Chef Cory Oppold has spent time in some of the Valley’s finest kitchens, including Binkley’s, Tarbell’s and, most recently, Atlas Bistro, before opening COURSE, a Scottsdale fine-dining restaurant, last May. Rather than go with an à la carte format, he opted for a prix-fixe, multi-course menu. “To a chef, a menu is like a story, and it’s very hard to tell that story through just an appetizer or entrée or dessert,” he says. Oppold also serves a playful six-course Sunday brunch, cheekily dubbed Morning Would. We caught up with Oppold just after COURSE celebrated its first anniversary.
Do you view food as an art form?
Yes. I think they call it “culinary art” for a reason. Food is our medium and the plate is our frame. If it’s not art, what is it? It’s just nourishment. I view us as artists, and a restaurant is basically our gallery. There’s always going to be a spring every year, and we always get the same ingredients, but it’s fun to train and teach ourselves new and different techniques and flavor combinations. That makes the food interesting not only for the guest, but also for the chef.
Which chef has influenced you the most? what lessons did you learn?
Chef Ivan Flowers. I worked with him at Different Pointe of View at the Pointe Tapatio for years… I went there right from culinary school, and in culinary school you learn recipes. He would always smack the recipe out of my hand and say, “You’ve got to learn the techniques.” He taught me that instead of reading the recipe, you just have to do it, see the process. He made everything make sense.
What is the most important value in your kitchen?
Morale. Everyone is extremely happy to work here and extremely proud of the products they’re putting out. The back-of-the-house team is very focused on doing exactly what I’m doing at COURSE. Eventually, they want to trail off and open their own restaurants. The front-of-the-house and the back-of-the-house have great teamwork. They get along so well. Some kitchens tend to be back of-the-house versus the front-of-the-house, and that’s a mindset that we wanted to squash here.
