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Chez TJ’s new executive chef bikes 45 miles to work and then works 10 to 14 hours “because it’s fun.” When asked if he bikes back home after work, Stanley Michalski laughed.
“I take the train back,” he said. “I’m not sadistic. I’m not nuts.”
Technically, it’s masochistic, but I get what he means (kinda). Michalski took over Michelin-starred contemporary French restaurant Chez TJ Jan. 11 following stints as chef de cuisine at Michelin-starred Dovetail in New York and sous chef at three-starred Quince in San Francisco. His answer for coming to Chez TJ in Mountain View was simple: “The power to have power.”
With that power, Michalski hopes to offer a less expensive dining option for guests “who don’t want to spend a gazillion dollars” on dinner while also bringing Chez TJ a second Michelin star. While some fine-dining restaurants and chefs have pivoted to more casual concepts, like Burlingame’s Saffron (formerly the Michelin-starred Rasa), the now-closed Baumé in Palo Alto and David Kinch, who closed Los Gatos’ Manresa to focus on his more casual eateries, Michalski wants to retain Chez TJ’s concept while simultaneously offering a less expensive option for diners.
“The goal is to have a three- or four-course menu…something smaller for people who don’t want to spend $225 on food,” he said. “Making it more friendly but still not alienating the people who want to come and spend that money too.”
Michalski said his cooking style focuses on allowing fresh ingredients to shine instead of weighing down dishes with unnecessary heavy flavors.
“I think there’s this notion where it’s like: classic French, classic French, Chez TJ,” he said. “But realistically, Chez TJ has classic French influences, but we’re in California, and a lot of people in California don’t want to eat super heavy, super dairy.”
In fact, Michalski said he doesn’t eat dairy at all, with two exceptions: dessert (because he has “a really bad sweet tooth”) and pizza.
“There’s just something about a slice of pizza,” he said. “It could be a Costco pizza, I don’t care. I just love pizza.”
Michalski’s first job was making pizza in his hometown of New Jersey, which was his first time in the kitchen. He didn’t have an interest in cooking growing up and didn’t think he would pursue a culinary career.
“I was 16,” he said. “I just wanted some money.”
But as pressure grew to figure out what was next after high school, he thought back to his time making pizza and decided to attend culinary school. It was his experience as a line cook at L’Espalier in Boston, which had a farm just outside of the city, that developed his passion for local ingredients and farm-to-table cooking. That passion continued when he moved to San Francisco to work at Quince, which had a farm in Bolinas.
“(It was) a full-circle moment,” he said.
And now, Michalski is planning on growing baby tomatoes, green asparagus, peas, fava beans, lemon verbena and other produce in Chez TJ’s garden. Michalski said he gets his green thumb from his mom, who would grow a vegetable garden every year in New Jersey. He said moving to California was eye-opening in terms of produce and admits that the West Coast is the best coast.
“The produce out here is the best in the country,” he said. “Every day, I’m still like a kid in a candy shop.”
In addition to featuring produce grown at Chez TJ, dishes showcase local ingredients from Star Route Farms in Bolinas, Full Belly Farm in Guinda, Toscano Family Farm in San Joaquin Valley, Fiddler’s Green Farm in Tancred, Front Porch Farm in Healdsburg and Longer Table Farm in Santa Rosa.
Michalski’s favorite dish he’s created so far at Chez TJ is quail with honeynut squash and a vegetable tart.
“It has a little tart with all the vegetables inside, and they’re all cooked different ways, like some are grilled, some are cooked in their own juice,” he said. “It just has this nice almost barbecue flavor to it with the sweetness from the squash.”
Michalski said his favorite part of cooking is “to see the joy on someone’s face when they have a good meal,” and his favorite part of working at Chez TJ is how “it’s like cooking for your 40 closest friends.”
In a way, cooking is like biking, he said.
“At a Michelin-star restaurant, it needs to be perfect,” Michalski said. “If you’re riding a bike, like if you’re going down the mountain at 40, 50 miles an hour, you need to be dialed in and focused because one wrong turn, and that’s it. So it’s kind of the same mentality. Like one wrong meal for somebody can ruin a restaurant.”
Michalski looks forward to the different types of produce that spring will bring. Short term, he hopes to be busy every night, and long term, he hopes to earn a second Michelin star for Chez TJ. He said he plans to do that “with a lot of hard work.”
“Everything matters from the moment someone walks in the door to the very end,” he said.
Chez TJ, 938 Villa St., Mountain View; 650-964-7466, Instagram: @chez.tj. Open Tuesday through Thursday 5:30-8:30 p.m. and Friday through Saturday 5-8:30 p.m.