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David Turin cooks real Maine food very, very well

The internationally known chef brings his own style to his cooking and has helped lead the local food movement and establish Portland, Maine as a great town for foodies.

PORTLAND (NEWS CENTER Maine) -- David's is a name synonymous with great food in Portland.

David is David Turin who currently operates three restaurants in Portland and South Portland. He is one of 100 chefs in the world who are members of the Honorable Order of the Golden Toque. It's such a prestigious organization of chefs that you cannot apply. You must be nominated by three current members and they only take a new member when a current member dies.

"I'm pretty steeped in the deep fundamentals," said the Cornell graduate. However, he noted that each chef be develops brings something special to the line.

He had some missteps along the way. His first job out of college was to cook on a boat in France. He arrived only to find that the owner had run out of money. He says with a French accent that the man who ran the boatyard told him, "So you should go now. Please go away.

He bummed around France and learned classic French cooking which he incorporated into his first restaurant in Massachusetts in 1983.

He moved to Maine in 1992 and quickly because a leader of the culinary movement which established Portland as one of America's great food cities.

"Just look around our town. The number of chef-operators that are a couple, with one in the kitchen and the other in the front, is practically every restaurant that worth going to," he muses.

He laments that it costs so much money to open a restaurant these days, noting that he opened his first for $150,000. "I couldn't remodel the front of this restaurant for that."

He still loves "80%" of his job, noting that he doesn't like marketing his places. He does love being on the line doing what he has always done, cooking great food.

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