Diners visiting the four restaurants at The Charleston Place — Charleston Grill, Thoroughbred Club, Palmetto Café and Meeting at Market — will see a shift in menus this fall as the culinary influence shifts from the property’s long-time chef, Michelle Weaver, to the incoming culinary director, Gabriel Haaz, a Mexican-born chef who wants to elevate the menus to reflect his Michelin-star experience.
“Michelle Weaver [is] a phenomenal chef, and what she has done for Charleston Grill and the community is remarkable,” Haaz said. “I think the approach to culinary offerings we have now is really good, so it’s just: How do we elevate or enhance the offerings?”
Part of that elevation is incorporating caviar into the menu at Thoroughbred Club.
“We’re adding a section of signature caviar custom-made for us by one of the suppliers I used to work with in San Francisco,” Haaz said. “Literally every single dish will have a caviar component, but you can eat it without caviar, too. ”
Above all, Haaz doesn’t want dishes overcomplicated.
“We want to focus on: How do you make something basic, perfect?” he said. “I don’t want to give too much away, but one of my favorite dishes is a variation of pommes frites (French fries), a ‘Duck Pommes Anna’ made from thinly-sliced potatoes that we layer down and season with herb-infused duck fat and Bulls Bay Sea Salt, then cook for one and a half hours.
“We press for a day or two to remove excess fat, and then we deep fry it on really high heat and it goes with a French Tomme de Savoie cheese Espuma and charred Vidalia onion dust. It’s a dish that sounds simple, but you need to be able to execute it to perfection.”
In addition to the salt harvested from Bulls Bay, Haaz said he will continue to incorporate native staples like rice, grits and shrimp into his offerings to ensure the food and beverages “make sense of the place we are and have a story to tell.”
“Whether it’s local produce and some staple dishes. We want to make things you would serve to your most beloved person but make it elevated, but we also don’t want to cross that thin line where you don’t want to mess around with flavors. Like, with shrimp and grits, whenever you are doing something better, you’d better make sure you’re not destroying what you already have.”
Seasonality is also paramount.
“You have to use produce only when it’s ready to be used,” Haaz said. “Otherwise, it will not be at its peak or taste how it should taste. Seasonality requires a lot of respect.”
That approach comes from lessons learned during his earliest experiences with food as a kid in Mexico, when he would steal away from his cousins to spy on his grandmother cooking.
“Literally, cooking has been in my blood since I have memory,” Haaz said. “I remember I would wake up ridiculously early just to go with my grandmother to the local market.
“I was super young, but she just grabbed me and walked super fast, saying hi to everyone, to the suppliers or farmers. I can remember tasting, just as we do right now, by the hand of my grandma.”
Later, Haaz studied at the Culinary Institute of Mexico and decided he never wanted to work in a hotel because restaurants were where the good cooking was. An internship at the Ritz-Carlton on Amelia Island convinced him to embrace a broader perspective.
“It literally changed my way of thinking about what hospitality was,” he said. “At the beginning, I was only thinking about the food itself but never realizing what an overall experience it was. It’s about the hospitality you live, not just the dish.”
A few stints at other Ritz-Carlton locations along with opening the Big Sky Resort as culinary director for the property’s parent group, Montage, the world’s only Forbes 5-star hotel company cemented his love of the hospitality industry. Time spent at Martín Berasategui Olazábal’s Basque restaurant in Spain, which has earned multiple Michelin stars, solidified his love of fine dining.
Seeing Stars
When he was asked by Charleston’s Beemok Hospitality Collection if he was ready to enjoy a little “Southern hospitality” at The Charleston Place, he leaped at the chance.
“I met the most amazing group of people who guided me through its history,” he recalled about his first visit to Charleston Place. “I fell in love and I’m really excited to be a part of this reimagination of the place, to continue elevating and enhancing the culinary experience.”
As for whether Haaz is going for a Michelin star for any of Charleston Place’s restaurants, he avoids prognostications.
“I don’t want to say yes or no,” he said. “For now, I want to focus on making every single one of our offerings perfect. I don’t want to over-focus on Michelin or James Beard or anything similar; I want to focus on great quality, and teaching and mentoring every single one of our culinarians, as well as blending in with the community.
“The food scene in Charleston is very big. From what I’ve seen, it’s so diverse and keeps changing and I want to make sure we are part of that change and ambassadors for that change. We are literally the most iconic hotel in the Charleston area, so we need to be part of it.”
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