Sauce Like Music Scales

An up-close look into how Chef Greg Burroughs is orchestrating the players in today’s Hampton Roads kitchens

Article and photography by Fitz

Lead photo of Chef Greg Burroughs instructing at the Culinary Institute of Virginia

Spend a few minutes in one of Chef Greg Burroughs’ classes at the Culinary Institute of Virginia and you are going to hear a two word phrase quite a bit, “Make sense?” Often without a “does” or a “that” for that matter, after every knife skill demonstrated, every culinary pointer handed down, Burroughs says those words while looking in his students eyes. When I visited him in January, after hearing the phrase several times, I started counting and got to 42 before his students started serving the food they made that day. Considering the one on one attention he gave to every student in the cooking class, I wasn’t surprised that complete sentences were low on his list of priorities.

Burroughs’ technique of reinforcing each skill he shows a student so as to make sure they retain it owes substantial debt to the teaching style of his instructor back in 1994 at Johnson & Wales, Chef Cindy Growman. As he put it, “She was tough as nails. She drilled knowledge into you. She would work all week in Williamsburg then drive here and hammer knowledge into me. I wanted to be like her. I try to be that person for our students. Some of them are the first to go to school in their family.”

Burroughs instructing at CIV

In 1987, Burroughs moved here from Oklahoma and worked his way up in a who’s who of restaurants in Hampton Roads-501 City Grille, Cafe Society, and Joe C Grille to name a few. In the subsequent years after moving here, he also worked beside and under several distinguished local chefs, including Todd Jurich and Willie Moats. Seven years after moving here, however, it would be meeting Growman that set Burroughs down the path to orchestrating the minds that fill many of our Hampton Roads kitchens.

“At Wales, [Growman] smacked me upside the head,” Burroughs explained. “She told me I should teach. This was after I realized I had gaps [as a chef] which made me thirsty to learn more. I remember that she said, ‘boy, you have been teaching someone all your life.’ ”

Burroughs took that spark Growman set inside him and 18 years ago began teaching. In fact, Burroughs was part of the “first four through the door,” the chefs and instructors group including himself, Jonathan Highfield, Steven Sadowski and Mike Morphew who created the principles and style of teaching the Culinary Institute of Virginia was founded on when Johnson & Wales closed in 2006.

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In Burroughs’ culinary career, along with being an executive chef and a restaurant manager, he also put years into being a purchaser. Ultimately, he came to understand that his true calling in the culinary industry was to “build people up.” As he elaborated, “I would rather invest my time in people over product. There’s nothing like when a student comes back and tells you that they got something from you. You have a lot of power as a teacher. When they are learning something new, you have to let them know they can do it. That we can do it together. Sometimes with that you can see that switch in their head go off and that’s amazing. That’s what sticks.”

Burroughs’ lessons are within so many of the chefs around Hampton Roads today. Award winning Pitmaster and Chef Forrest Warren of Smoke BBQ Restaurant & Bar in Newport News said of his former instructor, “I can’t help but think that he has had a big part in shaping the culinary scene here in 757 by the numbers of young and transitioning chefs he has touched here.”

Burroughs instructing at CIV

From Sous Chef Michelle Smith of The Stockpot in Virginia Beach, Chef Steve Aldridge of Hair of the Dog, Sous Chef Niyah Edwards of 1608 and to countless others, Burroughs has shaped them. Burroughs was one of the first to conduct them in the kitchen. One of the first to inspire them to “bring it everyday because you never know who is standing next to you,” as Burroughs likes to say.

Today is no different. With each passing year, the Culinary Institute of Virginia will graduate hundreds of culinary players who will enter kitchens in Hampton Roads equipped with either the underpinning Chef Burroughs cultivated within them, or on the principles taught at CIV that he helped shape back during the founding of the institution. The ethos behind the well built foundations of those CIV graduates might best be described by a phrase he shared with me during my visit, “sauce is like music scales.” Much like learning scales is the key to composing songs, learning to make basic sauces organically opens the door to knowing how to make other complex sauces. From sauces to knife skills to plating and so much more, Burroughs’ life work is about solidifying his students’ culinary base so they have the tools to improvise as they move into restaurants professionally.

For more on Chef Greg Burroughs and the Culinary Institute of Virginia, visit www.chefva.com