Flame on! McKee turns up the heat at Roux

By Andrew R Tonry

Not long ago The New York Times dining section ran a cover story on the up-and-coming Portland restaurant scene. One of the chefs drawing much fanfare in the feature was Le Pigeon’s Gabriel Rucker, a 26-year-old who’s been garnering heaps of praise for his relative youth and creative dishes. Lost amidst all the foie gras, though, is another young chef doing yeoman’s work in our very own backyard: 27-year-old Sean McKee.

This summer, McKee took hold of the reins at Roux, a New Orleans-inspired, Northwest-influenced restaurant on North Killingsworth.

His quick rise to executive chef wasn’t planned, exactly, and in some ways it was unexpected. But when instability reared its ugly head in the kitchen, McKee stepped up and stared it down.

The trouble began — and the opportunity arose — after Roux’s original executive chef, Josh Blythe, who has held a number of prestigious Portland positions, left to take a teaching job at the Oregon Culinary Institute.

Roux’s owner, Dwayne Beliakoff, conducted a nationwide search, settling on Brendan O’Donnell to handle the executive duties. In his 40s, and from New Orleans, O’Donnell had spent some 20 years in Creole kitchens and even had a televised cooking show. But in the end, he didn’t share Beliakoff’s vision, and the search resumed.

McKee had been the Roux’s sous chef since it opened. “My job was kind of at risk,” explained McKee. “The place that I work for, if it’s not going to be good, if no one’s going to step up to the plate, I’m not going to want to work there. It kind of saved my job, to create a job.”

Despite McKee’s relatively young age, Beliakoff wasn’t especially worried about putting so much responsibility in his hands.

“I think Sean is doing an exceptional job,” explained Beliakoff. “He wouldn’t have been given the opportunity from me had he not already displayed the drive.”

Beliakoff continued, “I always worked in restaurants where promotions were based on merit, not necessarily age. I started very early in restaurants and was a general manager by the time I was 26, so I think that it’s really based on performance and the maturity you display.”

McKee worked his way up in much the same way. Like Beliakoff, he did not attend culinary school. For McKee, learning to cook started first at home.

“I grew up just with my mom, and we were poor most of the time,” McKee said. “I learned how to make five different things out of four different ingredients. That’s where my creativity sprouted from.”
He started washing dishes at Café Zenon, a highly respected restaurant in Eugene, which helped him get in the door at Roux.

“I would go in the dish pit with a shirt and tie because they made all the servers wear the same,” he said. “I would go back there and bust out all the dishes and I wouldn’t have one drop of water on me. They said, ‘We’ve got to get this guy out of here. Either to the front of the house or to the kitchen.’ And the guys in the kitchen were having so much more fun than the front of the house that I just bonded with them and they took me under their wing.”

From there he went on to manage the kitchen at Turtles in Eugene. But in that position, McKee wasn’t asked to do things like ordering, hiring, firing, and the other administrative duties he now handles. And it’s in those areas he has had to grow the most.

“At first it kind of seemed intimidating,” said McKee. “But I think most of the people that I’ve hired that may be older than me realized that I could control things for sure. They respect me and that’s first and foremost. If my crew doesn’t respect me, and they don’t respect what they’re doing, it’s going to show in the plates.”

Beliakoff says McKee’s youth makes him easier to work with because he is more open than many older chefs who are often set in their ways. And it hasn’t hurt that Beliakoff has been there to guide him.
“I’ve got years and years of managing under my belt, and it’s fairly natural for me to coach in that respect,” explained Beliakoff. “Sean’s got an amazing palate and a ton of physical ability in the kitchen. It’s become a great partnership. We enjoy rebounding off each other.”

And perhaps the best part for Beliakoff is that McKee is still so eager to learn.

“I very much appreciate that at the end of the day Sean is reading articles and taking home books and really diving into it with some passion,” he said.

For McKee, who says he has reached only “the tip of the iceberg” of his cooking prowess and creativity, it’s simple. “I just like to kick ass. If I’m in a kitchen and there aren’t people that are kicking ass, I just kind of step into that role without even thinking about it.”

PHOTO BY JASON E KAPLAN

Roux, 1700 N Killingsworth, (503) 285-1200, www.rouxrestaurant.us.

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