October 25, 2014
Marybeth Boller ’86 followed her dream of becoming an elite executive chef
By Liz F. Kay
Early in life, Marybeth Boller ’86 knew she wanted to be a chef someday.
“I was the person who asked for a waffle iron from Santa,” she said.
Now Boller has come a long way from those childhood batches of chocolate chip cookies.
As the executive chef of BG, the restaurant at upscale Bergdorf Goodman in New York City, she serves sophisticated dishes such as halibut with sweet-sour eggplant, seaweed salad, and rosemary-ginger broth, or lobster salad with Champagne vinaigrette.
Boller, who studied management at PC, planned to attend the Culinary Institute of America (CIA) in Hyde Park, N.Y., after graduation, but she needed some restaurant experience. Then, a PC connection introduced her to famed French chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten.
Vongerichten took her on at Lafayette, the restaurant at the Drake Swissotel. She started on the salad line.
“They were very patient with me,” Boller said. “You learn a lot from the people you work with.”
She made an impression. The chef convinced her to skip the CIA and work with him. Boller later attended the night program at the French Culinary Institute’s New York campus in 1988 while working full time in his restaurant.
Next, Boller cooked at two Michelin-rated restaurants in France before she moved to London and worked with the Roux Brothers at their restaurant, Le Gavroche.
Boller returned to New York — and to Lafayette — as sous chef in 1991. Then, three months later, she became executive chef at the age of 26 when Vongerichten opened his own restaurant and his replacement at Lafayette didn’t work out.
“The management team knew me very well” from her earlier experience at Lafayette, she said. “It wasn’t really that daunting. I didn’t expect to step into his (Vongerichten’s) shoes.”
Boller then spent a year in Taos, New Mexico, where she was executive chef at a resort. She lived on a mountain and “skied six days a week,” she said.
“You learn a lot from the people you work with.” —Marybeth Boller ’86
During the off-season, Boller began catering, and she returned to New York again. She soon became executive chef of Great Performances, a catering company. There, she presented dinners that put the challenges of preparing a weeknight meal to shame.
For example, Boller was the chef for the United Nations’ 50th anniversary celebration in 1995, where she had to plan not only how to serve an 800-person dinner and a 500-person luncheon, but also how to meet the security challenges of protecting heads of states and their spouses.
“She just worked through that. She is all about the execution,” said classmate Jean Bates Ferrari ’86.
Boller moved on to become sous chef at Restaurant Jean Georges, Nougatine, in New York’s Trump Tower, and executive chef of Laura Belle until 2005.
After that, she bought a catering company in Connecticut. “I knew I wanted to do something on my own,” Boller said.
The business was located in New Canaan near members of her family. Boller enjoyed the catering business, but it was tough living part time in Connecticut and part time in New York. Someone mentioned that Bergdorf Goodman’s restaurant was looking for a chef, “and it sort of just fell into place” in 2012.
BG’s intimate 75-seat dining room is located on the seventh floor of the luxury department store on Fifth Avenue. Its windows face north, so diners can take in Central Park.
Boller’s days vary. “It depends on what month it is,” she said.
The restaurant can serve anywhere from 250 people up to as many as 500 on busy days, such as in December during the holiday season. When the regular diners leave the city for the summer, tourists take their place.
The restaurant is open from 11:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. On her best days, Boller says she will start out at around 8 a.m. at the Union Square Greenmarket, “grabbing as much as I can to lug uptown,” she said.
The greenmarket has wonderful produce, particularly in the summer. “It’s really amazing, all the vegetables and fruits,” she said.
Then Boller works on daily specials with the line cooks. “I’m in the kitchen most of my day, which is what I love to do,” she said.
“I really had a great deal of confidence and a great deal of support from my family.” —Marybeth Boller ’86
Boller and her 12-person staff get a lot done in the small space at the rear of the restaurant, behind the bar. After establishing the specials, she sets up the line and goes from there, doing whatever needs to be done — expediting dishes and other tasks. She describes her cuisine as “simple cooking.”
“If you get really great products then you really don’t have to do very much,” she said. “Just take great product and enhance it.”
Boller is matter-of-fact about her accomplishments. The chef also has cooked for high-profile celebrity clients, who she declined to name.
She remains close to a few college friends, including Ferrari, who works down the street and regularly stops in BG. They are amazed by her skill and creativity in the kitchen. Boller has been known to coach Ferrari through making say, a miso sauce — even if she’s done it 20 times before.
“There’s such a love for it — it’s innate,” Ferrari said.
Ferrari says Boller endured a lot during her early days in New York and Europe.
Working as a chef is “a hard profession,” Boller said. And it’s even harder for women.
“When I started there weren’t a lot of women. It was definitely not a female crowd I was working with,” she said.
In London, she was one of three women. “There was one other American, but she didn’t last,” Boller said.
How does Boller succeed?
Jokes are a valuable tool that help her manage the kitchen.
“You need the ability to make sure all that chaos is hitting in the right direction — to control that chaos and make sure people are being productive,” said Jean’s husband, Bob Ferrari Jr. “Her sense of humor keeps people on the right path.”
Unlike others who manage by screaming, “she can build a team consensus so they know they are all in it, building in the right direction,” he said.
Boller, who grew up in Queens, N.Y., said she comes from a family of hard workers. Her father was a doctor, and her mother was trained as a nurse. They raised one boy and six girls, all with a form of Mary in their names. And Boller’s mother was always happy to oblige her youngest daughter’s desire to cook.
“It’s just something I really loved,” she said. “I really had a great deal of confidence and a great deal of support from my family. We were really allowed to do whatever we wanted to do and pursue our joys.”
Lobster Salad with Champagne Vinaigrette
Serves 1
Champagne Vinaigrette:
¼ cup Champagne vinegar
¼ cup Dijon mustard
¼ cup plus 3 tablespoons honey
Place all ingredients in the base of the blender and add:
1 cup canola or grapeseed oil
¼ cup water
Salt and pepper
Vegetable Salad Mix:
½ avocado
2 tablespoons diced celery
1 tablespoon diced red onion, oven-roasted with Pam No-Stick cooking spray
½ cup grape tomatoes, cut in half
Salt and pepper
Toss with 1 tablespoon of Champagne vinaigrette.
Salad:
vegetable salad mix
4½ ounces fresh cooked lobster meat
½ ounce herb and baby greens salad mix
Toss lobster with ½ tablespoon of Champagne vinaigrette.
Toss baby greens with 2 teaspoons of vinaigrette.
Place vegetable salad in the base of a ring mold and top with
lobster salad.
Place herb and baby greens mix on top.
