Jim Barrett's love for the kitchen began at a young age and has continued to flourish over the last decade. Coming up with creative and unique meals with locally grown ingredients is a key part of his culinary process. Over the past 12 years at the Coeur d'Alene Resort, Barrett has strived to create a great dining experience for all guests, whether they come sit down at Beverly's for a meal, attend a wine dinner or order room service at the resort.
IRW: Why did you choose to become a chef?
BARRETT: People started recognizing early, even in my childhood, my love for the kitchen. And at one point I had no idea what I wanted to be, and my mother talked me into enrolling in culinary school. The very first day, when I saw everyone in that professional kitchen with their hats and all dressed up, and I saw what everyone knew, right away I knew. I was like, "I want to know everything about the kitchen." So then it was just easy, it fell into me. It's been a life passion, and I still love what I do every day.
What is your culinary philosophy?
Keep it simple and use the finest ingredients. The ingredients speak for themselves. As a younger chef, I tried to complicate things and put too many sauces and too many flavors. Now I like to source out really high quality stuff and let the food speak for itself.
How do you challenge yourself to stay creative in the kitchen?
Everything's real collaborative, and we have such a great team of chefs. A lot of our line cooks used to be chefs, so it's a real collaborative, creative environment. There are no egos in our kitchen. We'll take criticism from anyone, and we'll look at a dish and we'll all try to do what we can. How do we make this better, how do we make this an incredible signature?
What kinds of places do you look for when you dine out — what excites you?
It's a nice treat, I think, as a chef just to go out, and I'm not critical. I think a lot of people are intimidated and think that chefs are hard to please, but yeah, I for the most part like to go to more simple restaurants on my days off. I'm pretty easy to please and thankful that I don't have to cook for the night.
Who is one of your culinary heroes, and why?
I've always been a Gordon Ramsay fan, and we do a lot of steak Wellingtons, and we're always trying to match and beat what Gordon does. I just really respect that he just wants things done right and his attention to detail.
What are you most looking forward to during Inlander Restaurant Week 2023?
We've been a part of this from the beginning, so it's really exciting. And then, with the last couple of years, we haven't been able to do it, so we're really excited to be back as a part of it. It's a great thing for our restaurant, and we're full almost every night. And it's a great way for people who haven't dined at Beverly's ever or in a long time, and it's an affordable way to get people in, and it's always a great week for us. And it's kind of a slower time in Coeur d'Alene this time of year, so it's really nice, too, after Valentine's Day to be busy.
How do you think the hospitality industry has permanently changed since the pandemic, and will continue to shift?
It's been hard on the kitchens with staffing challenges, and we've kind of seen the wages of a lot of the cooks go up, so I think it's kind of a positive thing that chefs are getting paid more. Wages really did help a lot with getting people to return to the kitchens, and we're really fortunate to be fully staffed.
It's kind of exciting around here, we see a lot of smaller, chef-driven restaurants in the area, and food trucks and those types of venues. It's kind of fun to see smaller, chef-driven restaurants happen more in our area.
What advice would you give to diners going out during IRW 2023?
Make reservations early and have an open mind. We tried to make a lot of different flavors and a lot of different items to give people some exciting choices. Some guys in our kitchen are really good at sushi, so they asked if we could put a sushi item on there, so that's how that got on there. So we kind of collaborated and tried to make a fun menu that will appeal to people in a lot of different ways.
What's your favorite dish on your menu?
I really like our paella. We make a really nice saffron rice, and we have dried Spanish chorizo in it and saffron and mussels and shrimp and scallops. So that's kind of one of my favorites on the menu.
