Business Roundup: Avant’s new chef de cuisine works to expand culinary experiences

With a renewed focus on providing what customers want, the new chef de cuisine at Avant in the Rancho Bernardo Inn is changing up the menu.

Chef Sergio Jimenez has created a new seasonal bar menu. Designed to complement the Avant bar’s craft cocktails, dishes include Alaskan fingerling potatoes with duck confit, French onion seafood dip with Maine lobster and West Coast oyster Rockefeller with spinach-bacon mousse.

Also on the menu are lumina lamb lollipops with almond butter and chef’s garden herbs, the latter coming from the garden on the inn’s grounds.

“I am fortunate to work at a property that has a chef’s garden,” Jimenez said. “I am already planning menus for next season based on what will be growing.”

Jimenez has moved up the culinary ranks at the RB Inn since first being hired in 2014 as a sauté cook and working his way up to chef de partie and sous chef. A little over a year ago he left Avant to be the chef de cuisine at Stake Chophouse & Bar in Coronado, but returned to Avant in May when the same position became available.

“We are thrilled to welcome chef Sergio back to Rancho Bernardo Inn as our new chef de cuisine and look forward to sharing his locally inspired style of cooking with our guests in Avant,” said Jamie Lemon, general manager of Rancho Bernardo Inn. “His passion and culinary expertise will bring an exciting, new level of creative cuisine to the hotel. We’re happy to welcome him home.”

As chef de cuisine, Jimenez said he oversees all the restaurant’s back of house operations, creates the menus and works with management on outlining a plan on where to take Avant into the future. He also teaches and trains the cooks to make sure they work up to its standards.

Looking to provide a variety of options for customers is one reason he created the seasonal bar menu.

“We didn’t have one,” Jimenez said. “My vision for that is to create a different restaurant within Avant, one that is more casual and approachable. It is for regular guests to enjoy a couple snacks rather than a fine dining meal.”

Jimenez said his inspiration for the bar menu’s offerings were comments he heard from customers over his many years working at Avant.

He has also been changing the Chef’s Four Course Tasting Menu at Avant. Paired with wines, menu offerings include king kanpachi crudo with sungold tomatoes, marigold flowers and sunflower seeds; aged duck breast with almonds, leeks and shallots; Snake River Farms wagyu strip loin with baby artichokes, spring onions and perigord truffles; and Maine lobster with caramelized cauliflower.

This tasting menu is something that Jimenez said he and his predecessor, Chris Gentile, pushed for.

“We’re like pioneers at Avant,” Jimenez said. “A lot of chefs are scared to take that approach because of the stress and hard work.”

The tasting menu options are around 4 ounces each, larger than a few bites but not a full plate.

“You definitely leave feeling satisfied and full, but not stuffed,” Jimenez said.

Over the four courses — the last is dessert — guests get to choose their experience. This could mean vegetarian, all meat, all fish or a mix.

“It is like a journey through the menu, an opportunity for guests to choose within each course, geared toward whatever experience they want … it is a broader range of experiences,” Jimenez said. “What guests pick might not normally be what I’d pair together.”

Options will change with each season and reflect what the RB Inn has growing in its on-site chef’s garden.

“I just changed it last week 100 percent, and there will be one more, at the beginning of the fall,” Jimenez said.

Chefs interpret a tasting menu in different ways, he said. His take is based on new trends, with an a la carte focus aimed at pleasing the senses.

“Fresh ingredients are featured in the first course, while with the second I play around with menu items that are not typically seen in restaurants,” Jimenez said. “For the third, I bring in the heavy, but not rich, great quality products. Fourth, the dessert can be fresh and seasonal or chocolate that is rich and decadent.”

The menu also has a wide assortment of sparkling, red and white wines recommended by sommelier Joe Baumgardner, draft beers and libations by Jason Sorge.

Another recent addition to Avant’s offerings is Vine-to-Table.

“It is an opportunity to come and dine while enjoying a curated menu geared toward the wine selected by the sommelier,” Jimenez said. “The main focus is not on the food, but the wine, creating an experience and journey.”

He said it is also an opportunity to showcase wineries and vineyards. Upcoming dates and focuses are Aug. 18 (Joseph Phelps Vineyards), Sept. 15 (wines of Italy) and Nov. 3 (ZD Winery).

Jimenez, 27, said though he worked in the restaurant industry for many years, his decision to pursue a culinary career came around seven years ago when his daughter was born.

“I realized I’m really good at this … can make a career out of it,” Jimenez said, adding he was working at Avant when he came to this realization.

He credits his aunt, Martha Gonsalez, with being his first mentor.

“I grew up in a household with a lot of family members working in the restaurant industry,” Jimenez said. “My aunt was the first who opened her own restaurant (Taqueria El Korita in Chula Vista). It started as a taco stand outside my mom’s front yard. I was around 12 years old.”

He started by helping his aunt with the stand. It was his introduction to working in a fast-pace environment. But more important than learning food preparation techniques from his aunt were other lessons that have carried him through his career.

“In that first experience I learned her great work ethic and passion for food,” Jimenez said. “She was the first where I witnessed that … an inspiration to me.”

At 16 he began formal training at the San Diego Culinary Institute, where he earned a culinary arts degree. He specialized in contemporary and California cuisines. He also completed an apprenticeship program at Mister A’s.

As for his long-term goals, Jimenez said they are always evolving and changing, but his aspiration is to get on Michelin’s radar to earn a star or other accolade.

“Very few get one star, 5 percent of restaurants,” he said. “It is a very small group of people. But we are very fortunate to have them in San Diego. For us chefs it is very exciting. When I was growing up in the industry, you had to move to Chicago or New York. But now we have them here at home. It is fortunate and exciting to see chefs appreciated and honored.”

For details on the different menus and events at Avant, visit ranchobernardoinn.com/dine/avant.