THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, July 17, 1994 TAG: 9407130060
SECTION: FLAVOR PAGE: F1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY BILL RUEHLMANN, SPECIAL TO FLAVOR
LENGTH: Long : 174 lines
THOSE ARE MAGENTA fish swimming across the vast black sea of Monroe Duncan's shirt. The frames of his spectacles are crimson. His eyes are blue.
``Make that azure,'' he notes.
This is a colorful guy. He is seated in the tropical dining room of Piranha: An Eating Frenzy, a Norfolk establishment shell-pink on the outside but luridly lime, peach and purple within. Deck-wrapped and boat-surrounded at Taylor's Landing in Ocean View, hung with stuffed parrots and pastel pinatas, the place looks like an exploded Gauguin exhibit.
``After all my years in the industry,'' primary owner Duncan observes, ``I am sick of understated. I want people to feel relaxed and casual in my restaurant. I want them to know it's a fun place to be.''
On the wall opposite him smiles a life-sized depiction of a neon angel, complete with halo; she is smoking a cigarette.
The restaurateur-chef, who does not smoke, looks like an electrified Orson Welles, with a salt-and-pepper flattop above those baby blues, and a crisp white beard beneath them. At 54, he weighs in at about 400 pounds. On the table before him sweats a capacious pitcher of iced soda, summoned to beat the heat.
Diet Coke.
``Now that I'm out of the kitchen,'' Duncan intones, ``maybe I'll stop eating.''
A pause.
Then, candor: ``I don't think so!''
How to resist the exotic enticements of his own menu? Here reside such lavish temptations as linguine Calypso, al dente noodles bathed in chicken stock, cream and Parmesan cheese laced with green, red and yellow bell peppers, sun-dried tomatoes, pineapple, fresh sage and marinated breast of chicken. Also in evidence: crawfish, shrimp and scallop etouffee, ``straight from the bayou swamps, hot, spicy and delicious.''
Plus Bahamian conch fritters in curried lime sauce and creme fraiche. Cuban-style black bean soup with red onions and cilantro. Fried soft-shell crabs on capellini with tomatoes, capers, basil, butter, shallots, garlic and white wine.
Pork tenderloin sauteed with pears.
Never one to lose the common touch, Duncan even appends grilled chopped sirloin with mashed potatoes and gravy.
``We're actually making a profit,'' he declares with pride, after three years of seven-days-a-week labor under the sign of the fish that bites back. ``We're doing well, but the winter of our discontent is coming, when the seasonal business in this market drops dead. We've got to promote, promote, promote.
``But as long as our product remains good, we have something to sell.'' GETTING OUT, JUMPING IN
The voice of experience. Duncan is a veteran white-knuckle rider on the gustatory roller-coaster. He once catered Madison Square Garden owner Alan Cohen's $13,000 sit-down soiree for Tony Orlando and Dawn. An emeritus of such upscale eateries as Le Chateau Inn and Country Club in Pennsylvania, the Arlington Park Hilton in Illinois and Suddenly Last Summer in Norfolk, Duncan has wined and dined celebrated palates of distinction from Kirk Douglas to the sisters Gabor.
But an abortive dining venture, Monroe's Mocambo in Virginia Beach, shut its doors for keeps in 1987 after only six months of operation, leaving substantial debts hovering over Duncan's head. The jungle-lush establishment, named after a once-famous Los Angeles nightclub, resided in the Ocean Holiday Hotel at 25th and Atlantic. The crux of the problem, Duncan said, was not cuisine but parking.
His earnest advice to anyone wishing to open a restaurant: ``Don't. The market is saturated.''
But Duncan has never been one to take his own counsel.
``Apparently, this is a disease I have that I can't get rid of,'' he complains. ``I get out and I jump right back in. But now it's not only the artist at work; it's the mathematician.''
Even the circus is a business. Duncan has long been regarded by peers and patrons alike as a groundbreaking gourmet. Now he is becoming, if not case-hardened, at least canny when it comes to a balance sheet.
Testifies colleague and competitor Joe Hoggard, whose Ships Cabin of Norfolk is a long-distance runner among Hampton Roads restaurants: ``Monroe is absolutely exceptional. Years ago, folks around here were just plain deep-frying food, and he was doing sauces. More than anyone else, Monroe brought this area around to progressive food.
``He was very brave in bringing people away from meat and potatoes. And he was very helpful to me when I was starting out in the early '70s. I didn't know how the hell to saute food, and I got him to teach my staff to cook.''
Reports food critic Donna Reiss of Virginia Beach: ``He opened the door for interesting eating. Monroe is one of the culinary pioneers from this area in bringing forth tropical foods and old Southern recipes. He paved the way for a lot of the experimentation we see now.''
Duncan himself is a bit downbeat about all that. ``The market is flooded,'' he sighs. ``Now, there is nothing new under the sun. Every chef is seeking a unique combination of incompatible foods to make himself a star.''
Yet Duncan is still capable of courting new enterprise. Recently, he engaged in negotiations to take over what had been Alibi's in downtown Norfolk as an all-tableside restaurant. But his interest in expansion left him when his mother, Irene, died at 81 last month.
His father, Solomon, died at the same age just a year ago.
``His loss was painful,'' Duncan concedes. ``Hers was overwhelming. I still had her when he was gone; she was my security blanket.''
They were investors in Piranha. In fact, his parents were the major reason Duncan based himself in Hampton Roads. Duncan was born in Emporia, Va., where his mother ran the Siesta Restaurant with an aunt; he would migrate to Cradock High in Portsmouth, where he became a French horn player and president of the band.
Initially interested in becoming an actor, he went to Hollywood, taking a job on the front desk at the Beverly Hilton Hotel. Upstairs was La Petite Escoffier, fancy eats for such inner-circle stars as Janet Leigh and Sebastian Cabot. Duncan moved inevitably aloft to those rarefied heights.
He wound up pursuing show biz with a chef's cap and wire whisk instead of a top hat and cane.
Years of apprenticeship followed, with Hampton Roads the hub. Duncan waited at The Nations in the old Golden Triangle Motor Hotel (now the Howard Johnson Hotel-Downtown Norfolk), went on to manage La Voute in Binghamton, N.Y., and the Palm Springs Tennis Club in California, and handled four major dining complexes at the Arlington Park Hilton. The chef developed a quicksilver tableside style that might best be designated one part Oscar Wilde, one part Charles of the Ritz and one part Phineas T. Barnum.
``That's the whole thing,'' he concedes today of elegant dining, ``illusion.''
The bluff, snow-bearded Falstaff has been known to cavort tableside in shorts and combat boots. That's style. But the grub has to be good; that's substance. GENTLEMAN AND HAM
A loyal Duncan following stands in evidence of quality; a staunch coterie of customers has moved with Monroe from Simply Divine Darling to the Club Pink Flamingo to Chappell's, the Lazy Lobster, the Blue Crab and Uncle Louie's, among other places he has worked. Duncan also has taught restaurant management at Johnson and Wales University in Norfolk, served as executive chef at the Naval Station Officers' Club at Breezy Point and penned a weekly recipe column for Port Folio magazine.
Now Duncan's on the air. Thursday nights, from 6 to 8, he can be heard on WNIS' call-in program ``The Restaurant Show,'' with co-host Sara Trexler. She pronounces him ``a gentleman and a ham.''
``Being a good restaurateur-chef involves a certain understanding of how to put on a show,'' she says.
That understanding extends to his role as movie reviewer on WNIS Wednesday mornings at 8:35. Morning man Tony Macrini chats with Duncan about current releases on the phone as the restaurateur's three dogs bark in the background. Not surprisingly, Duncan is partial to splashy action films, ``the more absurd the better.''
He loved ``Speed'' (``improbable, ridiculous, but it kept moving''), hated ``Wyatt Earp'' (``a beautiful epic - too beautiful, too epic'').
``Monroe is a very positive person,'' says Macrini. ``He has a sort of departed grace and charm you found in the South 20 years ago. Monroe's a pro.''
Showmanship. He makes everything look not only easy but elegant. And accomplishing that is NOT easy.
``I have worked restaurants,'' he says. ``I have owned restaurants; I have sold restaurants. I've been everywhere and done it all, and let me tell you, it's not glamorous.
``It's greasy.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
BILL TIERNAN/Staff
Monroe Duncan is chef and primary owner of Piranha: An Eating Frenzy
in Norfolk's Ocean View.
FILE PHOTOS
A staunch coterie of customers has moved restaurant to restaurant
with Duncan, shown here at the Club Pink Flamingo in 1982.
In 1990, Duncan was chef at Uncle Louie's in Norfolk.
KEYWORDS: PROFILE BIOGRAPHY CHEF
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