A N.J. chef is dominating on 'Top Chef.' Here's what he says about Jersey eats

Jeremy Schneider | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

This is not how David Viana saw it all happening.

The Elizabeth native, who has been a front-running contestant on the current season of "Top Chef" and has consequently become one of the hottest chefs in New Jersey, worked in a probation office and planned to go to law school before pursuing a career in cooking. Now, he's a partner and executive chef at the critically acclaimed Heirloom Kitchen in Old Bridge, a James Beard Award nominee and has millions of foodie fans watching him compete on the hit Bravo cooking television show, now in its 16th season.

NJ Advance Media sat down with Viana this week to discuss the best (and worst) parts of being on "Top Chef," the best places to eat in New Jersey and why the state's food future is bright.

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Jeremy Schneider | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

When and where did your love of cooking begin? 

David Viana: "I never really had a passion for cooking. My first girlfriend I ever dated, her dad owned a restaurant. I thought he liked me because he offered me a job. Two weeks later, after washing dishes, I realized he probably didn't like me too much. It was there that people were like 'Oh, try this, try that.' And I was like 'Oh wow, this is really good.' I never thought I liked any of this stuff. My parents weren't the best cooks, is basically what that came down to. My parents would buy (broccoli) in the frozen aisle and boil it, it would be like mush all the time. It was the 80s and 90s, it was all frozen vegetables and stuff. But they made a home cooked meal every night, it just wasn't very edible."

And when did you know you wanted to pursue cooking as a career?

DV: "I guess it was at that job where I started to enjoy food. I worked in that restaurant and others throughout high school and college, never considering it a profession. I just thought that's what you do to make money in college, work in the restaurant industry. When I got out, I got a job at Union County probations in Elizabeth on East Jersey St., where I spent four to six months there before I realized I hated working at a desk. The whole time I spent daydreaming about my days in the restaurant. I knew the industry, I knew it was a lot of hours, I knew it was difficult. But it was just a better way to spend my day and enjoyed the unpredictability, the camaraderie, the action, how every day was similar but different, new experiences all the time. So I applied to culinary school in the city, I went to ICE (Institute of Culinary Education) in Manhattan and from there I started working in New York City."

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How did your work as a young chef prepare you to run Heirloom Kitchen and compete on "Top Chef?"

DV: "I think from the moment I picked up a knife I've been preparing for my opportunity to be the chef. Whether it was learning great habits at 11 Madison Park (in Manhattan), learning the highest levels of food and what food could become and how artistic and pristine it could be, to learning what to do if your toilet backs up. In every restaurant there's good, bad and ugly or indifferent. There's a lesson to be learned and paying attention and taking diligent notes and observing and learning and soaking it all in, from culture to how you want the culture of your restaurant to be, from who you want to partner with to what kind of food you want to offer, there are so many lessons to learn in this industry."

What was the biggest mistake you made as a young chef? 

DV: "There's a lot! I think the biggest mistake I made, I went into partnership with someone who stole money from me and the restaurant never opened. The biggest mistake I made, and I think I made it a couple times, it was the mistake of pride. It was assuming that my talent -- I had been really good at what I had done since the moment I decided to do it. It was very humbling to fail a few times to realize that A. I can't control everything and my talent is not enough, and I need to surround myself with talented people. I'm interviewing these owners of these restaurants the same way they're interviewing me. I've got to make sure that the union that we have, the partnership that we make is a successful one, and that we're two like-minded people wanting the same things. That's a really important lesson they don't teach you in culinary school."

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How did find Heirloom Kitchen? Or did they find you? 

DV: "Dan Richer, of Razza (in Jersey City), he is friends with my partner (Neilly Robinson). He had mentioned to her, she owned this place before I got here, it was a boutique kitchenware shop and cooking school. She would do chef-inspired diners, invite chefs from all over New Jersey to do dinners here for about 20 or so people. Dan and her, he reached out to her saying that she should check me out, I was in Jersey City at the time at this place called The Kitchen At Grove Station. She came in for dinner, she loved it, she invited me to come and do a dinner here, then I did and loved the experience. Then when I left Jersey City, I moved to Asbury Park and opened Barrio Costero (a critically acclaimed coastal Mexican restaurant). She lived in Asbury and I would bump into her in town and we were really friendly. I was leaving Barrio and she had invited me to be a teacher here at least until I found something to do. (Robinson) mentioned the idea of turning this into a restaurant and cooking school. I think it was a conversation over a Negroni, a walk through the space, a handshake and that's it. I've been here now, two years in September, two years and change. I couldn't have imagined this kind of success and couldn't imagine a better person to partner with, honestly."

What do you think makes Heirloom Kitchen a cut above in New Jersey dining? 

DV: "I will say that we are a dining experience. ... This place, this kitchen is literally a stage. Everywhere in the dining room, you can look in and see exactly what's happening to your food. We are inviting, we are polished, not pretentious, we want you to feel like you're at your best friend's house but with way better food. We encourage dialogue. If you want to know about my son, we'll talk. If you want to know where I get my ingredients, we're going to talk. If I overhear that you're deciding between the scallops and the duck and you choose the duck, at some point during the meal I'm going to send you out one perfect scallop, the perfect bite. ... We're not just selling food here, we're selling memories, really intimate moments. We're blowing away your expectations. A lot of people come in here thinking it's going to be great or having heard a lot of hype. I'm on TV for Christ's sake, the bar is getting higher and higher to impress, but we're up for the challenge."

What is the one dish you HAVE to eat when you come to Heirloom Kitchen?
"The closest thing we have to a signature dish is our duck breast. It's prepared seasonally, we pan-sear the duck breast low and slow, render out the skin so it gets nice and crunch. It's seasonal because everything we pair with it changes according to the seasons. But the duck breast itself is the only thing on our menu that never comes off."

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Jeremy Schneider | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

How did you get cast for "Top Chef"?

DV: "Someone from the production company, Magical Elves, they weren't even on the "Top Chef" level production, they were doing "Top Chef Junior," there were a couple kids in this nearby area that were on "Top Chef Junior," which was filmed before "Top Chef" was filmed, one of the people on that set came in here for dinner and was so taken aback by the level of the food and the experience and me and everything that she would not stop talking about it until they finally called me to audition. Even when I made it onto the show, they told me 'You owe this person so much, because they literally would not leave us alone until we called you.' And it was someone dining. You never know who's sitting in your dining room, you never know how important that moment is for that person. It's not even someone that can change your life like she did, it's people having intimate, wonderful, special moments. You want to be the reason it's even more memorable, you want to heighten it. You want to make it perfect. And that's what you do for a living, making perfect plates. So, one plate at a time."

What’s it like watching yourself cook on "Top Chef"? 

DV: "It's almost as if I don't even believe it because I've been such a fan for so long. I've watched every episode, and it's almost surreal, I don't believe (I'm) on it. And until the moment I see it on television and I want to watch it from underneath my couch because I get all those same PTSD moments, that's when I realize I was on the show. Because from in between airings, I almost forget it ever happened, like it's not a real part of my life. And then you see it and you're like, 'That's not real, oh wow, I remember that.' Your knees buckle. Your stomach, you get clammy, the sweat, and you're like 'I don't have relive it literally, I did it already.' That's kind of when it becomes really real again, every time it pops up on TV."

Longtime judge Tom Colicchio is also from Elizabeth. Was he extra tough on you? 

DV: "Off camera, (Colicchio) was like, 'we've had three other Elizabeth chefs on this show before, you're not special.' And at the the end of the day, I totally respect him. I love the fact that he always kept his distance from the contestants; it was about the food. You really felt how seriously he took the competition and you never questioned his integrity. He really wants the best food to win. There was no bond over Elizabeth. I wish there was a little Elizabeth bias maybe, I would have been a little less stressed in the kitchen if I had felt that was the case. But no, he was totally the consummate professional, the icon that he is. The intimidation factor never went away the whole time I was there, let's put it that way. He's a man about business. But me and Tom talked about Santillo's. He was like 'You're from Elizabeth?' I say 'yeah,' he goes, 'Where do you go for pizza?' I'm like, 'Psh, Santillo's. C'mon, what kind of f***ing question is that?' So we had that moment."

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How brutal is it knowing who wins this season and not being able to tell anyone yet?

DV: "Everyone is dying for the answers and I know them and I torture people with it. False hints and ambiguous answers and watching people squirming in their seats wanting to know and leaving them completely hollow and just walk away. It's my moment that I don't actually get to do in the restaurant and be a sadist. I'm enjoying a little bit of watching people squirm."

How do you watch the show when it airs?

DV: "We have screening parties here at the restaurant. Every episode the dish that I made on the show is part of the menu we offer as a prix fixe. Because of our stage that we have here, I never have to leave the kitchen and I can still kind of monologue during the commercials and let you know a little of the behind the scenes, how it felt, so people get the director's commentary when they come in for an episode."

What was the biggest surprise for you being on the show?

DV: "It was the 'making of the sausage.' It was in between cuts. It was the solitary feeling of not being able to talk to people, the hurry up and wait, you finish a Quickfire Challenge and you want to turn to the person next to you and be like 'Oh my god that was crazy,' and kind of have that moment, but that's not allowed. You have to be quiet, they have to move cameras around and clean up stations and people have to try things. It's not another hour and a half until the cameras finally come back on and you can actually go like, 'Woo!' That whole hurry up and pause, we're going to pretend that nothing just happened and you're going to wait an hour and a half of quiet time in timeout. People want to get your honest reaction, and I'm like 'no,' because an hour and a half later I'm mad, I'm annoyed and these aren't the feelings I was feeling an hour and a half ago, you know? That's a small part of what is ultimately an amazing experience with really talented people. Not every minute of 'Top Chef' is going to be fun, but overall it was a once-in-a-lifetime experience to be around amazing people and learn so much about yourself and others. The nights that we spent with a bottle of whiskey and nothing else but conversation were pretty priceless."

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You won a pair of challenges early in the show. What was that like to be the front-runner almost immediately?

DV: "Winning a Quickfire Challenge, probably indescribable. Really cool. Just the relief of having the immunity, the relief of being liked or doing something good. The thing that you never realize about the show is that if you're on the top you get feedback and if you're on the bottom you get not so great feedback but feedback nonetheless. But if you're in the middle, you get nothing. It's almost a different type of torture, not knowing if you were just shy of being in the top three or just shy of almost going home. Winning the Quickfires is great because you know where you stand and you're doing really well and I think even until the day I got on the plane home from the experience you'll find that everyone was really threatened by me and there's a lot if respect. If you talk to people after the show, I was definitely one of the people in the house that people were afraid of and that people saw as someone to be scared of. I don't ever necessarily feel that way in my personal life, but I think that's one of the things that came home with me from "Top Chef." A real solid confidence that in a house full of 14 really talented people, I was impressive and I was someone they definitely respected and were afraid of. That's a good feeling."

What would you do with the prize money?

DV: "I don't know. I definitely would take a vacation. Maybe eat at really great restaurants like Pujol and Quintonil (in Mexico City), I don't know, that would be a fun thing to do with prize money."

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Beyond "Top Chef," what's next for chef David Viana? Expansion? 
DV: "We're in negotiations with a few projects. We're only going to do one at the present moment, possibly in either Asbury Park or Philadelphia. ... I have so much talent and so many amazing people that I work with every day that I want to expand, I want to give them the platform to take control either here or go with me somewhere else to push other talented people forward and that's truly when a restaurant should grow. … If it's Philadelphia it will be this exact sized, this kind of template, maybe a little bit more elevated decor, but this exact template with an eight-seat bar. ... Asbury Park might be a little bit different because of the space we'd be working with, we'd have other demands as part of a larger scale project. So we're negotiating, nothing is set in stone. Excited about the momentum and that we have so many interested parties who want to collaborate with us."

What's the timeline for that project?
DV: "Timelines are fluid, man. It's so many people involved with both projects. I'm really focusing on the Asbury Park one right now, fingers crossed!"

Let's end with an easy question: where are your favorite places to eat in New Jersey?
DV: "Osteria Radici in Allentown I think is exceptional and special. Common Lot in Millburn is exceptional and special. Places like Grand Tavern in Neptune, that's a place I go to once a month. It's just solid and hits every note and isn't necessarily going to break the bank. But it's just a great place to eat. Uproot in Warren, amazing. They just opened a spot called Salted Lime in Somerville and I got invited to the friends and family dinner, I couldn't be more impressed with that. They make their own tortillas, and again not break the bank, just solid food where they make everything from scratch. They call it 'The Bell,' their version of Taco Bell, and it's a handmade tortilla with top of the line ground meat, they do their version of Taco Bell and it's insanely good. Felina is a good place, just opened, that's up north in Ridgewood, really good. I'm a proud Jersey guy and I'm hoping that Jersey gets its time in the sun on the show and people start to realize that there are just as many talented individuals here in New Jersey trying to do great things. I don't think the food scene has ever been as good as it is today. It's a promise of things to come."

Watch "Top Chef" Thursdays at 8 p.m. on Bravo. Channel finder: Verizon FiosComcast Xfinity, Optimum/Altice, AT&T U-verse, Spectrum/CharterDIRECTVDish.)

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