Photo credit: Janet Donovan
“In 1984, I put a backpack on and bought a one way ticket to Europe,” said former White House Chef John Moeller. “I met up with my friend in Paris who was working in a restaurant there and after doing a tour through England, Scotland and Ireland, I headed into France where my two year odyssey started.”
It’s a long way to Tipperary as the Irish saying goes.
“I’m from Lancaster, Pennsylvania where I live now and started working there as a fourteen, fifteen year old young boy getting into the kitchen world just as a helper and then kind of got the bug.
When I was a junior and senior in high school I went to the local culinary trade program and worked for some of the hotels and restaurants in the area. And then when I graduated from high school, I went to Johnson-Wales University up in Providence, Rhode Island and did a two-year culinary program and then I worked in New England – Boston and Rhode Island for a little bit. So I was up there from ‘79 to ‘84.”
November 14th was a good day for John Moeller. The White House Historical Association hosted a book party in his honor at The Shop on President’s Square for his recent publication: Dining at the White House—From the President’s Table to Yours that chronicles thirteen years working as a White House chef to three Presidents: President George H.W. Bush, President William Jefferson Clinton and President George W. Bush and their families.
Chef Moeller
“After being in Paris for a couple of weeks – that wore on me a little bit – I wanted to head out and see the real country side so I headed down towards the Dijon/Burgundy area and that’s where I got my start,” Moeller reminisced.
“Actually, the first job I had in the Burgundy region was cutting the grapes. I did a grape harvest in ‘84 in Marceau, which is a grape white wine producing area and I went to the University of Dijon to get my culinary skills going a little better.” The Rhone Valley is a key wine-producing region in the south-east of France.
Chef John also worked in a little bistro in Dijon in the hills of Burgundy in a very nice restaurant that had ten tables, ten rooms in the hotel and was very quaint with extraordinary regional cooking.
Photo courtesy of Juicy Living Tours
From there it was to a two star and then a three star Michelin restaurant. It was then he learned the devastating effects of the rating system. He remembers well when Chef Bernard Loiseau committed suicide when newspaper reports hinted that his restaurant might lose its 3-star status. Today it is maintained by his wife and retains a three star Michelin rating.
From there he went to Brittany in the west of France and stopped in Germany and discovered a whole other cuisine; one of good food and good beer.
When he got back home to Lancaster, a job opportunity came up in the Virgin Islands, so he went. “Talk about contrast in worlds,” he said, “but it did help build your repertoire.”
Photo courtesy of the White House Museum
Destination DC and Road to the White House: “After that I landed in DC and I was kind of like the international player down there having been in the places I had been. Literally, the first day I was here I went outside the gates of the White House and said to the secret service agent: “What do you have to do to get a resume in here?” They put me on the phone, got me in contact with the ushers’ office. The ushers’ office is like the brain center of the house, inner management. “Well, just do this, this and this.” I said fine.
I didn’t do anything at that point in time, but found work at a restaurant called ‘The Four Ways’ on 21st and R Streets where I met a French/Belgian chef who knew of some things I had done in Dijon and hired me.
Former colleague Chef Vincent Horville stopped by
“Three weeks after I was working there, it was a Friday night after service and the Chef asked: ‘What are you doing after work tonight?’ I said, ‘Probably just go to Dupont Circle and grab a beer.’ He says, ‘Why don’t you come with me? All the French chefs in Washington get together every once in awhile. Tonight it’s going to be down at the Mayflower Hotel. Your French is good enough, you can hang with us.’ So, I went down and met all the French chefs in Washington.
One of the chefs was Pierre Chambrin. At the time he was the head chef at the Maison Blanc restaurant and then shortly thereafter he went over to a couple of different area hotels and restaurants. We contacted each other about job possibilities from time to time. In 1990 or so he started working at the White House as a sous chef. Then he called me one day and said, ‘I’m the sous chef here, I’m anticipating getting the chef position and I’m looking for someone to take my place, would you be interested?’ I said, ‘I definitely would be!’ We went through the process, I accepted the job in May of 1992.”
The White House Years: “President and Mrs. Bush (George Herbert Walker Bush),” he remembers, “ate everything other than the broccoli thing that we know about. Everything he did eat, he outweighed everyone else. They were very well-traveled, they knew cuisine quite well and they did not know what they were eating until they sat down. The chef actually wrote down a list of the do’s and dont’s and there was a lot more do’s than dont’s. We didn’t write up a menu ahead of time.
One time when George W. Bush was there, he liked some of my Oriental cooking that I did – from stir-fries to spring rolls and things of that nature – so I thought to do a pad thai. Mrs. Bush really enjoyed it, but the President never had it before and said: “I don’t understand it.”
So, was food ever sent back? Any complaints? “No, every day when you serve, I’m watching the plates when they come back and I’m looking to see what was left on the plate. The first couple of months (in any new administration) were tough, and to be honest with you, somebody sent a list from Arkansas saying that the Clintons would like something like fried chicken and dumplings and things like that. So, actually not myself, the other chef who worked there made it one night – I would have made it too – but he made it one night and the regarding the whole menu Mrs. Clinton said: “We don’t eat that kind of stuff.” So I was like, ‘Okay, well, we did get a list from somebody in their inner circle saying those were the things they liked.’ It turned out not to be true.”
We asked Chef Moeller to tell us about his most memorable moments at the White House.
He explained that Chefs were assigned a kind of Chef for the day and that back in 1999 he got the Sara Lee Frontrunners Awards menu day which was a luncheon for the First Lady. On the day of the function, fifteen minutes before they were ready to serve and the guests were coming in, Julia Child appeared. ‘We’re like, ‘Wow, that’s pretty interesting,’ but we’re busy. We have 120-some people for lunch there, you’re just doing your thing. So I got through it but after lunch was done, there she is standing in our kitchen. One of the chefs had a camera, took a picture of it and everything came out just right. The moon and the stars all lined up just right.
I was up in the ushers office a week later and one of the ushers said, ‘John, wasn’t that your menu last week with the Frontrunner’s Awards?’ And he goes ‘Hey, you might want to see this,’ and shows me a letter. It’s from Julia Child talking about how much she enjoyed everything. And then he said, ‘Here’s the letter Mrs. Clinton wrote back to Julia Child saying thank you.’ So, we took a photocopy of it and started the book off with all that. It was always kinda neat to see big-time politicians and movie stars and musicians – but Julia Child, that was pretty exciting.”
The other extraordinary memory was Inauguration day: “When we said goodbye to the father Bush and the Clintons came in later that day, I had no idea what was laid in front of me. It was so emotional saying goodbye to them.
As they came to us, they called all the resident staff – we’re resident staff – there’s like 80 or so of us; butlers, electricians, the whole gamut. We were in the state dining room, sitting in a big circle, the doors, the big mahogany doors were closed when all of a sudden they opened up and the President and the First Lady walked in and you could see the commotion.
Everybody was getting ready to leave for the last time. The doors shut and it’s just us and them, and he (the President) just walked over into the middle of us and his head slumped down and he just said, ‘You know,’ and he’s swinging back and forth, ‘You know, of all the goodbyes that I have to say, this is going to be the toughest one because all of you people took care of us the last four years and we can’t say thanks enough.’
There wasn’t a dry eye in the place. Then we started trading back funny stories that happened and reminisced about a few things and he was very, very emotional. (You’re going to make me cry.) And then you shake it off, the big mahogany doors open up, they walk through and they leave.
Then you’re looking outside. There’s moving trucks taking the Bush’s stuff out, there’s moving trucks bringing the Clinton’s stuff in, and then everything happens in those next four, five, six hours. It’s just incredible, just to get them installed for the beginning part. And then at six o’clock that night I met President Clinton. He was walking up the hallway, and we had a mini buffet set up, just food for fuel, just for people to eat if they really needed to. It was extraordinary. He said ‘Hi.’ I said hello and its starts the next eight years.”
We also wanted to know about any disasters … like a sunken souffle, a burnt flan – things like that.
Apparently, that was the least of his worries. John always prided himself in the fact that nothing disastrous had ever happened to either the food or the china during his tenure – until one fateful day when he heard a crashing sound.
“It’s like working in a museum,” he replied, “you touch and handle all the plates with great care. I personally never broke anything, but on my watch during a dinner one day, we had big platters – the Reagan platters with the big red ribbon border around the outside of it – and the pot washer went to hang it up on the pot hanger.
So I’m there at the stove heating up the vegetables and stuff, I’m turning around and the platters are there and we’re going to assemble the food on them right there. I hear this exploding sound and my heart sunk. I turned around and the platters were just decimated. Three of them were there, two of them were completely decimated and I was shocked. I said, ‘Guys, here’s the new rule. Pots stay in the pot sink, we don’t do anything around the dressing table.’ When I went up to Gary Walters, who was chief usher at the time, I was just sick. He just went, ‘Ugh… how many?’ They just gathered up all the pieces and gave them to the curators office.”
Chef John Moeller, Chef Mykel Winterstine and Chef Vincent Horville
We were curious as to whether he traveled with the Presidents, “Not usually. The Navy usually travels with him when he’s on the road. If he went on official functions somewhere, like even Camp David, the Navy took care of maintaining Camp David, the cabins and the food service there. But if there was a head of state up there, like a meeting at Camp David, or if he has a big function, that he wants to give a party, then we would usually go up and do that for him.
“It was just time to move on,” he concluded on leaving the White House. “It was just time to move on, go out and do my own thing. I do some catering right now. It’s called State of Affairs Catering, I re-create state dinners. I like to talk about the white house years after the dinners. I find it to be very entertaining for people.”
