Irish Chef and Restauranteur Gerri Gilliland
Leaving it overnight – if you can bear to wait that long – only adds to the flavor, and at it’s best, a pot of stew is a hearty, warming feed that should last you a while.
But cooking a good Irish stew? That’s another thing altogether. Recipes are passed down from generation to generation and closely guarded, with a pinch of this or that being the “extra special” something that makes it the best in the world.
Mixing Ireland with California is nothing new to Gerri Gilliland, who first came to America from Belfast in 1975, after starting out as a chef when she was very young:
“I worked in a small restaurant in the City Centre for a man called Mike Dimmer. I was actually only calling to find out where they were located so I could go there to eat, and he begged me to come and chef for him!”
Gerri’s experience at Dimmers really opened her eyes, but there’s no way she could have imagined that 30 years later, she would be the owner of several popular and critically acclaimed restaurants in California and known worldwide as an expert in the culinary arts:
“I was still a schoolgirl at St Dominic’s when that happened, and I worked the summers. It was a very exotic menu and the Dimmers were way ahead of their time in their food creation – every month they did a Special Evening – a Greek or Indian evening – and the menus followed that. They charged $2 (around Ã?£1) per head.”
Gerri’s early days at Dimmers were during the early days of “the troubles”, and she remembers it well:
“It was 1969, and we were marching with Bernadette Devlin and so on, and when I was working as a chef in the kitchen, I used to fall to the floor when the bombs started going off in the City Centre.”
Like many others, Gerri moved away from Ireland, and eventually found herself in Los Angeles, which was an exciting yet daunting place at first:
“I found LA very exotic – they spoke a different language, even though it was English! It was very scary actually – I didn’t know anyone at all.”
As soon as she arrived in Los Angeles, Gerri started working over the grill and has continued ever since, teaching at cooking schools at UCLA, Williams-Sonoma, Montana Mercantile and Bristol Farms. Using her degrees in classical French Cuisine and Home Economics, she teaches Indian, Chinese, Regional Mexican, French, Californian and, of course, Irish cuisines to her keen students.
Gilliland’s Cafe opened in 1984, and she began her own catering company soon after. They were an immediate success, providing Christmas Puddings to Bloomingdales, Dean & Deluca and Balducci’s in New York, but it was her mix of California and Irish cuisines – in a city and state not necessarily known for it’s huge Irish population – that established Gerri’s reputation on a national scale, and started the awards rolling in.
The cantina-style Lula Cocina was next in 1991, and 1993 saw Jake and Annie’s American-Irish CafÃ?©, which is now the legendary Finn McCool’s pub, in which Gerri had been pulling pints since she was 10 – back in Northern Ireland – when it was called Flynn’s Corner House, and was in a small village near Newry, County Down.
When her stepfather retired, Gerri had the pub shipped piece-by-piece to America via the Panama Canal, and now it’s a staple of Santa Monica nightlife, having been deliberately re-named after the legendary Irish giant Finn McCool – or Fionn Mac Cumhail – who burnt his thumb while cooking the Salmon of Knowledge, and acquired knowledge as a result:
“I fell in love with Santa Monica after I drove from New York. When I saw the beach, I cashed in my Greyhound bus ticket, and my return ticket to Ireland too.”
Today, Gerri’s knowledge is just as wide as the Giant’s Causeway that Finn built, and her catering business serves up a storm for events and parties at “Rancho Chiquita”, her 40 acre home and grounds in Malibu.
Overlooking the ocean and the mountains, it has gardens full of roses, wild iris, lilies, daisies and birds-of-paradise, and a border of cacti separating you from the briny deep. It’s been the perfect setting for many a wedding, and even has a fountain and Sanctuary Garden where you can get away from it all.
For those of us keen on cooking but not about to get married or have a party, there is the chance to learn a soup�§on of what Gerri knows by taking in one of her classes at Rancho Chiquita, or read about her recipes in Grills and Greens, the book she co-wrote with Linda Zimmerman that was nominated for a James Beard award in 1995.
Gerri has some big plans for the future, although she never knows what could be around the corner:
“I wish I had a crystal ball. But I want to build a Vineyard here at Rancho Chiquita, because there are many small landowners doing some fabulous wines right here in Malibu. “Rancho Chiquita Vineyards” – that’s the next really big thing.”
She hasn’t been home to Ireland for many years, but she is hoping to remedy that soon:
“I am afraid I don’t fly, so all my family and friends come out here instead. But I do intend to start flying again this year, maybe going to Mexico to start with.”
As for the perfect Irish stew, Gerri has a handy hint:
“My tip is to use Guinness to flavor, and make sure to cook the meat very slowly until tender before adding the vegetables.”
