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One night, after John Bentley
had impressed his wife and their friends with his home cooking at a dinner
party, his wife said, "You ought to get paid for this." John laughed
it off, but the remark struck a chord. He had always loved food. The oldest
of six children, John had been "the kid who ate everything." He'd
often helped his mother cook for the family and he'd shared his father's
taste for wildly eclectic food. The next day John called the California
Culinary Academy in San Francisco and requested a brochure. Within days
he'd quit his job and enrolled at the school. While attending CCA, John began his apprenticeship at the Lipizzaner, a tiny French-Viennese restaurant on Union Street. The chef-owner, Joseph Roettig, according to John the "best cook I'll ever know," taught him classical French technique and shared his love for the restaurant business and his devotion to cooking that comes from the heart. When the owners of the Lipizzaner split up, John moved on to the Clift Four Seasons Hotel. His first stint as an executive chef was at Michael's Restaurant in Sunnyvale. He then become the opening chef at the Los Altos Bar and Grill. In 1995, while working to put together a large project with investors, John happened by the small, old firehouse in Woodside. Seeing the "For Rent" sign in the window, John remembered that he hadn't fallen in love with cooking by managing the staff of a large, high-volume venue; he'd done it while manning the stoves himself at the tiny Lipizzaner. Recreating that restaurant's intimacy between kitchen and customer became John's dream. After John scratched together enough money to lease the firehouse, friends, family, and staff pitched in to help refurbish it. John's mother repainted the restaurant's vintage chairs. John recalls that days before the restaurant was slated to open, there was no lighting for the rear dining room. His manager, Jeff, reported that a local lighting company could remedy the problem for several hundred dollars. John replied that he was running out of money. Hearing that, John's mother went to the local hardware store, bought several strings of Christmas lights, and hung them in the windows, where they remain to this day. Two weeks after the restaurant opened, John says, people were calling for reservations and making requests for "the Starlight Room." |
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