Brussels sprouts.

        Someday, when David Falk makes it really big in the restaurant business, many in Cincinnati will remember the chef first for an unusual appetizer of caramelized Brussels sprouts, doused with brown butter-truffle vinaigrette, crowned with a fat grilled sea scallop and showered with shaved Parmesan.

        Green and brown and pearly white, kind of soupy, but unexpectedly delicious.

David Falk, chef-owner of Boca in Northside, has enjoyed popular success and critical acclaim. (Steven M. Herppich photo) | ZOOM |

        Even those who can't bring themselves to swallow the little leaden cabbages at grandma's on Thanksgiving leave Boca, Mr. Falk's restaurant in Northside, raving about those Brussels sprouts. They wonder how he has transformed an ordinarily bitter vegetable into something so delectably sweet and crispy.

        As the barely 26-year-old chef and restaurant owner would say, the sprouts are, “like, out of control.” (That's good.)

        And if that isn't measure enough of his success, in four months Mr. Falk has turned Boca, a small, scuffed and slightly worn restaurant set in a less-than-an-ideal location, into a lightning rod for the foodie elite.

        Like other small, chef-owned restaurants in Greater Cincinnati — Aioli, Brown Dog Cafe and Daveed's, for example — Boca is making its mark despite the sagging economy and the dominance of large chain restaurants.

        Before Boca began accepting reservations in January, the wait for a table on weekends could be an hour or more. Most customers stand at the bar, patiently eying one of the 14 tables in the cramped dining room until their turn arrives. But even the chef's proud parents gave up one night and left to buy a burger.

Minimalist-hip cuisine

        Listen to those who travel and enjoy eating the best food, and the buzz is about the modern Italian cuisine at minimalist-hip Boca, and the homegrown chef from New Richmond.

        He's the talkative kid with the chubby, stubbled cheeks and expressive blue eyes, who, if he weren't wearing a chef's jacket, could pass for a bus boy.

        On their way from Bloomington, Ind., to New York to eat at Daniel and other fine restaurants, Margaret Clements and Jerry Horner stumble (via the Internet) onto Boca on a busy Friday night. The couple sits at a corner table, cooing over the foie gras nested in red wine fruit compote and marveling at the pillowy hand-made gnocchi with charded tomato-pepper puree.

        Who is the chef? they beg.

        Mr. Falk leaves the kitchen to wade through the hungry crowd to meet the Indiana couple. He surprises them by casually mentioning he has eaten in their two favorite restaurants in Strasbourg, as in, like, France.

        His experience and talent seem beyond his years.

Just getting started

        Since taking over Boca in October, Mr. Falk has feasted on popular success and critical acclaim. And he's not done yet.

FALK FILE

David Falk, chef-owner, Boca, Northside     Age: 26.     Education: Summit Country Day School, Culinary Institute of America.     Work experience: Spiaggia (Chicago), Ristorante Paris (Rome), Maisonette, Charlie Trotter's (Chicago), Daveed's, Nicola's, Cincinnatian Hotel, Ristorante Dulcamara (Florence, Italy).     Hobby: Golf.     Best meal ever: Charlie Trotter's, 1998. “It was 14 courses, and it was the first time I ever saw the food and wine matched so perfectly.”     Favorite junk food: Wendy's chicken club sandwich.     Philosophy: “Take care of flavor on the plate and flavor in the glass. Take care of the guest first, then worry about the bottom line.”

        “The more success I've had, the more pressure I've put on myself,” he says, his words moving as fast as drops of water skitter across a hot pan. “And the more skepticism and criticism I have, the more I going to show people.”

        Note the combative edge. In just a few years, he's earned a reputation as an enfant terrible in some kitchens — a ranter, a raver, a smart-alecky know-it-all. But that's the thing about being a boy-wonder chef and restaurant owner, who went to the best schools, worked in the best restaurants, passionately lives and breathes food and wine (he sleeps in an apartment above the restaurant) and has just a slight problem keeping opinions to himself: Sometimes, you rub people the wrong way.

        Cincinnati is too polite and its restaurant fraternity too close for anyone to come out and call Mr. Falk “arrogant,” but it's safe to say a few resent his self-assuredness — and no doubt his success.

        He sits in his empty restaurant on an afternoon, swigging mineral water and chowing on Korean takeout (his favorite food, second only to Italian).

        “I really don't care what people who don't know me think about me,” he says, tugging his short, curly brown hair toward his forehead. “What some people see as arrogance, other people see as smart.”

        Or confidence.

Impatient as a boy

        Those who do know the young man know him as often impatient, always pressing to get ahead.

        His mother, Marcia, remembers waking up early one morning to find 3-year-old David trying to “bake” cookies with a match. She usually baked cookies every morning, but on this particular day, David couldn't wait for his mother.

        “When he was 4, David cried because his older brother knew what nine times nine was and he didn't,” Mrs. Falk says.

        At the exclusive Summit Country Day School in Hyde Park, Mr. Falk hated homework because once he had grasped a subject, he didn't want to repeat it to prove he understood. He wanted to move on.

        This helps explain why he is not always diplomatic with those who don't learn and perform at his swift pace. But it doesn't explain why the young Mr. Falk took up cooking in the first place.

        He was close to his Italian-born grandparents — his mother's parents — and was always surrounded by minestrone, tortellini en brodo and other fresh food at home. But despite that and the frightening childhood cookie-baking incident, Mr. Falk never was interested in cooking as a child, says his mother, and he certainly wasn't an adventurous eater.

        “Hot dogs, mac & cheese, apple sauce and Cheerios,” Mrs. Falk says. “That's all David would eat.”

        Certainly not Brussels sprouts.

        When he turned 15, though, David followed his older brothers, John Gordon and Stan (he has a younger brother, Daniel), to El Coyote Restaurant in Anderson Township to work as a bus boy. There, the drama student quickly learned to love the stage of the dining room.

        “I'd see someone drop their fork and I'd go over and replace it,” he says. “Then, I'd be all over that table the rest of the night.”

        He expanded his diet to rare steak and bearnaise sauce and other “exotic” foods. A teacher gave him a box of old Wine Spectator magazines to study — years before he could legally drink. He cooked in the Summit school cafeteria, where they still occasionally serve “David Falk Minestrone.”

        When he was 17, David announced he wanted to attend the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, N.Y, considered the best cooking school in the country, and to one day own a restaurant.

        After they recovered from the shock, his mother and father, Russ, supported his decision. But this was not necessarily the case at Summit Country Day, where many of the students apply to Harvard, Yale and Duke.

        “There were pretty much two reactions at Summit when I told people I was going to the CIA,” Mr. Falk says. “One was: Wow. Cool. The other was: Great. You're like going to truck-driving school?”

        Now, he admits that stinging dismissal of his aspirations motivated him to work harder. And it makes his early success even sweeter when former classmates have to wait for a table in Boca. His restaurant.

Stint at Maisonette

        After finishing the two-year CIA program at 20, Mr. Falk worked at restaurants in Italy before returning home to find a job at the Maisonette in 1997. There, he earned the respect of former executive chef Jean-Robert de Cavel, and the nickname, “Scampi.”

        Somewhere during his travels, Mr. Falk had learned to quickly shell langoustines, or large prawns. One of his first days in the Maisonette kitchen, Mr. Falk snuck into the walk-in cooler to secretly practice his technique, and then impressed the other cooks with his prawn proficiency.

        From then on Mr. Falk was known as Scampi — the Italian name for shrimp.

        While in Cincinnati, Mr. Falk also impressed David Cook, then the executive sous chef at the Maisonette. In 1999, when Mr. Cook was assembling a staff for his new restaurant, Daveed's in Mount Adams, he called Mr. Falk, who had since moved on to the stellar Charlie Trotter's restaurant in Chicago.

        Mr. Falk accepted the position of chef de cuisine at Daveed's, with the responsibility of creating menus and managing the small kitchen staff. Six months later, though, he resigned.

        “A lot of it was,” he says, pausing to choose his words, “there were almost too many chefs and not enough cooks in that (Daveed's) kitchen.”

        The men have spoken only briefly since their parting, and Mr. Cook has yet to eat at Boca. He speculates Mr. Falk wasn't ready for the position when he hired him.

        “I think it (owning Boca) will mature him,” Mr. Cook says.

        After leaving Daveed's, Mr. Falk cooked a few months at Nicola's Ristorante in Over-the-Rhine, where owner Nick Pietoso says the young chef loved to experiment with food and ask questions. Early last year, he accepted the position as executive chef at the Cincinnatian Hotel. But most people, including his mother, thought it was an unwise career move. Four months later, the Cincinnatian hired an older chef and let Mr. Falk go.

        “It was way too corporate for me,” he says. “Way too micro-managed.”

        Mr. Falk went back to cook in Florence, Italy (he speaks passable Italian), for a few months before returning to Cincinnati in August. He was close to opening a large fine-dining restaurant downtown with partners, he says, but backed out on the advice of his father. Instead, with financial help from his parents, Mr. Falk bought the smaller and casual Boca — which had been for sale for several years. He opened in early October — in the middle of the recession and only weeks after the tragedies of Sept. 11.

        “I knew I was going to make mistakes doing this on my own,” he says. “But I knew I'd learn from them.”

Learning all the time

        As an impatient student, always trying to get ahead, Mr. Falk forces himself to learn. At Daveed's, he says he first learned he could cook as a chef. In Italy, he learned the best ingredients and simple techniques are most important. At the Cincinnatian, he learned to organize a dining room — and that he never wants to work in a hotel again.

        Before that, while he was a CIA student interning at Spiaggia in Chicago, he learned to love an antipasto of caramelized Brussels sprouts. Later, while at Daveed's, he added a grilled scallop to the sprouts. And although he shudders when someone calls it his “creation,” the Brussels sprout appetizer is his signature dish.

        Now, he is also learning to be patient, allowing his cooks to prepare the food as he's trained them and his managers to run the dining room as they know best. No ranting, less raving. At Boca, they call him “chef” — not Scampi.

        “I've proven to people I can be a chef,” he says. “Now I have to prove I can make money.”

        There's that edgy drive again that has motivated him since he was a bus boy hustling to pick up dirty forks. Some may see it as ambition or arrogance, but the young chef knows it's part of his plan.

        And once he makes Boca profitable, no one should assume that plan is complete. Asked when he'll open his next restaurant, he stands behind his empty bar, furiously swirling a glass of cabernet, pausing a second.

        “Maybe when I'm 27,” he says.
       

David Falk stokes Boca's fire
Reluctant runner motivated by memories of mom, dad
Parents need to talk to kids about today's music
The Insatiable Shopper
On the Fridge
Get to it