Tab Tricolore, Chef and Restaurateur

Part three of a three-part series.
Click here to read part one.
Click here to read part two.

“Evolution” is a dirty word in the Animal world, but The Park’s most successful restaurateur is not afraid to use it. As he prepares to open his fifth restaurant, he muses about the attitudinal changes he has witnessed and the rôle that chefs have played in those changes.

Tab Tricolore (pronounced “tree-caw-lore-ay”), famous “bad boy chef” and The Park’s most successful restaurateur, has dust up his nose, but he doesn’t seem to mind. Having refused the offer of a mask and a tour guide, he walks stealthily through the unfinished space that will soon be home to his newest venture. Eating was a very private activity before. Now, it’s become not only a public one, but a social one, as well. We go outside of our own dwellings to engage in it. We eat in front of others. And, not just in front of them, but with them. That difference in habitude is huge.

“This one is special,” he whispers, surrendering his signature monotone to the emotion of the moment.

The PurrrBoy Café at the Park Museum, which will commence service a few weeks before the museum officially opens, has been designed by Tricolore’s favourite firm, Tagma Designs. Though their work isn’t yet evident, Tricolore is confident they will stay true to his vision.

“They know me and they know my tastes, even as they evolve,” he says.

Tricolore talks often about seeing himself as the prime educator of Park Animals’ palates. Indeed, in his recently completed book, “The Evolution of Taste” (to be published in 2015), he admits to giving himself a huge dollop of credit for the success of the restaurant business in The Park.

But his interest these days lies less in palates than it does in what he calls the “evolution of habitude.”

What Tricolore is talking about is the way in which Park Animals now schedule their lives and the new way in which they view not just food, but eating. 

“For thousands of years, it was basically the same: find food, eat, sleep, mate, find food, eat, sleep, die. It sounds bad, but that was the way we lived. Most species of Animals didn’t forage together, let alone eat together. We take it for granted now, but eating was a very private activity before. Now, it’s become not only a public one, but a social one, as well. We go outside of our own dwellings to engage in it. We eat in front of others. And, not just in front of them, but with them. That difference in habitude is huge,” he declares.

And that difference has made all the difference to The Park’s restaurateurs. But it has presented challenges, too.

“It’s a cliché but it’s true: chefs are creative types. And we like to see our creativity appreciated. But we’ve had to push for acceptance in The Park. We’ve had to push Animals to try not only our food, but our ideas about eating. That evolution of habitude that we see evidence of now…that is the result of our efforts and we’re still at it. We’re still having to map it out for our customers,” he says.

Map it out?

Tricolore answers with a mocking tone. “Yes, you can eat even if you’re not hungry. Yes, you can eat more than once a day. Yes, you can eat something you haven’t found yourself. And you may even like it.”

Despite his tone, the Chef says he’s sympathetic to what he calls “the novice diner.”

“It’s a whole new world and, depending on your experiences and your species, you may not want to participate. I understand that. But it’s my job and my colleagues’ job to convince you that it’s a positive thing. And if I can’t do that … if I don’t do that … if you don’t enjoy my restaurant and my food and I mean both, then I’ve failed and I deserve to have failed,” he says.

But isn’t that a bit harsh?

“Not in the least,” Tricolore argues. “Because I’ve let you down. I know how wonderful the experience can be and I haven’t been able to show that to you. And, for a chef, that’s the worst failure of all.”

The PurrrBoy Café is scheduled to open later this year.

Tab Tricolore, Chef and Restaurateur

Part two of a three-part series. Click here to read part one.

Knowing how to cook is just the first step on the path to becoming a successful restaurateur. The challenges are enormous for any chef, but for a chef in The Park, those challenges can sometimes seem overwhelming. How do you convince Animals who are used to securing their own sustenance that your food is worth paying for?

“When I started in this business, there was no such thing as fine dining in The Park,” says Tab Tricolore (pronounced “tree-caa-lore-ay”).

The Park’s famous “bad boy chef” and its most successful restaurateur hands his interviewer a drink while he hosts a tour of Klo, The Park’s and his first fine dining establishment.

“What you’re drinking there isn’t just something to quench your thirst,” he says proudly, as he explains the genesis of Klo’s signature drink.

One hot day two Summers ago, he says, he and his entire staff went on a reconnaissance mission. They were searching for the purest water they could find in The Park.

“We had a permit and when we found it [the water], I was going to dig a new well. Just for Klo. But it wasn’t easy. We spent the whole day tapping into every water source we could find, but none of it was as pure as what we could get from the Wishing Well. And I knew we couldn’t take water from the Wishing Well. It’s everybody’s water, and I didn’t have permission to use it,” he says.

Then he had what he calls a light bulb moment. “I asked myself, ‘Why am I planning to serve plain water at all?'” He explains:

“There are some Animals who think they will only drink water but it’s your job as a chef…as a restaurateur…to nudge them away from their routine. If you don’t try and if you don’t succeed, they might as well eat at home. No Park Animal is going to go out to eat — and pay for the privilege — unless they’re offered something different, something superb, something they couldn’t possibly get by themselves. The flavours, the texture, the presentation…you have to offer an extraordinary culinary experience or Animals will not dine at your restaurant.”

Tricolore says that Klo offers all that and more, every day that it is open. And his other restaurants, though not billed as fine dining spots, offer food that adheres strictly to his formula for success. And that is the four “Ls”: local (the food must be locally sourced, that is, grown inside The Park), lovely (to look at, as Tricolore contends the eyes are the gateway to the palate), luscious (in texture, a very important aspect to Tricolore), and lickable (you must want to continue to savour the flavour long after you have finished your meal).

Tricolore talks often about seeing himself as the prime educator of Park Animals’ palates. But the proud owner of The Park’s first fine dining restaurant bristles at the interviewer’s suggestion that Klo was intended to be an exclusive establishment.

“We exclude no Animal,” he says emphatically. And then he turns the conversation to The Tabby Club, which he purchased a few years ago.

“The Tabby Club, now that’s exclusive…and always has been. And I understand that. Jor (The Park’s first leader and the founder of modern zoocracy) opened it for Tabbies, when Tabbies couldn’t get a drink or a meal anywhere else. You can’t get in if you don’t have stripes. You don’t have to be a Cat, but you have to have stripes. And when I bought it, there was all this talk about whether I would change it, whether it would lose its character. But, look, I’m a Tabby, too. I know how the world works. I have no intention of opening it up completely, though it will change along the way. It has to; everything does. But I’m not against keeping it exclusive for a while, just to remind us that this Park is a work in progress. We’re not finished, by any means. And The Tabby Club kind of proves that,” he says.

Then he asks for an opinion of Klo’s signature drink.

The interviewer hesitates, then obliges: “It’s bold, it’s different, full of richness and flavour and it goes down smoothly.” And, if the interviewer may add an “L” to the Tricolore formula, it lingers in your consciousness, much like the chef, himself.

Next up:
The challenges of serving an Animal population

Tab Tricolore, Chef and Restaurateur

In the kitchen, they call him “Chef” and feign a kind of deference to him that lets the kitchen run smoothly and allows them to keep their jobs. In private, the cooks in his restaurants say they respect him for what he’s achieved and for his “encyclopaedic” knowledge of food, but they don’t necessarily condone his behaviour.

Tab Tricolore (pronounced “tree-caa-lore-ay”), famous “bad boy chef” and The Park’s most successful restaurateur, scoots around the equipment in the kitchen of Clowder, the oldest of his four restaurants. His eyes dart back and forth, surveying his kingdom and looking for mistakes his staff has made.

The confidence that he displays, in himself and in his work, belies his origins. The only survivor of a litter of four, he was born on the street to a feral mother and a father he thinks might have been his mother’s father, as well.

“I think I saw him twice, in passing. He came by to see if we had any food he could have. I don’t remember him even looking at us [Kittens],” he says, matter-of-factly.

Almost everything Tricolore says in conversation is delivered in this cadence of matter-of-factness. He speaks primarily in a kind of running monotone, giving his listeners the freedom to punctuate his sentences and to supply emotion where they feel it ought to be. He has no time for emotion, he says. Or regret or longing.

“They write a lot about the feral world,” he says, when he finally sits down to a bowl of broth cooked in Clowder’s kitchen.

“But what they don’t write about is the good part. Sure, it was tough. You never knew where your next meal was coming from or what danger lurked around the corner. You couldn’t trust anybody and you had to learn early to look out for yourself. But I knew my mother. And we stayed together for a long time. That’s more than a lot of domestic Cats can say.”

Tricolore snarls when he’s asked about the apparent incongruity of a starving feral Cat becoming a picky, gourmet chef. The question, often asked, usually gets his back up. But this afternoon, he offers a more mellow response.

“Everybody eats,” he says, in that characteristic monotone. Then, he launches into an a cappella rendition of The Feral Four’s hit song of the same name: “Everybody eats/Maybe not every day…”

When’s he’s done, Tricolore admits that “under different circumstances” he, too, might have been a musician.

And what songs would he have written?

“No regrets,” he says and then he emits a hearty laugh, at both himself and his interviewer.

Next up:
What it takes to be a successful restaurateur in The Park