Fanning the flames of success
As a youngster, Jeremy Manley lived mainly on macaroni with cheese and on quesadillas. But for light reading, he would pick up a recipe book and mentally savor the ingredients, taking careful note of which ingredients seemed to complement each other, and which spices were deemed to enhance flavor.
Today, at 22, Jeremy is a Cordon Bleu-trained chef who commands the kitchen and dining room of Jeremy’s on the Hill in Wynola, three miles south of Julian, which, though open only for a little more than a year, is drawing spectacular reviews.
“If anyone had told me when he was a kid that he would grow up to be a trained and imaginative chef, I would have laughed and said ‘absolutely no way,’” said his mother Teresa, whose eyes quickly tear up as she watches her son skillfully navigate his way around the restaurant.
It’s not that there is a family history of professional cooking. Jeremy always watched his Grandma and Great Grandma cooking —“I bake, I don’t really cook very much,” said Teresa. Instead, the whole thing grew out of a kind of necessity. The Manleys, along with Teresa’s parents, have for 12 years owned and operated the Angels Landing Country Inn and Retreat Center, just west of Julian and a popular spot for weddings and retreats. In the beginning, the cooking was all done by Teresa’s cousin, who is Jeremy’s Aunt Karla.
“We have always been an entrepreneurial family—everyone willing to pitch in and help—and it was only natural that Jeremy would help Karla by washing dishes and doing basic prep work,” said Teresa.
But Karla was a good and careful teacher, and Jeremy was an excellent student.
By 10 years old he was helping with the cooking.
“The first thing I ever made on the grill was eggs,” recalls Jeremy. “Aunt Karla had cracked a couple of dozen eggs on a skillet for a military family retreat, and I cooked them and prepared them to be served, just as I had seen her do so many times.”
Karla instilled in Jeremy an absolute love of and passion for cooking—she taught him the basics and he truly perfected his skills at school and the different restaurants he has worked. “Jeremy is just amazing with herbs and sauces and we couldn’t be more proud,” Teresa said.
Three years later, Jeremy is 13, and Aunt Karla is tired.
“We were doing 60 to 80 weddings a year, along with many retreats, and Karla was understandably worn out,” said Teresa. “She took a vacation to Hawaii, which meant I didn’t have a chef. That is when Jeremy stepped up and said, ‘I can do it. I’ve watched Aunt Karla do it many times. I know I can do it.’”
And at 13 years old, Jeremy Manley took over control of a kitchen that would produce multi-course wedding reception dinners for up to 250 guests.
One such wedding was pivotal. The groom was Jason Martin, a top chef for Disneyland’s leading restaurants in the Anaheim area.
“He had 170 guests and Jeremy put on a full prime rib dinner. When Chef Martin learned that the entire dinner was produced by a 13-year-old, he could not believe it, and said that Jeremy had to go to San Francisco for training,” said Teresa.
And so he went to Le Cordon Bleu School of Culinary Arts in San Francisco and started the never-ending process of honing his skills.
After graduating, doctors do internships and chefs do externships, according to Jeremy, who spent a year at Mille Fleurs in Rancho Santa Fe and time at Mr. A’s in San Diego before opening the doors to his own restaurant.
But being a chef is more than cooking. The chef is responsible for the entire atmosphere and feeling of a restaurant, along with management abilities and skillful networking.
“Consider the wait staff,” said Jeremy. “One person may enjoy the hustle and bustle of Friday or Saturday night. Another may get flustered then, but is very comfortable on a slower evening and the customers leave feeling very good about their service, so you craft their shifts accordingly.”
Ordering and buying the food and wine is a skill all of its own; and it all has to be brought in to Julian.
It’s not a matter of running over to the neighborhood market for a couple of steaks, Jeremy explained. “I like to support area businesses as much as possible, so the top meat comes from Bisher’s in Ramona, and nearby Star B Ranch is used for the bison dishes. Fish comes from Chesapeake, right from the dock in San Diego or from the Honolulu Fish Company. For wines I support and enjoy Menghini Winery, J. Jenkins Winery along with some Orfila selections, and a few from Central and Northern California, especially Jessie’s Grove in Lodi, a small third-generation winery.”
If there is a single watchword at Jeremy’s on the Hill, it is freshness.
“Wherever possible, I prefer to not start preparing anything until it is ordered,” said Jeremy. “On some things a little preparation work can be done. On Chicken Cordon Bleu, for example, you can wrap the chicken in the cheese and ham and truss it, so that it is ready to go into the fryer the minute it is ordered. Incidentally,” he added, “that is the only fried thing on my regular menu,” though he does do a Thursday Fried Chicken as a flashback to the days when people drove up the hill to the Chicken Shack, as the building used to be named.
“But the original owners left and the chicken fell off and people stopped coming. I decided to revive it. I soak the chicken in buttermilk for two days, throw in a little cayenne pepper and you get great fried chicken,” Jeremy said.
At the culinary arts school, the students studied the cuisine of many different countries and Jeremy said he particularly enjoyed the English cooking. (Now how many times do you hear that? But, myself being English, it immediately showed me that Jeremy is an absolutely outstanding chap.) However, he said that if he could choose a country in which to live and cook, it would be Italy.
“Life in Italy revolves around food—it’s part of the culture and I love to make all my own fettuccines and raviolis. Yes, I love French cooking, but a lot of what they got, they got from Italy. You eat with your eyes,” Jeremy said. “Your eyes see something that looks good and they tell your mind it is going to be great. Make that happen—satisfy the eyes and the mind—and you have a successful dish and meal.”
People overeat, Jeremy believes. “You should not eat to be 100 percent full—80 percent is plenty; and you should never eat more than one pound of food at a meal, even if that. To eat more than that is, well, it’s just bad for you,” he said with a grimace.
Jeremy is comfortable where he is now, though he knows that there is a lot to learn, he will definitely grow and, ultimately, move to a new location.
“The Julian area is perfect for me right now. There is a wide cross section of economic levels and a good cross section of restaurants to serve them, and we try to have something for everyone. Mille Fleurs, for example, can serve a niche market within one of the wealthiest local populations in the nation,” said Jeremy.
“The wine country of Northern California would be wonderful but, very competitive—maybe Monterey Bay or Santa Barbara. One of the great things about great restaurants is that they usually finish up being in places of great beauty or interest and right now, I feel very fortunate to be in Julian, but I do plan on expanding to other locations sometime in the future.”
“The chef is a businessman, too,” said Jeremy. “I know that fluctuations in the economy affect my clients more than in some other communities. I can tell when it is the week to pay the rent or mortgage by the number of people coming through the door, and I have to be sensitive to that.”
And casting a look around the tables at any lunch or dinner can reveal an eclectic clientele that can range all the way from a genuine mountain man to someone who has driven many miles to sample the fare.
Looking around the restaurant during a quiet moment, Jeremy and Teresa turned their mind to the décor, which Teresa described as Country French.”
“We’re still changing things and upgrading; we had the champagne bar built inside so people could have a nice place to have a drink while they’re waiting for a table. And the beer and wine bar was built outside on the patio so people can enjoy a warm summer night under the twinkly lights with fine food in a relaxed atmosphere. And we have lots of other upgrades we’re planning to this historic little 1920’s building.”
“But our main focus is making the menu better and better each time,” said Chef Jeremy. “And it doesn’t look too bad, considering we only opened sometime in March of ’08.”
“Not exactly sure of the date,” added Teresa, “There’s a lot of paperwork to be caught up at the moment.”
Local area chefs are very helpful toward each other, something that Jeremy appreciates. “I go to their kitchens and they come to mine. One might say, ‘you know, your blue cheese puffs are really excellent, but if you would just do this to them, they would be even better.’ I’m really grateful for that, because these people have been around a lot longer than I, and I know I still have a lot to learn.”
But Jeremy believes that most chefs would agree that “food is a beautiful thing. You need it to stay alive, so why not have it prepared and presented in the best way possible. With a quality cut of meat, the flavor is amazing. If the meat is grown right, slaughtered just right, cut right and seasoned with a little sea salt and freshly cracked pepper, not something that has been sitting around in a jar for a while, grill it and—ah!! Beautiful. It is really exciting to see the surprise and enjoyment when someone bites into good quality meat or a good quality potato or experiences good quality oil.”
For himself, Jeremy says that his favorite meal of the day is dinner, but the most important is breakfast, even though his own is the ever humble toast and eggs. “My toast is in the oven; I put the egg in a skillet and once all the white is set—a little Mediterranean Sea salt, some cracked black pepper, flip the egg over and turn off the heat and go about what I am doing. When I’m ready, I pop the egg on the toast and am set to go. I like the egg over medium, but I have to admit that often it is either soft or hard, and, occasionally, medium. In any event, eggs and toast and I’m a happy camper.”
On a given night of 80 to 90 guests, three people are just fine to operate the kitchen, Jeremy said. “I will be looking after the food to make certain everything is cooked right, properly sauced, garnished and suitable to go out. The salad person might be doing the dishes coming in from the customers, and the sauce person will be doing the dishes that I am using while cooking. But we do lots of special events here, too; beer and wine pairing events, charity fundraisers, etc. and for those nights I usually have a lot more help.”
And in the world of sous chefs and executive chefs and chefs du jour, what’s the pecking order, who’s the big guy in charge?
Without a moment’s hesitation, Jeremy replied, “The customer.”
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