Chef Chat: Maloney feels right at home in Nebraska City

With fruit orchards and expansive gardens just outside the door of the Timber Dining Room in Nebraska City, chef Nick Maloney thinks he’s in one of the best places in the world for fine cooking.

The dining room is part of the Arbor Day Foundation’s Lied Lodge & Conference Center. Maloney, 28, joined the staff there a little more than three years ago.

Q. Where are you from originally?

A. Grand Junction, Colo. I lived there until I was 12, and then we moved to the Denver area.

Q. How did you get interested in cooking as a career?

A. I got a job when I turned 15 at a big banquet hall in Arvada (Colo.). Then I went to work at the Brown Palace (hotel in Denver). I apprenticed there three years.

Q. Was it a formal training?

A. Yes, through the American Culinary Federation. Brown Palace is a 4-star, 4-diamond luxury hotel. It opened in 1892.

They had their own butcher shop, their own bakery and four restaurants. You went through each one and through each station. In the restaurants: hot line, cold line, garde manger (salads, etc.).

That was cool for me to go through something like that so young and get a taste of everything. After my apprenticeship I took over the butcher shop: 45 hours a week cutting meat and fish for every restaurant, every department: steaks for banquets, fish for restaurants, sushi platters. We even cured fish.

Q. Did you have a mentor?

A. The executive chef at Brown Palace, Mark Black. He is now director of culinary operations at AmeriStar Casino Hotel in Council Bluffs. He accepted me in the apprenticeship program at Brown Palace after I worked a year there. They take three apprentices a year.

Q. And after Brown Palace?

A. Embassy Suites Denver International Airport. I was executive chef there for just over two years. The corporate world of Hilton was an eye-opener for me. At Brown Palace, food was an amenity.

Q. Do you have a favorite cookbook?

A. Alain Ducasse “Flavors of France.” My mom got me that book when I was accepted into the apprenticeship program.

Q. I bet she’s proud of you.

A. She comes several times a year to wine dinners we do here. She was a phenomenal cook when I was growing up. We ate at home every day — no Burger King or McDonald’s. We had standing rib roast and chicken and dumplings.

My dad was the same way with a grill. He cooked halibut, turbot, salmon, beef, pork, wild game. I grew up eating elk, venison, ducks, geese, rabbits, quail and pheasant. Grand Junction is such a rich area for wild game.

And my mom had a huge garden, my brother and I would make ourselves sick eating tomatoes in the garden.

Now, as a chef here, it’s so amazing to go into the garden and say, ‘Give me 20 pounds of beefsteak tomatoes, 10 pounds of heirloom beets, two bushels of Asian pears and five watermelons.’ It’s just so unique and so rare to have those fresh, high quality ingredients. That takes me back to what I did with my mom and my dad in the garden and with the wild game and the fish.

It’s amazing how it all comes full circle. If you really care about food, there’s a way to do it.

Q. What’s new at the restaurant?

A. In the summer, we started a fish menu with fresh, never-frozen fish and seafood. We list the fish, where it comes from and how it’s caught. A lot of the fish is day-boat fish — maybe 30 pounds of walleye from Lake Superior.

People don’t expect that in the Midwest. We’ve trained our wait staff to ask people how they want their fish done — rare, medium, well. It’s new for people to have Copper River King Salmon cooked medium. They’re blown away with how good it is.

Q. What’s next for you?

A. I’m perfectly happy where I am. I fell in love with the place.

I’d like to learn more about wine and the wine-making process here at Arbor Day Farm. Erik Olson grows fruit for apple, peach, Asian pear and cherry wines and for three white wines and three red wines. I love cooking with the wine. I think getting into the process gives you a greater appreciation for it.

Contact the writer:

444-1052, jane.palmer@owh.com