CRESCENT PEOPLE: Chef Craig Deihl — Family and Philosophy

With great power comes great responsibility. OK. He may not be Spider Man, but Craig Deihl still has to balance being one of the state’s best chefs with being a husband and father. Keeping the family happy while keeping his restaurants guests happy is a delicate balance, but he’s able to do it and takes both jobs very seriously.

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It’s tough to get Charleston oysters to the Upstate. The Upstate usually gets Gulf oysters. What do you think about the difference?

That’s a shame.  Man, when you cook up local oysters, they taste like the ocean.  They are so salty and briny.  You don’t need…is there anything better?  Soft shell crabs, other than that?

We’ve talked a little bit about family.  In describing yourself, you’ve said, “I’m not just a chef, I’m a husband (to Colleen), author, butcher, snowboarder, leader, salami-maker, fish-cutter and, most importantly, a father (to four year old Keegan).  How do you juggle all of that, especially the “father” part?

It’s a part of my life.  It’s a part of who I am.  If I didn’t have that support from them when I got home from work, I probably wouldn’t have a life.  I would 15-16 hours a day with no problem. Thank God, I’ve got a family, a wife that understands this industry because this is not a family-driven industry. It’s really not.  When you cook at the level on which we cook, juggling family is probably the hardest thing we do, and at the end of the day it’s probably one of the things I long for the most. To figure out how to put more time in for family and less time in for work, and when I’m at work, I’m like, “How do I get more time at work because I can’t get everything I need done done.”  So, it’s a struggle. It’s a very hard struggle.  I know Colleen supports me with it, no matter how hard it is, but I think she realizes it’s that kind of artist mentality.

Did pending fatherhood change your outlook on things?

I said to Colleen, “Since you get to decide the name, I’m going to decide that we don’t find out boy or girl,” and we didn’t find out. That is probably the best joy you could ever have, ever — not knowing if you’re going to have a boy or girl. I can assure you that, if you’re hoping for a boy and you get a girl, your entire world changes in a completely different way.  It’s a beautiful thing.

Well, what can people expect from you next?

We’re going to strive to do as good a job, if not better.  Every year…I never look at it like “Hey, we didn’t win a Beard aware last year. What are we going to do this year to top what we did last year?”  It’s always more focused on consistency than anything.  “Hey look, we had a great year last year. Hopefully we’re going to get busier.”  And as we get busier, the quest is, “How can we change our menu appropriately within the seasons and still strive for consistency and provide an excellent dining experience for everybody that walks through that door?”  Some nights, you have a bad night.  As much as we want everything to be perfect, this is not an industry that’s the same day in and day out. This is the industry that you don’t know what’s going to happen until you get into the swing of things and I think that’s probably what I like the most – when the restaurant cranks up and gets going, when we’re at the peak, where it feels like everything is going to fall apart, you kind of take charge and try to lead the best.

What do you want your customers to know?

You know, sometimes I wonder when diners come in if they know all the work and effort that goes into their food.  We really strive and work hard at everything that we do.  Fish comes in the door whole.  Pigs come in the door with 4 feet and a head on a rolly cart and they’re 250 to 350 pounds in stature.  We go to great lengths and work extremely hard to make dining experiences the best that it can possibly be.  And sometimes when they complain about a certain ingredient, we think, “Do you realize how much time and effort we put into it?”  That makes us work that much hard to make it that much better the next time they come in.  So hearing when something’s not right doesn’t mean that we did something wrong, it’s, “How can we make it better?” Hopefully we’re getting them to understand the work and effort we put into it, at the same time.

It’s a multiple education process?

Well, we don’t try to educate the consumer. We try to provide the consumer with what they want because they’re our customer.  It’s kind of a business plan that if we get multiple complaints that they don’t like it, we need to change what we’re doing or how we’re doing it to make it better so we don’t lose a customer.  It’s like the remark I made earlier. We want to make mistakes at a faster rate than our competitors to get better than them, so we can be better than them.  That’s how we operate.  And hopefully make fewer and fewer and fewer mistakes or fewer visible mistakes that they never even know that we did make.  Not knowing the kitchen is still in a tizzy and their food still comes out hot and delicious and tasty? That’s the be all, end all of it. We could be having our worst day but the customer never knows it.

• Follow Chef Deihl on Twitter at @cdeihl.
• Visit his personal website at therealdeihlchef.com.
• Visit Cypress online HERE.

For Part 1, click HERE. For Part 2, click HERE. For Part 3, click HERE.