Around Town: Remy Ayesh

In her dining out series, Food Editor Grace Pritchett shares a drink or two and a bite to eat with some of KC’s most prominent food personalities– and shares the insights and good times with us!

Remy Ayesh. Photo by Joshua Foo @joshfoolovesyou and Travis Ahrenholtz @traviswildcard

Remy Ayesh is a Kansas native who I can thank for introducing me to spicy beef tripe. After growing up in Wichita and studying abroad in Spain, Remy worked as a restaurant executive across the country and in notable places like Little Nell in Aspen, Spiaggia in Chicago, and Lazia in Kansas City. 

I sat down with Remy at one of her favorite restaurants in town, Sichuan Dynasty, to talk art, hard work, and chicken liver mousse. We started our dinner swapping food mash-up ideas over Sichuan cold noodles, chicken broth wontons, and the aforementioned spicy beef tripe. 

Sichuan Dynasty. Photo by Grace Pritchett

Okay- food mash up dreams. Give me your best idea.

So I make this incredible chicken liver mousse. I use seared Campo Lindo chicken liver. It's the only thing that I'll be like, nope mine's better. Like, I hang my hat on this. I've been obsessed with the idea of making it into a pasta because I know you can do it. It's just the right ratio of flour to egg. So, I saw someone on Instagram took hot dogs and mustard and turned it into pasta and I was like, god damn it, that was my thing, but now I want to eat that thing. So I'm texting my sous chef like, what if we make chicken liver mousse pasta with a pressed duck (blood) cream sauce. Just like, fuck the world, we're all going to die. 

I’ve had an idea for a while. It's more of a drunk thought than a good idea. I want to make lasagna but replace the noodles with layers of mozzarella sticks. I like the idea of a crunch in there. 

Oh, that’s brilliant. That would hold up.

So you grew up in Wichita?

Yup, I'm from Wichita. I went to KU. I have degrees in Journalism and Spanish. That's two of four degrees I was pursuing. I swapped Business and International Relations for Journalism because I wanted to be a food writer. I ended up in New York because I was trying to get into magazines but I landed a job with a well-known designer who make fine jewelry for celebrities.

I spent 48 hours with Joan Jett and Carmen Electra. When you represent jewelry, you're insured and you can't leave the jewelry by itself. So I'm on set for Joan Jett's music video for a song she has about leaving a man for Carmen Electra because of course I am, this is my first job. So I spent an entire 48 hours on set and I really got to experience early on how women were treating each other in that industry. They were just so mean to each other. 

Photo provided by Remy Ayesh

Do you think you recognized that issue at the time? You were like ‘I'm not going to be that kind of person’?

Oh yeah. I had none of that to give. I wasn't going to be petty to get ahead. Then someone completely randomly said to me, I've always seen you owning your own culinary school. 

I mean I've been cooking since I was little, my first books were cookbooks. Like it was in the stars for me. I grew up an athlete but I'm also wildly creative. I could never marry the two until someone said that to me. For some reason, I ended up touring the French Culinary Institute in New York, and I realized this was my dream job. 

Did you grow up in a family that cooked a lot or did the interest in food come from other places?

My interest was to get the hell out of dodge. It wasn't that I was pushed away from pursuing this path; it was just that cooking was so interwoven in my life that I didn't recognize it as a "thing." My mom's side of the family is from Arkansas and my dad's side of the family is from Lebanon. Both were very strong cooking cultures so all we did was cook. But that was never supposed to be a profession. 

Photo by Ashley Bare

Did you get to cook at family meals or was that reserved for the matriarchs?

Matriarchs. You don't mess with that. But I was right there next to them, helping them. I never wanted to leave the kitchen. You know, old fridges used to have a heat exhaust at the bottom? That's where I took my naps. There are so many photos of me asleep in front of fridges. I look back and I'm like, how did I miss this?

After working in restaurants all over the country, did you ever think you would be back home?

Nope. To be honest, I never thought I would be. And it's not because I didn't want to come home. I didn't think people had a desire for the kind of food I had been cooking. When I came back, I was used to being a fine-dining chef and I was under the impression that I would have to tame my style a little bit, but then the [fine-dining] industry kind of collapsed in on itself.

…God, I love this spread we have going. It's like living in New York and having access to all the food there.

Sichuan Dynasty. Photo by Grace Pritchett

So I like to ask this question and you may have already answered it. If you could live anywhere just based on the food offerings, where would you live?

Spain. They treat food like a person at the table. The women put on suits and fabulous silk scarves to go shopping because when you see someone at the market, the people there know that you're respecting your food, and you're taking care of your family, so you want to look respectable doing it. No one in America is doing that. We treat food like a byproduct. 

In Spain, it's love and unity and harmony. It's about representing your family. We bought fresh bread every day. For dinner, we had cocidos, which is this stew of multiple cuts of meat and chickpeas boiled in broth so the fat rises to the top and it's presented in the pot. The appetizer is bread dipped in that fat and then you get rice and serve it with the stew. 

What would you say keeps you in this industry?

A love of art. There's a moment when broth and fat emulsify on a noodle and it's little moments like that. Cooking is an art form. It's making people happy and loving doing it. It's the hardest thing I've ever done but I'm always back the next day. 

Did you feel this way when you were cooking at a young age, or did it really connect when you stepped into the culinary institute?

It was really so ingrained in me. I mean, the first time I was on lead line, this whole thing came together and made sense to me. There was no" “a-ha” moment, but it just came together so naturally. And definitely without an ego. I was stumbling across the finish line like, is this where I go? 

Sichuan Dynasty. Photo by Grace Pritchett

Do you think you have an ego?

Nah. I think I'm confident and I believe what I believe, but I'm more reluctant to be showy. I always say, I stand behind my food, not in front of it. Some of us want to be the wizard behind the curtain without pomp and circumstance. 

But you've come this far with restaurants under your belt and recognition. Are you surprised by it or are you solid in the path that led you here?

I hustled. I did some great stuff and I did some not so great stuff. I'm still on the arc of my trajectory. I don't know where I'm going to land but I'm very happy I moved back to the Midwest. 

In this industry, I don't know what's next. Every new chapter is a learning opportunity to discover something new about yourself every step of the way.

Sichuan Dynasty. Photo by Grace Pritchett

Do you feel like you had this attitude in the early part of your career, in your early "failures"?

Yeah. I'm glad you put failures like that because sometimes, the business fails you. In a lot of ways, you have to build yourself up and constantly check yourself to see if you’re actually stacking up the way you should be. 

And you have to be okay with the fact that you're going to be the only one doing that for yourself sometimes. 

And that's a weird place to exist because sometimes you're the only one on your team. Every now and again, you'll meet another badass woman and you have each other. They're the same kind of insecure that you are, but you have to put on this Billy Badass facade because you've always had to. I’m just like everyone else– I go home, watch rom coms, silly movies, and obsess over things. I’m quiet and a total geek ...I guess I should have some other persona? I just don’t want to be whatever that is. 

For more delicious eats and riveting conversation, be sure to check out the rest of Grace’s Around Town series- featuring prominent foodies, chefs and industry folks from all over KC, dining at some of their favorite restaurants.