For Best Chefs America
Peter Pollay opened Posana in 2009 on a prime piece of real estate on the corner of Asheville’s downtown district. It began as a cafe and relaunched as a full-service restaurant in 2013 with an extensive renovation.
Shortly after, our new Best Chef shifted from working full-time in the kitchen to allowing his chef de cuisine, Jordan Arace, to oversee back of house operations. Pollay says letting go has helped him grow as an owner. He now gets to focus on events, talk to customers, and do all the other activities that are good for business.
exterior of Posana at night
interior of Posana after renovations
“It’s always a struggle to find the balance between trusting and micromanaging, to still feel connected to what’s going on in the kitchen when you’re not in it every night,” says Pollay. “To impress standards, you become compulsive and a control freak. If you don’t, one day you’ll wonder how you slipped so far.”
It's not easy uniting so many people with different backgrounds and personalities to reflect the ‘best face’ of the owners to the public. It is an amazing feat, however, when it’s pulled off. Pollay says that raising two children has helped with his ability to manage employees, because no matter what age people are they still pull the same antics.
He calls Arace a dynamic chef with a different style of cooking than him. He simplifies the Best Chef's recipes, using fewer ingredients without sacrificing flavor. Pollay also admires his ability to keep staff on track without getting flustered.
We live during a time when farm-to-table sourcing is expected from sandwich shops. Restaurants have to take extra measures to appeal to dining trends, many of which are health conscious. While most chefs cringe when diners ask for flourless food, Pollay chooses to cater to them. He offers a gluten-free menu executed with fine dining flair, made with ingredients from 65 local purveyors. He works hard to ensure his New American cuisine is hyper-local, growing some of his own produce in an urban garden in West Asheville.
pan seared scallops, beet risotto, Looking Glass goat cheese, walnut pesto
Pollay still goes into Posana’s open air kitchen to take over a station from time to time, though he now gets to enjoy gazing at the rapid fire dance of chefs during service when they’re in the flow. It’s a beautiful thing to watch.
He began his career working in Chicago for Larry Levy of Levy Restaurants, who insisted he go the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park. There is a great debate among chefs on whether culinary school is necessary. Pollay says it was helpful for him, particularly because he decided to attend after graduating from college and was able to take coursework seriously. He knew cooking was what he wanted to professionally do.
“I wasn’t confident in my skills and didn’t know any lingo,” Pollay says about himself before culinary school. It takes a long time to build confidence in the kitchen.
burrata with roasted tomato
After graduating with honors from the CIA, Pollay worked his externship at Granita, Wolfgang Puck’s Malibu restaurant frequented by celebrities. Puck has been Pollay’s other main mentor. He says Puck strives to give his guests as much as possible, to create a dining experience where everyone feels welcome.
He remembers one night at Granita when tickets were coming out of the machine nonstop during a dinner shift. Pollay was working garde manger and had to dress whole leaf romaine with caesar dressing without bruising the greens. Puck stopped him and came over to emphasize the importance of the beauty of the lettuce and how Pollay didn’t want to disturb it. It was Puck who taught him to respect ingredients from the seed to the plate. How a dish looks after all that time and energy growing and harvesting is important.
Now Pollay goes out of his way to find the topnotch produce he features on his menu. He’s always searching for ingredients and vetting purveyors. Every chef who takes themselves seriously is out looking for the best food, and it takes a lot of work to do.
He says his staff keeps pushing him and pushing themselves. They are relentless in a good way, because that’s how restaurant life has to be.
“This is a crazy business,” Pollay says. “And I love everything about it.”
