Chef Jeremy Bringardner: Achieving the Food Trifecta

Delicious, affordable, and nutritious. As the Corporate Executive Chef at LYFE Kitchen, this “trifecta” is the goal of every dish that Jeremy Bringardner creates. At LYFE Kitchen, an acronym for “Love Your Food Everyday,” Bringardner combines his extensive fine-dining cooking skills with his nutritional knowledge to develop a menu that champions taste, focusing on familiar flavors, with no dish containing more than 600 calories and most with less. And with LYFE expanding at an astounding rate, Bringardner balances taste and nutrition with operational and supply chain challenges.

Kelly Hensel: What led you to a career in culinary?

Jeremy Bringardner:Well, first of all, my dad made cooking very fun when I was a kid. I have three siblings and each one of us got to take a turn once a week cooking with dad. We got to go through the cookbooks we had and find a dish that looked really good and then dad would take us to the grocery store and we’d help shop and cook dinner for the family. That made cooking really fun early on.

And, honestly, I got into the food world partly by happenstance. When I was 14 years old riding my bike in this parking lot, someone ran out and asked me if I wanted a job at Domino’s Pizza. I would make $4.25 an hour and get all the free pop and pizza I wanted. That was my first job and I really loved working with my hands and being on my feet and being physically engaged. I haven’t really had a job outside the food world since.

Hensel: And you went on to get your degree in culinary nutrition from Johnson & Wales?

Bringardner: Yes, exactly. I had just finished my first two year’s associate degree in culinary school and I was trying to think about what to concentrate in for my next years, and that’s when the school launched the first-ever culinary nutrition program. They were putting together what a dietician knows about nutrition with what a chef knows about cooking.

I thought it would be a good way to distinguish myself from everybody else in the school and out in the industry. And I had a hunch it would be more important one day in the future and I was right. But for the first 10 years after I graduated nobody cared about nutrition in restaurants. I remember during my internship in Belgium I was vegetarian at the time and when the cooks in the kitchen found out they lost all respect for me. They thought I was insane.

Hensel: Was there one experience or chef that really inspired you to become the chef you are today?

Bringardner: It’s really just my passion and obsessions that have driven me to where I am at today. I’m obsessed with flavor and nutrition. That’s been my motivator. Even when I worked in restaurants that weren’t necessarily health-focused, I still learned everything that I could and extracted all things that were important to me, such as how to build flavor and be nutritionally responsible.

Hensel: How did you become involved in LYFE Kitchen?

Bringardner: I worked in fine dining restaurants, including Charlie Trotter’s, for years until I was burned out. I was working 80 hours a week and had literally sacrificed my entire personal life. So I became a personal chef, which I did for about five years. I loved it and my clients were great, but I realized I wanted more. Right around that time, LYFE Kitchen was looking for a chef to do some consulting work and develop some recipes. Before I knew it they were flying me all over the country, doing lunches for potential investors and I realized that these guys were not joking around. It grew very fast. Five years later and we have 16 locations across the country.

I’ve always had this passion for nutrition and for great flavors and here were these people wanting to pay me to come to work every day and just invent and create recipes that embody those two things like they have never been embodied before. It was just the perfect opportunity—the perfect platform for me to do exactly what I love to do.

Hensel: Since opening four years ago, LYFE Kitchen already has 16 locations across the United States. What are the plans for expansion?

Bringardner: I think we have six more to open by the end of the year. That will put us at 22 in total by the end of 2015. And I believe we are opening another dozen or so in 2016. So, we are ramping up a little bit more each year. But we’re checking ourselves every step of the way—we aren’t going to grow for the sake of growing. We actually slowed down a bit this year because we knew that there were certain things that we needed to address before moving any faster. We’re constantly doing self-evaluation because it’s just so critical.

Hensel: What are the challenges that you face as Corporate Chef with such fast-paced growth?

Bringardner: How do you grow or open all these different locations and have everyone reproducing exactly the way they’re supposed to? For me as a chef, it’s very easy to show one person how to make a recipe. And I can check back and look over their shoulder and coach in the moment—that’s easy. The challenge is how do you do that in multiple locations all at the same time?

For us it’s all about hierarchy and systems. We work to develop leaders—people who naturally have leadership qualities—and anytime we open a restaurant we look for those leaders and we develop them. You just have to identify those people and then build a relationship with them and develop them further. I find that the more that I teach those individuals and develop them, the more that they’re inspired and satisfied with their job. They become a key part of this whole process. So while I can’t be at each location looking over the shoulders of all the line cooks, these leaders can be there.

At times throughout the year we fly all of our leaders out to California and I spend a couple of days immersed with them in the kitchen. They go through some culinary, management, and leadership training—all the tools that they need to be able to succeed.

Hensel: How do you develop new menu items for LYFE Kitchen? How often does the menu change?

Bringardner: We change the menu every six months—not every single item, but we take that opportunity to change anything that we feel needs to change. We have a menu team and we meet regularly to evaluate and analyze the items on the menu. There’s a million things that influence our decisions. It can be anything from feedback we’re getting on Yelp or at the registers to insights we hear from focus groups.

Also, whenever we go into a new market we conduct focus groups to learn more about what people in that part of the country want from their food, so we can tailor the menu for the people that live there. We’re trying to have mass appeal across the country, not just in California.

I also get to use my instinct a lot. I’m very tuned into the world of fine dining and since trends start there and trickle down, I know that when I see things trending they might be ripe for putting on our menu.

Chocolate Budino Dessert

Budino Base

4 cups coconut milk, preferably thai kitchen brand
20-oz chocolate chips, bittersweet, 60–65%*
¼ cup raw agave nectar**
1½ tsp vanilla extract

1. Place chocolate chips, agave nectar, and vanilla in mixing bowl and set aside.
2. Pour coconut milk in a saucepot and bring just to a simmer.
3. Pour the hot coconut milk in the bowl, on top of the chocolate, agave, and vanilla and whisk vigorously until chocolate is completely melted—consistency should be a thick, smooth, dark chocolatey liquid.
4. Pour into a casserole dish (or plastic storage container) and place in the refrigerator overnight to chill and set.

*For a thicker, firmer budino, add more chocolate chips
**You can substitute your choice of sweetener for agave (1:1); try using honey, maple syrup, maple sugar, coconut palm sugar, or organic cane sugar

Pom-Chia

½ cup chia seeds
2 cups pomegranate juice

1. Pour the chia seeds and pomegranate juice into a mixing bowl and whisk vigorously.
2. Leave on the counter at room temperature for 1 hour, stirring every 15 minutes or so.
3. Cover and transfer to refrigerator to chill overnight—the chia seeds will absorb the juice and thicken.

Assembly

1. Spoon an ounce or two pom-chia into a small bowl or glass.
2. Scoop the chocolate budino base on top.
3. Sprinkle some of your favorite nuts (gently toasted) on top.