He has cooked for more than 120 people at a time, worked in top
restaurants across the country, and entertains 12 people at his home
monthly for an 18-course meal. These accomplishments may seem like the
work of a veteran chef, but this cook is only 14 years old.
Flynn McGarry will be taking his talents to BierBeisl, an Austrian
restaurant in Beverly Hills, Calif., on Jan. 30 where he will cook a
12-course meal for 40 people - an event that is already completely sold
out and costs $160 a person.
"The chef at BierBeisl is super nice and said, 'Whatever you need, I'll
help you cook,'" McGarry said. "It was a natural thing, and it works
with the restaurant's schedule and is a lot easier to do it in a
restaurant. I am going into this a lot more confident than other
dinners. I started working on this [Thursday], running around town
getting supplies. It is a week process, which people don't really
realize."
McGarry began his cooking career three years ago and said it was something he was instantly drawn too.
"It was to the point that I wanted to do this as much as I could do it.
And [it was] after looking at all these cookbooks and going on the
Internet and looking at these dishes that I thought, 'I could achieve
that one day,'" McGarry said. "I thought, every time I try it, I hope to
keep getting better and better. I just fell in love with it."
He said his mother's cooking was another "inspiration" for his desire to cook.
"My mom didn't really like cooking, and when she did cook I didn't
really like her food. And I was watching something on the Food Network,
and I thought, 'I could do this,'" he said. "And so I went to the
bookstore and I looked for the thickest, biggest cookbook. And I found
'The French Laundry' by Thomas Keller. And things were very hard to make
and took six-plus hours to cook. So I decided to try something simpler,
like salmon and potatoes and it went from there."
The real "I want to be a chef" moment, came when McGarry decided to
create his own dishes. He said a year later, when his skills in the
kitchen got better, he was able to cook his way through the majority of
the cookbook.
"I've always been very creative, and I wanted to create my own dishes,
and I didn't know too much about it - but I would do variations from
'French Laundry' and other cookbooks and would cook them for my family,"
McGarry said. "Then, I started liking the creative part of it, and I
started to cook for more people then just my family."
McGarry, along with his mother, Meg McGarry, created Eureka, his supper
club pop-up business that hosts monthly dinner parties inside his home.
He said he wanted his bedroom to be converted into a kitchen because
when he was younger he could not reach the stove. So his family allowed
him to build a "test kitchen" out of his bedroom.
"At first, my parents were fine with it, but then they asked, 'Do you
want to be sleeping next to a stove?' And I was so in to it, and I was
like, 'Yes!'" he said. "It started off as two tables with some gas
burners, my desk and my bed. But the problem was that I need more space
for more things, so I downsized my bed, got rid of my desk. And I was
living in there for like a year, and I would sleep on my bed, pop it up,
do my schoolwork at my work space table. It was difficult because I was
13 and pretty much living and sleeping, and then the rest of the time
it was a kitchen. And when my sister went to college I moved down to her
room. Then we went full out with the kitchen."
His current bedroom - or test kitchen, rather - has all of the necessary
equipment needed to serve his large dinner parties. The kitchen
includes induction burners and a large convection oven, a 10-foot-long
plating area, four stations - one for meat and fish, another for hot
appetizers, one for cold appetizers and desserts and the final station
for hors d'oeuvres.
McGarry and his family began hosting dinner parties from inside their home, but things quickly became more complicated, he said.
"As the dishes progressed, it started costing more money. I needed more
staff and more plates. It started growing too big," McGarry said. "We
ended up having to cut the amount of people from 25 to 14, but we get to
serve more courses."
McGarry charges $150 for the Eureka pop-up events at his home and $160 a
person for the pop-up event at BierBeisl next Wednesday. He said he is
not doing it for the money but for the ability to do what he loves.
"What people don't realize is it is $160 including tax and tip for 12
courses," he said. "For all of the events at my house, we haven't made
money, but with this event we will make a little money. However, it all
goes to new dishes. It is not a moneymaking thing. We lowered the prices
and we are doing more food and more expensive ingredients. We are
thinking of it as a fun night. That's how all chefs think about it -
that we are getting together to enjoy good food, do what we love and
have fun."
McGarry gave ABCNews.com a small preview of what he will be serving at
BierBeisl on Jan. 30. Menu items include sunchoke confit with a smoked
sunchoke puree, with yogurt and dehydrated grapefruit, topped with
sunflower seeds as an appetizer, and smoked sturgeon with different
types of onions, pine vinegar tapioca and rye bread as a main course
dish.
Desserts like chocolate with hazelnuts and caramel bonbons will also be
served that evening by celebrated pastry chef Josh Graves of Ray's and
Stark Bar in Los Angeles.
McGarry's mother said she fully supports her son and, ultimately, it was "not a choice" to allow him to pursue cooking.
"He is progressing so fast and it is super overwhelming, but it is also
exciting," she said. "You are always proud of your children's
accomplishments. He showed such passion for this that it was an obvious
choice to allow him to do what he loves to do."
McGarry said focusing on a passion and coupling that passion with hard
work "pays off for anyone in the end." He has worked in several
restaurants, mostly for free, around Los Angeles and New York City,
along with critically acclaimed chefs like Daniel Humm, executive chef
of Eleven Madison Park in New York City.
"It was so good to see a chef who rolls with the punches and is so
relaxed," McGarry said. "When you have a restaurant of that caliber, it
can be stressful and he is always smiling. It was a great opportunity to
learn from him."
For aspiring chefs and even other teens with a dream, McGarry offered a few words of advice.
"Focusing on your passion and hard work definitely pays off in the end,"
he said. "At the point in your life where you stop caring if you're
going to be famous or do well, your dream will come to you. I did
something with my talent and people recognized."
McGarry also had some advice for food bloggers who say 2012 is the year the "teenage chef goes away."
"Someone wrote that 2012 was the year the teenage chef went away," he
said. "Well, I am here to tell them that that isn't true and I am just
getting started."
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