Chris Coombs

Written by Billy Cox Thursday, 15 July 2010 02:14

The Man of the Kitchen in dbar and Deuxave

By the time he was tall enough to reach into a kitchen’s sink Chris Coombs was working at a neighbor’s seafood restaurant washing dishes, chucking clams and peeling shrimp. While attending his hometown’s Peabody High School Chris applied himself to the school’s vocational program focusing on cooking and also managed to work 40-60 hours a week around his class schedule. From the get-go Chris knew what he wanted. He applied to only one college, the prestigious Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, NY, and was accepted and enrolled at the ripe age of 17.
   He graduated by age 19 and was off to work. While many chef-hopefuls would wait out front, resumes in hand, Chris went knocking on the back door. Coombs felt that going straight into the kitchen and showing what he could do was his best chance on being hired. And he was right.
Coombs is only 26 years old and is lauded by the press as a “boy wonder” of Boston’s cuisine-scene having found success as dbar’s Executive Chef and with a new restaurant set to open this summer. Chris’ soaring trajectory began with him taking on every opportunity he could find. In 2002 he cooked in Wellesley, MA at Blue Ginger’s kitchen, the same year they were awarded the James Beard Foundation’s “Best Chef Northeast” award. He also spent a year-and-a-half cooking with Patrick O’Connell at his restaurant The Inn at Little Washington in Washington, Virginia. “It was the most defining year and a half of my life because Patrick is the most brilliant chef I’ve ever
encountered.”
While working under the tutelage of fantastic chefs was a vital part of Chef Coombs’
success, he himself deserves plenty of the credit. Since taking over as Executive Chef at dbar Chris has won customers over with dishes like Gianno Chicken Under a Brick and Seared Diver’s Scallops. The menu’s exceptional level of freshness can be attributed to the roof-deck garden that Coombs handgrows and hand-picks himself, a practice in self-sufficiency he picked up while in Virginia.
With his young success as a partner at dbar Chris will now work on future success with the opening of his and co-owner Brian Piccini’s new restaurant Deuxave opening in late Summer 2010. The name, which Coombs and Piccini invented, even sounds delicious, (pronounced: doo-aahve). With Chris Coombs’ track record it will be no surprise when Deuxave is rolling off the tongues of Bostonians as a Restaurant of the Year candidate.
Deuxave aims to be “refined casual” as Coombs describes a menu that will be “nouvelle French technique married with the splendor of local, seasonal American ingredients.” While the menu will be chic it will be very approachable as Chris hopes to knock down the wall of pretentiousness that upscale restaurants are known for.
While speaking with me Chris even revealed the surprising secret behind his phenomenal success, “just give people what they want. I mean, ultimately that’s my job.” And he does his job well. Watch for Chris Coombs on the Food Network’s “Chopped,” or just go down to Dorchester’s dbar.