The Pampering Chef: Chef Scott Cross Takes Good Care of His Porto Cima Clients

At the Porto Cima Club, all of the customers have been there before.

“It is 100 percent repeat business,” says Executive Chef Scott Cross as he chops a shallot and a couple of garlic cloves. “That means we have to be very creative.”

His long fingers work deftly, smoothly, clearly well-practiced at this business of fixing a small meal.

As he talks, the chef scoops the shallot and garlic into a bit of extra virgin olive oil that has been heated in a well-used sauté pan.

This day, he is whipping up a plate of his customers’ favorite pasta for a Lake Lifestyles photograph and though he is gracious in answering questions, his attention is clearly focused on the rich cream-based sauce he is making and the veal-stuffed tortellegi (giant tortellini) he has just dropped into a saucepan of boiling water.

After the shallots begin to release their flavors, he adds thin-sliced Bermuda onion and Shitake mushrooms to the sauté pan, and follows up with a handful of fresh spinach leaves. As the spinach wilts, he pours in a good half-cup or so of heavy whipping cream which soon is hot and bubbling and reducing into a thick sauce. 

Cross is a slim man who looks at the world through gold wire glasses. He stands straight, and with his gray crew cut, bushy gray mustache and measured, earnest manner he brings an almost military feel to his position. When he talks, he considers his words carefully, and seems to use just enough, without wasting any — much in the way a good chef cooks.

He follows the cream with a half-cup of dry white wine, kosher salt and fresh cracked black pepper. The sauce is nearly done. My mouth is watering.

“When you work at a club, you always have to be able to come up with something new. To cook for people who are regular customers, a chef has to be willing to think and cook outside the box.”

That love of being able to create more original meals and pamper his customers, in fact, is what propelled Chef Cross through his career, which began in his parents’ small restaurant just down the road in Iberia. From there, he got his first “real job” at the Lodge of the Four Seasons as a Chef’s Helper — the lowest rung on the ladder to become a chef (think peeling potatoes and mopping floors).

Eventually Cross migrated to Atlanta, but returned to the Lodge for several more years.  Next, he accepted a position as executive chef at the Scottsdale Radisson Resort near Phoenix. Five years ago he came back to the Lake and the elegant Porto Cima Club, another Four Seasons property. “I like the Lake. It’s my home,” he says.

Since he’s been at the club, Cross has endeared himself to his clients with the kind of personal service most people can only dream about.

Bill and Elaine Manion are regulars at the Club dining room, and likely as not to ask Cross to “Do us a dinner,” reports Bill. “We have always thought an awful lot of Scott’s ability as a chef. He’d fed us everything from comfort food to spicy, fun food.”

Another member, Tony Hobgood makes annual requests for a chateaubriand anniversary dinner, which the chef prepares tableside.

“He’ll fix anything we want and does a great job,” says Hobgood. “And he generally surprises us with the side dishes.”

For Cross, “That’s what I love about this job. You get more of that at a club setting than anywhere else. It gets me out of my day-to-day normal routine.”

An upscale club like Porto Cima, customers expect to be treated well, and the chef does his part. Besides the occasional “surprise me” meal, he has catered private parties for members in their homes, and regularly comes up with special meals, like last fall’s Dinner in the Dark.

The flyer announcing the meal explained: “No lights, Secret menu, and One Clue: Chocolate.”

What followed was a five-course meal that began with Rosemary Skewered Jumbo Prawns Laced with a creamy dark chocolate sauce served over wild rice, and finished with chocolate crepes stuffed with a strawberry and white chocolate pastry cream.  Between, diners were treated to a wilted spinach salad with chocolate pecan vinaigrette, raspberry soup with white chocolate shavings and seared tournedos of beef filet with a peppered chocolate sauce.

And while the menu will not be repeated on Valentine’s Day, he says it was so popular with his clients that he does plan to bring it back again.

Which leads to one of the contradictions of his job. While creativity is a must, and he is always on the lookout for new ideas, he has had occasion to bring back discontinued items because members demanded he do so.

Generally that is lunch items, he notes, as he checks the sauce and gives the sauté pan a quick flip. “We had a turkey and Brie sandwich that had been on the menu a while and sales were dropping off so I took it off the menu. Wow! People let me know and they continued to order it anyway.”

 Sauce finished to his liking, the chef quickly drains the pasta and tosses it into the sauté pan where he swirls and bounces it in the sauce, then artistically turns it onto a plate, the spinach adding color to an otherwise one-color dish. A sprinkle of Parmesan, and the pasta is ready for photographing.

We follow him into the dining room, where he arranges the plate just-so on a table, bringing out a wine glass and bottle of Cakebread chardonnay to complete the picture.

He continues to talk while Robin snaps pictures of the food. Once she finishes, we are both hoping for a taste.  

“I also like to get creative with different cuts of meats and specialty items. We have a lot of people who crave center-of-the-plate large chops and the like. On the West Coast, people eat a lot of salad and lighter foods, but here in the heartland we have some of the best beef in the world.”

As Robin puts down her camera, photography finished, Chef Cross hands us two small plates and tells us to try the pasta. We are happy. The pasta is wonderful.