Next Generation
When you’ve been watching the South Florida culinary world as long as I have, you start to see cycles. The 1990s were dominated by the “Mango Gang” – Norman Van Aken, Mark Militello, Allen Susser, Dou...
In Memoriam: Remembering Robbin Haas
Robbin Haas, beloved chef who partied hard and worked even harder, died at Mercy Medical Center in Baltimore after an illness. His spirited passion helped define South Florida’s restaurant scene in the 1990s and grow it into the distinctive culinary destination of today.
Through his kitchens – including South Florida restaurants at Turnberry Isle an Resort, Bang, Red Square, the Bistro at the Colony Hotel, Baleen and, most recently Chispa – Haas was remembered as someone larger than life, who inspired colleagues and younger chefs with his food, his generosity and his hilarious sense of humor.
“Before Anthony Bourdain, he was the bad boy,” says Carole Kotkin, food columnist and manager of the Ocean Reef Club cooking school, who knew Haas from the South Florida chapter of the American Institute of Wine & Food. “He was a storyteller with lots of stories – not all of them true,” she says. “Yet he was really sincere and passionate about his craft. And also very generous.”
Born in Buffalo, New York, Haas arrived in Florida in 1988 to lead the opening of the Four Seasons Ocean Grand in Palm Beach and then became executive chef at Turnberry Isle Resort and Club. In 1994, he moved to the Colony Bistro in Miami Beach, and was named one of the top 10 new chefs in America by Food & Wine magazine. Haas was an integral player in South Florida’s burgeoning dining scene, involved in popular and well-regarded restaurants Bang and Red Square in South Beach and Baleen in Coconut Grove. His last local project here was Chispa, a contemporary Latin restaurant and bar in Coral Gables. Most recently, Haas was heading up a restaurant consulting firm in Baltimore, which included restaurants Birroteca and the now-closed Nickel Taphouse and Encantada.
Mentor to Many
“The guy was good,” recalls chef Todd Weisz, executive chef of Kimpton Hotels & Restaurants in Baltimore, and a longtime friend of Haas and colleague at Turnberry, where they organized fundraising culinary events like Taste of the Nation. He nurtured a lot of young chefs – one has a tattoo of Haas’ face, Weisz says. “I consider him a mentor. He taught me how to be a chef.” Chefs Giorgio Rapicavoli and Alberto Cabrera are among local restaurateurs who worked with Haas.
Haas was also part of the group of chefs creating the distinctive South Florida regional cuisine influenced by Latin and Caribbean flavors and showcasing local tropical produce and seafood. Indelibly connected to the Mango Gang – chefs Norman Van Aken, Allen Susser, Mark Militello and Douglas Rodriguez — Haas was incorporating local ingredients into the menus at Turnberry 30 years ago. “We were working with farmers in Homestead and had a plot on a farm that was ‘grown for Turnberry,’” says Weisz. “Fishermen would drive up from the Keys with coolers of fish.”
At that time, chefs were beginning to take Florida seriously as a culinary destination, remembers Norman Van Aken, a longtime friend, and Haas was one of the trailblazers. “We were a marriage between cultures that were just getting to know each other during that time span,” he writes. “Like new music there was no quick way to describe what we were doing. It was an exciting, revelatory era of discovery, of energy, of rock and roll joy.”
Terry Zarikian, food expert and culinary advisor at South Beach Wine and Food Festival, says he knew Robbin for as long as he was in Miami. "I always thought he was meant to bring joy, culinarily wise and otherwise, with (most of the time) uncontrolled joie de vivre, that made life a continuous event," he says. "He was an extraordinary party animal that showed the world one could have all the fun and still be an effective creative culinarian."
Photo 1: Allen Susser, Norman Van Aken, Amy Starr of Southern Wine and Spirits and Robbin Haas (Photo courtesy Norman Van Aken)
Photo 2: Robbin Haas, left, with his wife Tanya, brother James, and his wife, Marcia (Photo courtesy of Marcia Haas)
Spirit of Generosity
A lot of people will remember Haas’ over-the-top personality, says Van Aken. “But it should also be remembered that he was central to so many charity events during his time especially while he was the chef of Turnberry. I can’t remember how many times we did events there for hundreds and hundreds of people and Robbin was instrumental in the success of them.”
Nearly two years ago, the Mango Gang posse – Van Aken, Susser, Rodriguez, Militello, Haas and Cindy Hutson, plus Jeffrey Brana and Danny Serfer – got back in the saddle for a sold-out reunion dinner at the South Beach Wine and Food Festival. “We were all supposed to get the gang back together again at Ember,” says Van Aken. “Now we will celebrate his joy for living.”
Next Generation
When you’ve been watching the South Florida culinary world as long as I have, you start to see cycles. The 1990s were...
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