At Rich Herzfeld”™s eatery, Chef”™s Table in Fairfield, the walls feature honest-to-goodness album covers ”“ CDs will never compare ”“ photographs of musicians and art inspired by music.
“I created the atmosphere that I can”™t have at home,” said Herzfeld. “It”™s loosely based on my high school bedroom.”
Herzfeld was born in 1959 in Manhattan.
“I was quickly driven up to the suburbs,” he said.
Herzfeld grew up in White Plains, N.Y., and went to White Plains High School.
“I really got into food around the same time I got into music,” said Herzfeld
At age 13, he was taken under the culinary wing of his uncle, Juan Metzger, cofounder of Dannon Yogurt.
“He was big into food, he got to cook with James Beard and was friends with Julia Child,” said Herzfeld. “He started getting me interested in cooking and wouldn”™t let anyone in the kitchen with him, except me.”
At 14, Herzfeld cooked for a party for his parents, around the same time he began writing songs and poetry.
“All their friends wanted me to come and cook at their house and that”™s how my catering days started,” said Herzfeld. “It was called Creative Catering.”
Herzfeld found himself catering for prominent wine importer Julius Wile.
“He was so impressed that he came into the kitchen and asked what I wanted to do with cooking,” said Herzfeld.
The teenage Herzfeld found himself with an endorsement from a board member at the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, N.Y.
“At that time the Culinary Institute was really only for professionals,” said Herzfeld. “I would not have been able to get in there, if it wasn”™t for him.”
Before heading to school, Herzfeld recorded some songs at North Lake Studios in White Plains.
Herzfeld did his first year at culinary school and found an externship at a French chef and baker on Mamaroneck Avenue in White Plains: Jean Le Bris at his bakery La Gourmandise.
“I was learning so much,” said Herzfeld. “I took a leave of absence to come back after I learned what I wanted to learn.”
Before returning to the Culinary Institute, Herzfeld laid down some songs with a band called Message.
“It was fun, but it didn”™t go anywhere,” said Herzfeld.
Herzfeld returned to the CIA after a year and a half to focus on baking.
“I graduated in 1981,” said Herzfeld. “I was already catering weddings on the weekends in my second year of school.”
After graduating, Le Bris and Herzfeld teamed up and began running a bakery and catering business.
The pair soon bought a bakery in Norwalk.
“That was my entrance into Fairfield County,” said Herzfeld. “It was right when the Mianus River Bridge went down, so I decided I wasn”™t going to drive up; I was going to find a place to live. We did the baking thing for a long time. But I got married and the hours weren”™t going to work.”
Herzfeld who was looking to step back into cooking was hired on as the manager of Taste Buds in Wilton.
In 1994, he bought and began working on the first Chef”™s Table in downtown Westport opening Jan.1, 1995.
The same year the songs Herzfeld recorded in college were released on a European compellation album under the band name Message.
“In London, in Piccadilly Square they put the album with our four songs and Bon Jovi”™s, New Jersey album, together,” said Herzfeld. “People were getting the Bon Jovi album and picking ours up with it. What happened was our singer had got a record deal on a German label and it was selling over there.”
After not believing the story, Herzfeld called English record stores, tracked down his money and collected royalties.
“We were very fortunate,” said Herzfeld of his success with music and with the restaurant. “At the Chef”™s Table by 2000 we were doing a million dollars in sales out of this tiny spot.”
In 2002, Herzfeld opened his second Chef”™s Table on Post Road, at first sharing space with a produce market.
In 2004, Herzfeld bought out the produce shop and closed the original Chef”™s Table Westport location in August 2008 to focus on the Fairfield store.
With the extra space that had gone to produce, Herzfeld added seating.
A friend and musician displaced form Katrina began to play at the Chef”™s Table.
“Here was our music theme,” said Herzfeld. “I went down to my house and dug up all my memorabilia and took it down to Greenwich Workshop and they framed everything on barter for eating for the next few years.”
Herzfeld, who was looking to fill the wall space, began to receive originals and signed posters from artists and art dealers in the area.
“We have Ron Wood originals,” said Herzfeld. “We did $30,000 in art work the first year we sold art work. The art brings people in and promotes the music and the food; everything is promoting everything else.”
Herzfeld sells some album covers with the proceeds going to the TJ Martell Kids Cancer and AIDS research foundations.
“Over time, that”™s how it became the music place, it became this venue of very high exposure,” said Herzfeld. “We”™d have music here at lunch and people were getting exposure to people they”™d never get to. It”™s become this place for the bands to sell music and then a place for music industry people to come and see music.”
Herzfeld dipped his feet back into the music business after meeting and befriending, Fairfield resident and acclaimed drummer and producer, Mike Mangini of Joss Stone and Jonas Brothers fame.
Herzfeld is currently co-producing and managing a prodigy rock group of Fairfield teenagers called Kicking Daisies, now recording at Mangini”™s Mojo Studios in New York City.
