Wednesday, June 4, 7:00 p.m.
Members $85, guests $110

The prize possession of Johnny Vinczencz, executive chef of De La Tierra at Sundy House, is not his knife kit, his hulking stove, or his mega-BTUed salamander. In fact, his favorite thing can’t be found anywhere near his kitchen. Several miles away, amid lush tropical vegetation, is a five-acre kitchen garden, from which Vinczencz draws inspiration for his New Florida cuisine. He looks at the lychees, papayas, longans, jackfruits, and the tongue-twisting jaboticabas, and he sees dinner. As Jen Karetnick wrote in the Miami News Times, “He’s now such a freak for local and native fruits we could call him the Guava Gaucho.” (Not so incidentally, De La Tierra is Spanish for “of the earth.”)

Vinczencz’s “bold, fresh, Florida cuisine,” per John Tanasychuk of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, has led to glowing reviews. Tanasychuk, by the way, awarded the restaurant four stars. Karetnick christened Vinczencz “one of our finer chefs, destined for national attention.” At De La Tierra, she added, “Johnny V is doing his most galactic work to date.” And Vinczencz’s exuberant cuisine so impressed the South Florida gastroscenti that De La Tierra was named one of the area’s top three restaurants for 2002.

Vinczencz’s career started the old-fashioned way: washing dishes. Soon, he discovered his passion for cooking. For ten years he worked in all facets of the professional kitchen—from catering to banquets—and then he took a job with Dennis Max’s Unique Restaurant Concepts. From there he did turns at Maxaluna, Max’s Grille, and Astor Place Bar and Grill. At the last, he caught the attention of Esquire, which named him one of 1996’s chefs to watch.

This month, he is gearing up to open a Western outpost, El Monte Sagrado, in Taos, New Mexico. It’s a busy time, and he’s lucky to have a talented staff to rely on back home. De la Tierra chef de cuisine Dwayne Adams began his career at 13, and by age 19 was one of the youngest food production managers ever at the Marriott. In 1985, Adams met Vinczencz while the two worked for Restaurant Concepts. Vinczencz called on him while at Astor Place, then took him along to Sundy House. Pastry chef Malka Espinel also followed Vinczencz from Astor Place. A native of Colombia, she is a natural when it comes to preparing tropical fruits. Espinel graduated from the Cooking and Hospitality Institute of Chicago, then worked for Nick’s on Miami Beach. An internship at Fauchon in Paris followed, which inspired her to open her own patisserie in Colombia. But Espinel came to miss life in the States, so she returned to Florida, hooking up with Vinczencz at Sundy.