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Cooking with Oceana's Ben Pollinger

By Daisy Carrington | dcarrington@am-ny.com

4:09 PM EST, January 8, 2008

Ben Pollinger's scallop salad with avocado and citrus. (Michelle Repiso)

A meal at Oceana is like a journey on the high seas. The main dining room, which is decorated to mimic the inside of a ship, boasts wall paintings of portholes and murals of the ocean. The menu, though fish-centric, incorporates influences from all over the globe. Following the cruise theme, it isn't beholden to a specific region, a fact that the executive chef, Ben Pollinger, finds enlivening.

"I like being able to pull from many different cultures," said Pollinger, who this year earned a Michelin star. "For me, my cooking is an expression of my professional experiences. It's not like I grew up at home as a kid on a French grandmother's knee, learning all of these rustic things. My inspiration and ideas come from influences that I have learned on the job."

Indeed, Pollinger's culinary rise is interesting, and prototypically American. He didn't inherit the cooking bug from his family, but rather discovered it while working the cafeteria at Boston University, where he majored in economics. "We joke about it to this day that in my mom's repertoire, everything includes a can of Campbell's soup," said Pollinger, who thankfully has taken over the cooking at holiday gatherings.

Inside his seafood restaurant, he says one of the assets of serving fish is that it's healthy.

"That's what I love about fish," Pollinger noted. "You can cook light and have it taste great and have it be presented well."

For amNewYork's diet-conscious readers, he has prepared a zesty salad made with Nantucket Bay scallops, an assortment of citrus and pureed avocado. "[With this dish,] you get to experience different textures, balances of sweet and sour, salty, crunchy, soft," he said.

After five minutes of speaking with the chef, it is clear he is a family man. The atmosphere in his kitchen is upbeat and convivial and demonstrates the staff's loyalty to a warm and caring boss. Pollinger admits that his own experience as a waiter has probably helped make him a caring supervisor. "[It] makes me a better chef, in terms of helping me have better relationships with the wait staff and the dining managers," he said. "You want and need them on your team, and if you understand them better, you're certainly going to do a better job."

Q&A with Ben Pollinger

What do you enjoy about working with seafood? Seafood is one of the things that has the most room for expression, because there are really so many kinds of fish and seafood out there. I have no issues with cooking meat -- I'm actually a good meat cooker as well. But as a cook, I enjoyed the fish station in the kitchen most of all, because it takes a little bit of a finer hand and it is generally less forgiving than cooking meat. There's not as much room for error.

You worked with Alain Ducasse at his restaurant Louis XV in Monte Carlo. What was that like? I learned a lot with Ducasse. The time with him really shaped my thinking about food in terms of lightness. The cooking at Louis XV was really a reflection of the local [French] Riviera cuisine, which, in general, was lighter -- olive oil instead of butter and a lot of fish. There was meat, but there was a large emphasis on vegetables and grains as well. The food there was a re-interpretation of the local food.

You worked for free for Ducasse. How did you earn money? I basically got a second job playing the craps tables at the casinos. And I ended up making money that way. I had an envelope, and I would put money in the envelope. And if the envelope emptied, that was it, I was done for the night.

Sautéed Nantucket Bay Scallops With Citrus Salad and Avocado
Ingredients:
1 cup avocado pulp
1 teaspoon fresh lime juice
2 tablespoons plain yogurt
Salt and fresh ground pepper to taste
1 orange, cut into segments, zest reserved
1 grapefruit, cut into segments, zest reserved
1 mandarin orange, cut into segments, zest reserved