The Best Pastry Chef in Chicago
Ask me my favorite Chicago savory chef and I probably have a different answer on any given day. But, if you ask me my favorite pastry chef, as sure as Michael Jordan hates the Bad Boys Detroit Pistons, I will tell you that it’s Meg Galus.
Galus, executive pastry chef of Boka and Somerset, is like the Bo Jackson of pastry. Which is to say, due to training at The French Pastry school, and a judicious selection of career moves, working at Vanille Patisserie, TRU, Café des Architectes at the Sofitel, and NoMI at the Park Hyatt, she is incredibly versatile.
Meg knows laminated pastry, croissants and their ilk. Meg knows chocolate and confections. Meg knows ice cream. Meg knows mignardise (tiny “free” jewel-like sweets served at the end of a super fancy meal at a restaurant where you probably dropped a month’s rent to eat at).
Meg knows.
In a world where the dedicated pastry chef is disappearing, she can be straightforward or deconstructionist. She trades in temperature and textural contrasts and delivers through a lens of Midwestern whimsy. Through mastery of craft, she has become a quintessential sweets artist. In the way that I yearn for one more album from Prince, I would drop everything for a dedicated dessert-only tasting menu from Galus.
As I caught up with her in quarantine last week, I was jonesing for her food. The good news is I no longer have to wait. Boka announced today that they’re doing take out starting this weekend which includes Meg’s chocolate layer cake, Tahitian vanilla bean panna cotta with roasted rhubarb, mango passion fruit sorbet, and chocolate malt cookies and cream ice cream.
Enjoy the interview below.
I hope you are all well. I am sort’ve, but also I’m wearing zero pants on all the Zoom calls right now, yours truly,
Mike Nagrant
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How are you doing during these strange times?
At first it felt like it was going to be short term, maybe 2 weeks, or at most maybe 4, so I though, let’s make the most of it. But, we didn’t know the impact. I thought there would be a little bit of free time, but now it feels like it’s never ending.
Yeah, I’ve official rearranged my pantry and my entire kitchen in the last week.
Me too. I’ve done everything.
Like any great chef, I saw you making incredible lists on Instagram.
There are lots of islands of things for donation to Goodwill right now.
It’s all Marie Kondo, huh?
Yes, lots of piles of stuff that do not spark joy.
Speaking of how long this is going on, I hear people talking about us going back to normal, but I don’t think that’s going to happen for a while, right?
No, it’s not. We’re going to have to reconsider everything. Will servers be wearing masks? Will we have to change menus and work with less people in the kitchen. Philosophically, it’s a chance to also ask what we want our restaurants to look like.
Right, when I spoke to John Manion of El Che Bar, he said reopening will like opening a new restaurant.
We really have to look at operations. We have to think about what’s important to our guests and our staff. We really need to take care of our team members. I think we do a good job doing that, but there’s more we can do. There are a lot of habits we’re used to and not all of them are good. Personally, chefs aren’t known for taking time off or being good about that. Even if we have time off, we spend that time worrying about work because it’s still going on when we’re not there, or we’re so exhausted, we spend it recovering. I know after this I don’t want to go back to working 12-14 hour days.
Maybe you could be President United States? I read somewhere that was a goal of yours, as well as being in theatre.
Absolutely. When I was younger, I knew whatever I wanted to do, I wanted to be creative and in charge. But, I don’t know if being President right now would be a good idea.
I think maybe you’d do a better job than the current guy. Speaking of issues that need resolving, one of the things I worry about is the disappearance of the dedicated pastry chef. Is that something you think about?
Well, I know in 2008 when I was at Tru, we had seven people on the team. Then I remember when we went down to two people. I’ve seen pastry chefs seen as both expendable and glorified, but it depends on the situation. I’ve been lucky that at most of the places I’ve worked, they’ve valued pastry. One of the problems is that so much of what we do is seen as a cost center, whether it’s making the free bread basket or the take home gifts for our tasting menu guests.
I don’t understand why guests won’t pay for bread. I guess you get conditioned to the free chips and salsa and it’s impossible to come back from that. But, also if people aren’t willing to pay, then we get 2005 all over again, where everyone is serving the Red Hen baguette. The way I look at it, is that desserts have high margins, so if you cut pastry, you’re missing out on a revenue opportunity. I find myself looking at a dessert menu from a restaurant with no pastry chef that’s serving flourless chocolate cake and crème brulee, and I’m like, hey let’s just go get ice cream somewhere after dinner.
Desserts are high margin. They bump the check average. But, you bring up a good point which is that we’re always trying hard to make desserts that are identifiable. The guest has to crave it, whether it’s good chocolate, or a scoop of ice cream. You have to have the steak or cake on a plate as we say.
You went to the French Pastry School. Do you think culinary school is more important for sweets vs savory? I.e. with all the ratios and precision, there’s more of a technical aspect?
I can only speak to my experience. School was big in my house. My dad was a college accounting professor and my mom taught kindergarten. If you can afford it, it gives you a solid foundation, but everyone’s path might be different
I’ve heard you talk about “one team”, i.e. having a completely collegial and equal relationship with your savory counterparts. What’s it like at Boka?
[Chef] Lee (Wolen) and I are like brother and sister. We don’t always see eye to eye, but we usually get to the same place in the end. We have the same philosophies about our team and food and guests. I feel very lucky.
One of the things I’ve heard you talk about is that you don’t really have a style, rather you execute desserts to fit in whatever the vision for the restaurant you’re working at is. I don’t know if that’s true. I mean I can’t really define it, but every time I’ve eaten your desserts, even if I don’t know it’s you, I’ve suspected it was your work. I just know what a Meg Galus dish is when I experience it.
I guess I do have a style rooted in French training and having the Midwest cornfield in my backyard. Aesthetically, I do have to be a bit of a chameleon working in different spots, whether it’s Boka or the hotel at Somerset. I really love the technical stuff. I love to laminate croissants. It’s so therapeutic. I love the physical repetitive tasks like piping macarons or dipping chocolate.
I know some pastry chefs start from like the idea of a candy bar or something like that? Do you like candy?
I do. Jeff [my husband] bought a five pound bag of Mike and Ikes. We’ve been going through those. I love plain M & Ms. I can accept a few of the other flavors.
I’m kind of embarrassed, but I almost took down a whole bag of M & M’s last night. And when I say bag, I don’t mean personal-sized.
Ha. You mean like the one with the resealable top?
Yes.
I understand. I can do that too.
This is probably a stupid question, but do you cook savory food, or want to at all?
Not really. I mean I do it, but nothing overly complicated. I have no desire to break down a chicken or butcher a fish.
Does Jeff, your husband, cook?
Oh, God, no! I mean he grills. He uses the Instant Pot sometimes. He’s listening to me right now. I think he’s mad. He’s giving me a face.
Earlier we talked about how you are often trying to fit your desserts within the context of a restaurant, but we also talked about how you like to be creative and in control. Would you like to lead your own concept at some point?
I absolutely would love to have something. It could be my own or in the context of who I work for now, but I would love to have something that was borne of my vision. I know the reality of having a bakery or pastry or chocolate shop, even before this, is that it’s incredibly difficult and that it would be a huge undertaking. Intrinsically, in my soul, especially as I get older and have been in this industry for 15 years, I have an itch. What I would do, well that depends on the day. Because I’m the daughter of an accounting professor, I always ask what would be profitable.
You studied under Jacquy Pfeiffer and Sebastien Canonne at the French Pastry School. I feel like those guys are giants who don’t get enough credit in Chicago food history. They should be talked about with guys like Charlie Trotter. What was it like learning from them?
I feel so fortunate that when I went to school, the school was small enough that they were teaching everything. John Kraus was there too. They do things incredibly well, teaching the foundations of pastry scientifically with a focus on technique. Students from the French Pastry School have the best technique and understanding of why you do something. Jacquy and Sebastien also had the highest regard for quality and consistency and standards. Those expectations and a high level of execution is something I use every day. You don’t half-ass something.
Who inspires you?
I don’t have one person. I’m inspired by business models. I took a class with Yann Couvreur, and I love how his cooks work the front counter as they finish things and they interact with guests. That was unheard of in French pastry. But, overall, there’s not one person. It’s not like Pierre Hermé is the man anymore. He was, but they’re so big now. One thing I’m over is the Instagram-famous pastry person. Great, you can glaze a cake and make 100,000 people like it!
Right, it probably doesn’t even taste good. That’s the thing about visual mediums. You can’t taste the image. People are making all these videos wrapping tacos in pizza and deep frying them like chicken, but they don’t even adhere to scientific principles. It’s all clickbait.
I love social media. It can be a cool tool for inspiration, but cooking isn’t about trying to be famous. I mean recognition is nice. I’m very fortunate. I’ve won awards, but it’s not what drives me.
Right, you’ve been nominated 3 times for James Beard best pastry chef?
Yes, 3 times, and I didn’t even make the long list this year, but It doesn’t change what we do.
I guess you’re not yet the Susan Lucci of the Beard awards. There are a bunch who have been nominated even more without winning, but I believe you fundamentally deserve it.
Ultimately, for me, being a cook at its core is about making people happy.
Speaking of that, do you ever just watch guests’ faces in the dining room to see them smiling and what not?
I’m not creeping on the dining room, you know, but I do like to take a peek once in a while.
You worked at Tru in its heyday with Gale Gand. What was that like?
I did not see myself ending up in a restaurant at first, but Tru was where it was at with respect to desserts in the city. Gale was at the peak of her fame. They valued dessert as much as savory. We did bread and mignardise. Dessert was just as important as savory, and it was great to be a part of that as well as to understand the value of being well rounded. A lot of younger cooks don’t get that experience. I was at Tru for 5 years. It was a lifetime.
I know you studied theatre before you shifted to pastry. If there were no restaurants would you be an actor? Is there a role you always wanted?
I don’t know about the role, I’d have to think about that. I don’t think I’d be an actor, but I do like to sing in my car.
I also read you ran a restaurant when you were a kid?
Yes, Lunch on the Run. It was all savory. I was 8 or 9 years old. There was no heated option. It was like sandwiches and stuff. I did menu pricing. My food costs were great because my parents paid for everything.
Did you have an Easy-Bake Oven? I don’t mean this at all to sound like a gendered question. I ask because I always wanted one myself and was jealous of the kids who did. But, I think my parents were like, no, it’s just a stupid lightbulb.
I did not have one. I think it was just a lightbulb. I don’t know how it even cooked. Do you just shine a bulb on a cake?
Yeah, I think it was super high wattage back then, but as is the case with lawsuits now, I think I read they toned down the wattage and they don’t even work very well.
I did have a Barbie vanilla-scented kitchen and ice cream machine, with a real ice cream maker that had to be frozen for like two weeks. There was also a Barbie McDonald’s. My dolls always had jobs. They weren’t just hanging out, doing nothing, or cleaning the kitchen.
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