This interview originally aired on "In the Moment" on SDPB Radio.
The James Beard Awards are one of the highest honors in the culinary industry. It's recognizing a unique restaurant tucked away in Custer, South Dakota.
Skogen Kitchen is a fine dining locale in a town of a little under 2,000 residents. Its chef, Joseph Raney, is a semifinalist in the best chef category for the Midwest Region at the James Beard Awards. That's a big deal.
He joins In the Moment to discuss the good food that earned him the recognition.
Learn more about experiencing Skogen Kitchen.
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Lori Walsh:
All right. Innovative, gourmet, luxury, those three words come together to describe the rich cuisine at Skogen Kitchen in Custer, South Dakota. Joseph Raney is owner and chef of the restaurant. He's also a semi-finalist in the Best Chef category for the Midwest region at the James Beard Awards. That's a big deal, and he's stopped by our studios as well in the Black Hills to say hello. Chef Raney, welcome. Thanks for being here.
Joseph Raney:
Yeah, thanks for having me. It's an absolute pleasure.
Lori Walsh:
Congratulation on the semi-finals. Tell me what that means to you.
Joseph Raney:
Man, I don't know how it means. I mean, it's not something I expected. I moved here from California and so you kind of expect that there. But in a small town in Custer 2000 people, it's not something that you really think about all that much.
Lori Walsh:
Yeah. Tell us about that move and picking Custer and saying, Hey, this is going to be a chef designed experience. This is going to be something that many people in the entire state of South Dakota have not had an opportunity to experience this kind of fine dining. Did people say, yeah, that's not going to work in Custer?
Joseph Raney:
Oh, yeah. And I don't mean that as the story of all the naysayers. I think people kind of felt like they knew what a Custer was or is, and when you're kind of passing ideas off to people in a way, I don't know, maybe they were trying to protect me, but at the same time, there's really nothing else I'm good at and I just thought, I'm here. My wife is just a super optimistic human being. She has no fear at all.
And so she's looking at me trying to find other odd jobs and things, and she's saying, the only thing that's going to make you happy is getting back in the kitchen and cooking. And so she's like, I think you should open up a restaurant. And I said, Eliza open up a, like the same kind of food that we were doing in Orange County. And she said, yeah, you should do exactly the same food and what's the worst that can happen? I said, the worst that can happen is I fail and my girlfriend leaves me, and there's a lot that can happen, but she really motivated me to go for it and she's a huge part of it and it's just been an amazing experience for us.
Lori Walsh:
I was just reading this week in the National Endowment for the Humanities magazine, it's just called Humanities, about M.F.K. Fisher, who is one of our great food writers, gourmet food writers of all time. And for her, it's not just about the food, of course. For you and the dining experience that you give to your customers, your clients, and really your staff, yourself, your creativity, is it about the food? And if not, what is it about?
Joseph Raney:
Oh man, I used to think it was about the food. And I have really come to realize that the food is just, it's crazy to say, because I'm a chef, I deal with food, I'm going to leave here in a couple hours and deal with food. And it's really not all about the food. A restaurant, you think about why people even go to a restaurant, they go there to get away and whether or not that's a positive or a negative, they're getting away for or against something. And I think what a lot of chefs fail to recognize is that people want an experience.
They're there to be seen, they're there to have a good time, and you really have a great opportunity to give someone a really good experience and that yes, does the food have to be good? Absolutely. But when they walk through that door, that hostess better not be sitting on her cell phone more in there than she is with the customer and conversations. There's been so many connections, just the service staff and even the cooks that we've made with people in the community that if you had a mentality that it's just all about the food, you wouldn't have been able to make those connections.
Lori Walsh:
Yeah.
Joseph Raney:
We've made so many friends and it really is unbelievable and it's really taught me that it's always about the whole, it's not just about that one thing and then making that one thing the whole, it's about all the little things. And all the little things are the big things. And so you can't take anything for granted and you kind of have to pay attention to everything. You have to really balance everything.
Lori Walsh:
Having said that, what's on the menu tonight? Will you go back, what's the first sort of thing that you'll put together or start working on? We had about a minute left, so I know we don't have time for the whole thing.
Joseph Raney:
Okay.
Lori Walsh:
So focus on one particular item.
Joseph Raney:
Well, it's a little early in the season and people are really excited for this, but I do have morels. Now, obviously these aren't from the Hills right now. It's a little too late, but they are from Tibet and it just gives people this feeling of spring is coming and so it's exciting when they see them. It's just like, oh my gosh, it's still cold outside. How did you get these? So.
Lori Walsh:
Winter can't stay forever. Spring will be there. In the meantime, reservations only, I think at Skogen Kitchen. So we'll put a link to their website up online so you can check out that menu and learn more about Chef Joseph Raney. He's owner and chef at Skogen Kitchen in Custer, South Dakota, and he's semi-finalist in the Best Chef category for the Midwest regions. Congratulations. Thanks for coming by.
Joseph Raney:
Thank you so much.
