Chris Northmore
Everglades Club, Palm Beach FL
taped at Cherokee Town & Country Club
Atlanta GA
When taped for Great Chefs Chris Northmore was the executive pastry chef at Atlanta´s popularCherokee Town & Country Club. Now he is at the Everglades Club in Palm Beach, Florida.
Northmore inherited his creative eye from his commercial photographer father. Years of training taught him the art of working with his hands. The aggregate of his talents — his artistic eye, agile hands, and imagination — has won him a Master Pastry Chef certification from the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park — one of only three certified in the United States through the American Culinary Federation. It was high praise, indeed, from his alma mater, the result of years of dedication and hard work.
Northmore studied business administration at Eastern Michigan University, but found his niche studying pastry at the Culinary Institute of America. When he graduated in 1979, he decided to try a stint in a pastry shop and landed a job at Atlanta´s Omni Hotel with Gunther Heiland, master pastry chef and an Olympic team veteran. More than two years later, Northmore followed Heiland to philadelphia´s Fairmont Hotel (later the Bellevue Stratford), as assistant pastry chef. After two and a half years there, Northmore moved to Boston as executive chef at the Parker House.
Northmore considers Heiland his ‚“father in the pastry business. He gave me direction and got me involved in culinary competitions.‚” Among the competitions Northmore refers to is the 1988 U.S. Team in the Culinary Olympics in Frankfurt, Germany. As a member of the team, Northmore was responsible for the dessert platters and plates that the national team presented.
Order and discipline define Northmore´s work. As he says, they come with the territory. ‚“You have to be constantly aware of proper temperatures and consistencies.‚” Although he feels his strength is chocolate work, he is not content to confine his talents to one area of the pastry kitchen. Working with sugar and yeast fascinate him as well, and he has studied sugar pulling and sugar blowing, and taken bread dough courses. Yet despite the seeming complexities of his desserts, his philosophy remains that of ‚“simplistic elegance.‚” he is aware that ‚“it´s too easy to produce very complex desserts.‚” His goal is simple, straightforward presentations coupled with a light touch and intense flavors.
