For Best Chefs America
Best Chef Graham Dailey
Graham Dailey took over Peninsula Grill in 2010, after working as chef de cuisine under Robert Carter for six years. It wasn’t easy to revamp a 16-year-old restaurant, but Dailey says it was good timing.
The Peninsula Grill’s romantic dining room, located inside Planters Inn, is considered iconic — a classic representation of the culture of Charleston. The restaurant is perhaps most famous for its Ultimate Coconut Cake, a 12 layer, 12 pound confection that is now trademarked and shipped across the world after earning Food Network fame. However, cake aside, the dining, ambiance, and service at Peninsula Grill are also regaled as some of the best in the Southern city.
The Peninsula Grill Courtyard
Dailey first began working at Peninsula Grill when the restaurant was but one week old, back in 1997. A year later, he was called to take over his family’s mobile banking business and moved back to North Carolina.
“I was going batty not being in kitchens,” he says, so he opened a short-lived restaurant in Winston-Salem. “When that closed, I regrouped, picked up, and hauled ass to France. I needed a pedigree, a piece of paper to hang on the wall.”
Dailey enrolled in Le Cordon Bleu in Paris, and studied there from 2001 to 2003. He knew he would end his studies with a stage, which would get him a job.
“I wanted to work under a nasty, mean chef,” Dailey says about his time cooking at Hotel Lutetia after graduation. "It was like jail."
He spent most of his time in France locked in a hole in Hotel Lutetia's kitchen at the fish cutting station. During his off-hours he drank good wine, ate a lot of foie gras and french fries, and spent his nights squatting in an abandoned high school cafeteria.
“What kind of young guy doesn’t think that’s fun?”
Dailey has stories, a lot of stories, many of which resemble the debaucherous underground tales Anthony Bourdain brought to the public eye in Kitchen Confidential. Dailey worked with Bourdain, back when he was known as Tony, the chef de cuisine of The Supper Club in New York City.
Live Maine Lobster
He calls himself a minimalist in the kitchen. He knows that there are foods so perfect — like stone crab claws, rib-eyes, and oysters — they don't need much enhancing. A large portion of his menu is dedicated to ala carte items like steaks and chops and seafood that guests can order plain or with nine different sauces (think: blue cheese balsamic glaze, ginger lime beurre blanc, mint gastrique, horseradish cream).
Dailey also knows that people come to Peninsula Grill to indulge, so he creates dishes that are unadulterated in their use of fat — like the seared foie gras with duck BBQ, a black pepper biscuit, and Carolina peach jam. As a whole, many people think Dailey cooks cleaner than Carter. Under his direction, Peninsula Grill’s menu has become lighter. He makes the tasting menu off the top of his head each night, based on each guest's preferences. Dailey believes that including a bit of brazen spontaneity in his work routine keeps him and his crew from getting the "tired eyes" that lead to mistakes.
Steak Au Poivre
Pan Seared Grouper
A Slice of Ultimate Coconut Cake
Dailey's privy to everything that happens in the dimly lit dining room. He can peer through the open kitchen that's framed like a black box theater. He sees the black vested waiters filling wine glasses, replacing silverware. He watches the procession of people slowly pour in and fill the tables as service starts and concludes each night. Peninsula Grill also has courtyard dining and a banquet room. Dailey is in charge of the catering at Planters Inn, which hosts many weddings.
“We get put in the box of being fancy and pretentious, but this is actually a friendly place to eat,” he says.
Dailey thinks we're about to see a resurgence in dining as a trend. People will start to move away from technology and begin to relish the type of human connection that happens when you enjoy a multi-course meal with someone.
“It’s nice to have a person really wait on you,” says Dailey. “I love watching my waitstaff work. It’s like ballet, The Nutcracker. Just when I think that the wheels are going to come off, they get through the Broadway production.”
Peninsula Grill's Main Dining Room
The bounty of the South involves more than crab cakes and creole. This could be Dailey's culinary message. It's a reason why he returned to Charleston from Europe — to be creative and use all the amazing ingredients that can be found in the U.S.
To learn more about the history of Peninsula Grill, and to make Dailey's elevated Southern cuisine at home, check out his cookbook Peninsula Grill: Served with Style.
