Bernie Kantak

The Essentials Before stepping into this role, Bernie Kantak was chef/partner at Citizen Public House in Scottsdale, where the cooking was built on a plainspoken register: generous portions, grounded flavors, and an aim to satisfy before it tried to impress. That logic runs through the work. Kantak talks about food in the language of a working chef, not a studio pose. “I don’t really look at food as art. I think chefs can be artistic with what they’re doing, but food has a purpose,” he says. The point is clear: the plate is there to feed, to comfort, and to do a job well enough that it stays with the diner for the right reasons. That same purpose shows up in the foods he reaches for. When asked what he would cook, Kantak named gypsy bacon, “which is a Hungarian bacon roast. It’s the best thing in the world.” The dish sits in the lane he keeps returning to: rooted, direct, and built around hearty, old-world appeal rather than refinement for its own sake. His food reads as practical comfort with structure, the kind of cooking that knows its own place and doesn’t overstate it.

Signature

Bernie’s signature dishes include Original Chopped Salad and grandmother’s kolache and two plates that show different ends of the same kitchen range. Original Chopped Salad points to order, texture, and balance—the kind of assembly that makes a familiar format feel tight and complete. Grandmother’s kolache carries a different weight, one tied to family and inherited practice, where the name alone signals a domestic, baked-through lineage. Taken together, the two dishes describe a chef working comfortably between utility and memory. Kantak’s food is aimed at being eaten, not interpreted from a distance. The draw is in the meeting point between everyday appetite and the kind of technique that keeps comfort food from going flat.

In Their Words “I don’t really look at food as art. I think chefs can be artistic with what they’re doing, but food has a purpose.” “I would want to do gypsy bacon, which is a Hungarian bacon roast. It’s the best thing in the world.”