Kevin Opp, it was the first time.
“I heard about it word-of-mouth, about food with a twist, something new,” he said. “It’s intriguing. They keep the location a secret until the night before.”
Opp passed the news to his neighbor, Ken Leeds, general superintendent at a construction company who’s a talented home cook. Both signed up immediately, and arrived together with their wives for the “Far East Puritan” dinner.
Leeds, who started cooking 15 years ago, describes himself as “more of a saucier. I like the explosion of flavor,” he said. “That’s what I’m looking for tonight, how the chef brings out the textures and flavor, and the presentation.”
Like the other diners, Leeds found a report card tucked by his plate. Called “Guest Chef Feedback,” it asks each diner to rate each course on five key areas, from flavor profile to creativity. The feedback is later given to the chefs so they can tweak their concept if needed.
On Saturday night, as each course arrived, a hush fell over the room as diners concentrated on savoring each bite. When the bay scallops arrived, some debated whether they were seared — as the menu stated — or poached. Later, when Whelan talked with diners at the tables, he mentioned that one of the induction burners stopped working halfway through the plating the scallops, so he had to switch to poaching in butter sauce.
“That’s part of the game,” he said. “Walking into this, you understand the limitations — you’re not in your kitchen, or with cooks that you know, and a million things could go wrong.”
In the pop-up kitchen, the large propane burners are often set up outside, and James Rugile, sous chef at , dealt with weather issues during the January dinner held at the Crossfit Studio in Englewood.
“We didn’t do any cooking inside,” he said. “We were outside in the snow on a portable burner trying to execute food in an environment that didn’t have a kitchen.”
But he pulled it off, everything from seasoned pork loin to nose-to-tail lamb, rolling right over any complications and obstacles.
“It’s a great platform for the sous chef or the guy behind the guy of an established restaurant to get a little credibility of their own,” said Rugile. “It’s a nice creative outlet for your heart and soul, saying, ‘This is my food, and this is what I’m all about.’ “
For the diners, it’s about new adventures in eating — meeting new people who share a love of food, trading stories about grandma’s home cooking, new restaurants, or undiscovered hole-in-the-wall barbecue joints.
Bobbie Walker, owner of Walker Fine Art, invited some collectors to the meal as an appreciation gift for their patronage, including one who’d attended culinary school.
“It was so enjoyable doing it with someone who had knowledge,” said Walker. “And the creativity of the culinary arts is such a complement to the visual arts. All the people were looking at the art. It was a rewarding, magical night.”
Colleen O’Connor: 303-954-1083, coconnor@denverpost.com or twitter.com/coconnordp
