Over a June lunch of grilled octopus and sushi, Jeff Tunks is fretting about rising food costs at his five Washington, D.C.-area restaurants. The oil crisis in the Gulf of Mexico pushed his May numbers 2 percent higher at his seafood-centered concepts, and he knows fish prices won’t drop any time soon.
“Two points is not a nightmare, but that’s probably $7,000 a month to us,” said Tunks, who, along with two partners, owns DC Coast, Acadiana, Ceiba, TenPehn and PassionFish. “[Multiply] that out over 12 months, and that’s a lot of profit in a business where people are making 4.5 percent a year.”
The situation leaves Tunks wondering what to do — increase prices to offset rising costs or cut portion sizes to maintain margins?
“It makes you wonder whether guests are willing to pay higher prices to get this experience,” Tunks said, knowing other chefs are asking the same questions. “I can’t say I have that answer, though I wish I did. What I do know is it’s scary right now.”
That Tunks currently lacks a solution can’t be blamed on a lack of intellect, said business partner Gus DiMillo. He called Tunks a rare talent who understands and appreciates ingredients intimately, while relishing the challenge of turning them into revenue.
“I’ve worked with chefs who have these creative ideas that are so intricate that they’re just too costly to produce, but Jeff’s very good at balancing that out,” DiMillo said. “He just has a brilliant mind.”
Jeff Tunks
, partner, Passion Food
Hospitality LLC
Current role: chef-owner
Hometown: St. Joseph, Mo.
Company sales:
$25 million
Birth date: Sept. 11, 1961
Education: The Culinary Institute of America, Hyde Park, N.Y.
Career Highlights: five Mobile stars and five AAA diamonds at Windsor Court Hotel, New Orleans.
Personal: wife, Katharine; sons, Jordan and Bradley
Favorite Saying: “Keep your head down, it’s time to push!”
Hobbies: traveling, cycling, skiing with family
By Tunk’s own recollection, though, he wasn’t putting it to use when he was young. Growing up in Dallas, Tunks partied more than he studied, and his school grades suffered. What finally challenged him was restaurant work. His father recognized his son’s spark for it and encouraged him to apply to The Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, N.Y. Without a high school degree — but having the necessary two years of practical restaurant experience — he was admitted to the school and excelled. Upon graduating with honors in 1983, he was presented with the Francis Roth Award for outstanding performance.
“I wasn’t headed down a good path, so I guess you could say CIA was my salvation,” said Tunks, who eventually earned his high school G.E.D.
But while the CIA focused Tunks’ life, he wonders whether it and other culinary schools haven’t lost their edge over time. The quality of externs coming to work at his restaurants has “dropped dramatically in the past several years,” and he places some of the blame on culinary schools for dropping restaurant experience as an admission requirement.
“Culinary school is a really good thing, but students need that practical experience to understand what they’re getting themselves into,” he said. “Even if you worked for a chef for free for a year, learned to cook but hated it, you wouldn’t lose $50,000 going to chef school to figure out you didn’t like it.”
A born leader
Following the CIA, Tunks’ career took off, working first for Dean Fearing at the Veranda Club in Atlanta and then at The Mansion on Turtle Creek in Dallas. He moved to Washington, D.C., to open the River Club Restaurant, which is where he met DiMillo. The two became friends and imagined a future together opening restaurants.
But not before Tunks moved to San Diego, where he was the executive chef at the Loews Coronado Bay Hotel, an exercise that taught him “volume production, big- picture thinking and organization.” That experience led him to the executive chef’s post at the famed Windsor Court Hotel in New Orleans, where he led its restaurant, The Grill Room, to earn five stars from the Mobile Travel Guide, five diamonds from AAA, and Gourmet magazine’s “best restaurant in 1997” distinction.
After 20 years of working for others, Tunks formed a partnership with DiMillo and David Wizenberg to form Passion Food Hospitality, which launched DC Coast in 1998 in Washington, D.C. Using personal loans and credit cards, the trio opened the restaurant to rave reviews and big crowds, and that led them to envision more properties.
“The truth is, you can get bored with just one,” said Tunks, whose restaurants’ cuisines include coastal United States, Asian, Latin American and Louisianan. But, he adds, “I’m not the guy who’s going to open up 40 of one thing.” Chris Clime joined DC Coast after its opening and spent the next 12 years under Tunks’ wing helping open the company’s sister properties. He said Tunks’ skills are not only evident in the foods he produces, but also in his ability to manage such wide-ranging concepts.
“To coordinate that many chefs in five completely different restaurants and oversee that many menu changes is a talent in itself,” said Clime, now executive chef at PassionFish. “Guys at his level usually don’t cook, but he’s in the kitchen and he’s on the line cooking at least five days a week.”
Being so hands-on always has been the Tunks way, because it sets the standard for everyone, said Anthony Lamas, who worked with Tunks in California and is now chef-owner of Seviche restaurant in Louisville, Ky.
“He’s not going to let anybody work that line who’s not doing what he does,” Lamas said. “He inspires people to come up to that level, and though that’s hard work, they like that feeling. I’ve worked for a lot of great chefs, but none gave me the training Jeff did.”
Few chefs also research the foods they serve as thoroughly as Tunks, said Gerard Thompson, executive chef at Rough Creek Lodge & Resort in Glen Rose, Texas. Where most chefs consult cookbooks to learn about foods from foreign lands, Tunks and his partners travel to those areas for firsthand experience.
“Jeff understands the culture and cuisine, so there’s a lot of integrity to his food that people don’t understand,” said Thompson, who worked with Tunks at the River Club in Washington. “He’s not buying stuff because it’s trendy. He does it because it fits his concept.” n
