Date: Fri 11-Apr-1997

Publication: Bee

Author: SHANNO

Illustration: C

Location: A10

Quick Words:

Cheffields-Pastonok-Kregling

Full Text:

(guest chef & McLaughlin wines @Cheffields, 4/11/97)

Tonight's Special: Guest Chef & Wine Dinner

BY SHANNON HICKS

Most times, a trained chef has to check his or her ego at the door when

accepting a job at a country club. After all, it is someone else's kitchen

they are making a living in, with set guidelines to fit into and the same

clientele to cook for almost daily. A country club chef can make dishes as

memorable as possible, but there are constraints that do not allow him to

conjure up an evening or afternoon special on his own whims.

Club members are the ones ahead of the game, dining as they are on food

prepared by some of the best chefs in the world. It is the general public, the

non-members, who is missing out on culinary treats whipped up by these masters

of the palette.

Which is why when a restaurant opens its kitchen to a guest chef, the public

takes notice. Food lovers were offered such a chance recently when George

Pastorek, co-owner of G.P. Cheffields in Newtown, opened his kitchen to Wayne

Kregling.

Mr Kregling, the executive chef at Fairfield's Brooklawn Country Club for

three years and the former owner of Scribner's in Milford, was invited to

create a "Gourmet Guest Chef Wine Dinner" on March 26. Over 50 guests turned

out, including a number of Mr Kregling's peers: chefs from surrounding country

clubs.

"I like to do dinners like these," Mr Kregling said. "At the club, you don't

get a chance to show off as much."

No stranger in the food department himself, Mr Pastorek grew up cooking, then

studied at Johnson & Wales University before working for others in New York

City, including Leona Helmsley, and opening a restaurant in Shelton.

Mr Pastorek provided hors d'oeuvres and dessert; Mr Kregling handled the three

courses in between. Morgen McLaughlin, manager of McLaughlin Vineyards in

Sandy Hook, supplied the evening's wine.

"That's how you start when you're planning a dinner," Mr Pastorek explained.

"You decide on the wine, and go from there."

Ms McLaughlin provided a 1995 Chardonnay, a 1992 Coyote (a white table wine),

a 1995 Riesling (another white) and a 1993 Cabernet.

Cheffields presented dinner guests with a raw bar, smoked salmon in wonton

shells, tuna tartar on wonton shells and mini crabcakes for starters.

Mr Kregling's initial offering was chicken-fried lobster with truffled grits,

collared greens and lobster gravy, with a touch of apple-ketchup.

Following was arctic char and tomato confit (slow poached duck); a saga blue

cheese souffle with pear salad with verjus (a grape juice-mustard seed

dressing), a carrot coreander with crab meat on the side, and turned zucchini,

carrots and beets in orange sauce. Prepping for the meal took three days.

"Every one of the sauces was from scratch," Mr Kregling said, "and that was

noticed. I heard good and excellent comments from my peers. I consider it a

success, then."

The guest chef dinner with Mr Kregling was the first such event Cheffields

hosted, but not the last, says Mr Pastorek. Future dinners will not take place

before the fall, after country clubs work through their busy season.

Until then, diners at Cheffields will continue to delight in the delicious

creations Mr Pastorek passionately cooks up each night in his own kitchen.