Speaking French in Hamburg: Daniel Johengen By Sandra Firmin Daniel Johengen (Joe-hen-gin) is celebrating his fourteenth year as chef and owner of Daniel’s in Hamburg, a restaurant that dazzles the intrepid gourmand with a specialty that is rarely seen in Western New York: French nouvelle cuisine, its robust sauces gracing sumptuous presentations of the finest, freshest ingredients. A West Coast apprenticeship Home and family are recurring themes in Johengen’s life, as the welcoming name of his restaurant demonstrates. Originally from North Collins, Johengen graduated from RIT in 1977 with a degree in hotel and restaurant management. He also met future wife, Debbie Glover (then an art student) there. As an aspiring chef, he found his way to San Francisco with $300 in hand and the good fortune of having a brother and sister already living in that cutting-edge culinary city. Johengen spent five years at La Mère Duquesne, a French restaurant run by a mother and son—three years under the apprenticeship of Chef Claude Melchiorri and two as head chef. From Melchiorri he learned such basics of French cooking as how to make a straightforward velouté sauce out of stock and roux, as well as to butcher different cuts of meat. Most importantly, however, he learned about the inner workings of a professional kitchen. It was when he was at a second San Francisco restaurant, Epanoui, that he and Debbie decided to move back to WNY to start a family. After a stint as head chef at Oliver’s in Buffalo in the mid-nineties, Johengen realized his dream of opening a small restaurant where he could do all of the cooking. Hitting all the right notes Daniel’s ambience strikes a delicate balance between the comforts of home and a refined culinary experience. A substantial former dwelling, its dining room is nearly without partitions, creating interesting views for intermittent people-watching. Sleek track lighting illuminates each of the fourteen tables with a dangling light fixture, producing an encasing warm glow that encourages total absorption in your meal and conversation. There is no bar, only a yielding couch at the entrance, and—thankfully—no flatscreen television. Debbie Johengen is in the front of the house, managing bills and drawing on her art and design background in the flower arrangements and seasonal decorations. This winter featured an antique toy theme with an eccentric bric-a-brac wreath and illustrations from children’s books lining art-gallery-white walls. In the kitchen end of the house, Johengen works nine-to-twelve-hour days, six days a week. When he is not in the kitchen, the restaurant is not open. While he is committed to seasonal ingredients and making everything from scratch, numerous dishes remain on the menu year-round to satisfy a devoted clientele who might revolt if such favorites as his escargot wrapped in a blanket of pasta were not on the menu. Specials reflect the changing seasons: Spring brings emerald shoots like ramps and fiddlehead ferns, blue soft-shelled crabs appear in the summer, root vegetables and belly-warming braises take over during the fall and winter. Four times a year, he prepares a six-course wine and food pairing to showcase local ingredients such as a palate-cleansing Concord grape sorbet. Johengen relishes preparing food made in stages over the course of days such as pâtés and stocks. Veal demi-glace, for instance, first requires roasting the bones before they go into a simmering vegetable broth. He slowly distills forty quarts to a gallon, producing a reduction unsullied by the addition of fats or flour. You would be well advised to use the hard rolls that arrive oven-fresh to absorb the array of sauces that enhance each course, from a butternut squash ravioli appetizer bathed in browned garlic butter, regally dotted with dried cherries and flecks of sage and parmigiano-reggiano, to an entrée of alternating slices of veal loin and lobster tail drizzled with a velvety lobster sauce. Simple and fresh at all times Over the course of his twenty-five years as a chef, Johengen’s style has changed little. He has always embraced seasonal ingredients, bringing to WNY via California a commitment to freshness and an unwavering pursuit of innovative French cuisine, taking inspiration from chefs such as Thomas Keller and reimagining them for his kitchen. What has changed is an increasing availability of ingredients from local farmers and foragers. He would be delighted if the demand for offal, which has swept other cosmopolitan areas, expanded beyond liver to include additional melt-in-your-mouth delicacies such as brains, sweetbreads, and tongue. When home, Johengen relaxes after cooking professionally all week and, understandably, simplicity rules. Mostly he grills regardless of the season and makes pizza, albeit with homemade dough. His culinary philosophy espouses direct flavors and emotionally satisfying meals. It is summed up best in his memory of an impromptu supper from many years ago: The setting was a cottage in Boothbay Harbor overlooking the Maine coast on a sunny summer day, perfect for drinking beer and clam digging with his family, which, fortuitously, included a lobster fisherman. Clam fork in hand, they went searching for the telltale holes in the sand. With quick deft plunges of the fork, the bucket was full in no time. The dinner of steamed clams and fresh Maine lobster was redolent with the taste and smell of the Atlantic. Sandra Firmin is curator at the University at Buffalo Art Galleries. SUBSCRIBE NOW Back to the Table of Contents Back to Top