Brian Lofink
A student co-op with restaurant royalty Georges Perrier launched Brian Lofink’s start as one of Philadelphia’s busiest chefs.
It was Emeril Lagasse who inspired Brian Lofink to become a chef. Specifically, Lofink found his calling while eating quail and foie gras at one of the celebrity chef ’s Orlando restaurants. “I was in high school visiting Disneyworld,” Lofink recalls. “The chocolate lava cake blew my mind. I thought, ‘This is what I want to do.’”
The revelation didn’t come out of left field. Asa teen, he loved the Food Network. But he loved playing baseball even more. When he chose his profession, he made the connection: “It seemed like cooking was a sport”, he says with with a laugh.
His first experience with kitchen athletics took him right to the major leagues. While still working on a bachelor’s degree in culinary arts at Drexel, he worked at one of world-renowned Philadelphia chef Georges Perrier’s restaurants, and stayed there for two years after graduating. Next came the high-end Rittenhouse eatery Matyson BYOB, where he rose from lead line cook to co-executive chef. Now he’s executive chef for a trio of popular restaurants: the gastropubs Kraftwork and Sidecar and the pizzeria/ bakery Kermit’s Bake Shoppe.
Although he’s transitioned from expensive restaurants to mid-priced eateries, some aspects of his job haven’t changed. “The stress is still intense,” Lofink says during a break from the kitchen at Kraftwork, a handsome, industrial-themed space designed by a Philadelphia sculptor. When he plans menus, he can’t splurge on ingredients like truffles or build a dish around halibut (“The price point doesn’t work here”), but he revels in the opportunities now available. “If you’re coming here expecting a 3 and I give you a 4, I’m going to knock your socks off,” he says.
There’s another, perhaps counter-intuitive, perk. “I can be more creative,” he says. “We can come up with random fun ideas and roll with it. We can play and experiment.” For example, he began pondering what spin he could put on crab imperial. “It’s something I love when I’m down at the Jersey shore,” he notes. “My sous chef and I came up with six or seven variations on it.” They settled on one that hit all the right notes, and within a week it appeared on Sidecar’s menu.
Lofink’s preference is for comforting, approachable flavors. But that doesn’t mean the results are simple. For a 2013 benefit dinner prepared by several Drexel alumni chefs to help fund scholarships for students in Drexel’s Center for Hospitality and Sport Management, Lofink made butter-poached lobster popovers with sunchokes, fennel, brandy and beer.
The chef has remained involved with Drexel in other ways. He’s been a guest lecturer, hired students for part-time positions and co-ops, and in fall 2015 he team-taught an introductory class with Center for Hospitality and Sport Management faculty member Jonathan Deutsch ’99.
As an instructor, Lofink doesn’t focus on teaching students how to cook — “They’re going to learn that when they’re in a restaurant” — but on how to think like a chef. That means learning to problem-solve and improvise. Lofink and Deutsch will hand out a set of recipes. “And then we’ll say, ‘Oh wait, your potatoes didn’t come in today. So how are you going to approach this?’”
Being a chef might entail fixing one glitch after another, but what Lofink’s patrons see is his creativity with ingredients, including those from Lagasse’s repertoire that made such an impression. One special that’s been on Kraftwork’s menu is an upmarket cheesesteak made with filet mignon and foie gras. “This job never gets boring,” says Lofink. And neither does his food.
— Theresa Everline
