Hilton Head chef opens ‘Windows on the World’ to show island as culinary destination
The window on pastry chef Philippe Feret’s world looks out over the Shelter Cove Harbor, where boats with clever names like the Flying Circus, Exhale and Force of Habit rest quietly in a Hilton Head Island chill.
That is the view from his Hilton Head Social Bakery.
But for one chaotic year, Feret had a much different perspective. He was executive chef at the Windows on the World restaurant, a quarter-mile and 107 floors above the crowded New York City sidewalks at the World Trade Center.
Feret was there when it reopened in 1996, three years after the first World Trade Center bombing.
He was operating his own restaurant in the Upper East Side when 79 Windows on the World employees were killed on Sept. 11, 2001, the day the towers crumbled to earth.
The restaurant now lives as a legendary piece of Americana. In the title to his new book about it, journalist Tom Roston calls it: “The Most Spectacular Restaurant in the World.”
This weekend, Feret and Poston will be joined by nine culinary professionals from Windows on the World to perform at the Hilton Head Island-Bluffton Chamber of Commerce’s annual ball.
The visitors — including “Chopped” judge Marc Murphy; Kevin Zraly, best-selling author and former wine director at Windows on the World, and Georges Masraff, Michelin-star awarded chef — will work with five Hilton Head chef “ambassadors” to produce 13 courses in a tasting menu served on small plates.
Feret will be making a local blue crab parfait and two desserts: lemon panna cotta because lemons are in season, and chocolate marquise with pistachio.
He said the goal is to open a window to the world that Hilton Head is a culinary destination.
New York, New York
Philippe Feret learned to make pastries before he learned his ABCs in France.
He detested work in his parents’ patisseries. But as an adult, it opened doors because few chefs could also serve as the pastry chef.
He grew up 5 miles from the beaches of Normandy, where the D-Day offensive freed the people of France. His childhood was etched by old military equipment, vast cemeteries, and an appreciation for all things American.
At 27, he brought his dreams to New York City. He had $300, the ability to say good morning and good night, and a job.
Nine years later, when he got the call from New York restaurant icon Joe Baum to join the rebirth of Windows on the World, he was executive chef at the hot Cafe Centro. Before that, it was Loew’s Regency New York on Park Avenue. And he had been banquet chef at Tavern on the Green.
Feret had never heard of Hilton Head when he came South in 2016, after a marriage and several businesses came to an end.
He opened Hilton Head Social Bakery that September. A week later, Hurricane Matthew hit.
Hilton Head’s advantage
Culinary arts were also a dream of pioneer Hilton Head developer Charles Fraser.
He saw it as a way of setting the island apart, and in the late 1960s he began recruiting European chefs.
The hall of fame would include Franz Meier, Klaus Jackel, Franz Auer, Footsie Schlueter, Ewe Mueller, Horst Semper, Serge Prat, Cos and John Urato, Peter Kenneweg, Fulvio Velsecchi, Alfred Kettering, Boris Kindermann, Adolf Weinberger, Faisal Dahnoun, Charles Daunt, Wolfgang Mueller, Max Wolfe, Rainer Gerngross, George Weyermann and Johnny Tschiersch.
They set a high standard, along with American-born chefs such as Charlie Golson, Mike Sigler, Chad Newman and Orchid Paulmeier.
Today, the chamber is pitching “Foodie February” on Hilton Head, including Restaurant Week, the Hilton Head Island Seafood Festival and the Hilton Head Island Gullah Celebration.
Feret is one of five “chef ambassadors” on the island, including Clayton Rollison, owner of Lucky Rooster Kitchen + Bar; Chaun Bescos, executive chef at WiseGuys; Cesar Acevedo, executive chef at Marriott Hilton Head Resort & Spa; and Brian Coseo, executive chef at Sea Pines Country Club.
He said they promote an industry that requires teamwork.
It’s an industry beset by a labor shortage.
But Feret said the industry here has advantages: a strong clientele that has traveled the world and expanded its palate for fine food, wine and pastries; good restaurants; many tourists; and natural beauty and beaches that even Charleston and Savannah cannot beat.
He thinks it is important to support the mom-and-pops, and the restaurants making their products from scratch.
He thinks chefs must pass down their knowledge to new generations, and that employees need to be treated as students of the art and not warm bodies.
Saturday’s event will link Hilton Head Island to Manhattan Island, but also the Bahamas. Money will be raised for the Bahamas, ravaged last fall by Hurricane Dorian, which threatened Hilton Head but passed it by.
Feret called this new “window on the world” a rare gathering of American culinary legends, and the book author who got the raucous inside story.
But it’s something else as well.
“It’s a way to say that as a team we are strong,” he said, “and we can achieve amazing things together.”
