Eric Dale has been the pastry chef at Rioja in Denver for some 21 years, practically his entire culinary career. But he got his start studying fashion, including learning how to hand-tie wigs.Â
When that didn’t work out, he switched to culinary school, graduating from Johnson & Wales Denver campus, which has since closed, with a 4.0 grade-point average (compared to his 0.8 in fashion school.)
Three months after graduation, as luck would have it, he became the pastry chef of what was then one of Denver’s hottest restaurants. Since then, his role has evolved dramatically. At one point, he oversaw pastry programs for all five restaurants in the portfolio of chef Jennifer Jasinski and her business partner Beth Gruitch, managing a staff of 12. Now he’s back where he started—just himself and two others at Rioja—but with an expanded scope that includes all of the restaurant’s breads, from lavender sourdough to biscuits (he’s in the “million biscuit club,” by his count).
His latest creation is the “bao-nut,” a happy accident born from combining steamed bao bun dough with doughnut-making techniques. It’s the kind of innovation that comes from someone who sketches out desserts before plating them and wraps pastry trays tight enough to bounce a quarter off of—skills he credits to his fashion design training.
He recently discussed his journey, learning to bake sourdough during the pandemic with tips from Jasinski’s friend Nancy Silverton, and why bakers are the hippies of the pastry world.
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Menu Talk is a collaboration between Restaurant Business Senior Menu Editor Pat Cobe and Bret Thorn, senior food & beverage editor of Nation’s Restaurant News. You can subscribe to it wherever you listen to podcasts.
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