Eagan’s Tim McLean serves up haute cuisine, American style

Tim McLean, Head Chef of Eagan’s on Water, is a forceful advocate for the American cookery with which he grew up. “It’s time we talked about our American cuisine on equal terms with other ethnicities,” he says.McLean was raised in a classic mid-American nuclear family – mom, dad and two kids. Both parents worked in the insurance industry. The boys loved sports and music. Mostly the family ate at home. Mom McLean made “good old American classics,” her son lovingly recalls. “Salmon patties, fried chicken, sweet potatoes with marshmallows on top for Thanksgiving, roast beef with mushroom sauce and Yorkshire puddings for Christmas, ham at Easter. In the summertime we had fish – baked cod or scrod with lemon juice and breadcrumbs. She makes amazing pies – her meringue doesn’t bead or weep – coconut cream, lemon, chocolate pies all with meringue on top.

“I look at the food of the middle south (his mother was from Kentucky) and think about that as a classic sense of tradition. It’s all around us. I think of things like fried chicken, cornbread, mashed potatoes, pork chops, chicken fried steak – those types of things going back generations – and looking at what people cooked for themselves when they ate at home, compared to now, when more people eat outside the home.”

Perhaps even more than his mother’s cooking, the family environment she and her husband created fostered their sons’ creativity. “As children given the freedom to venture where we wanted, our parents supported us in whatever our interests were. My brother and I developed an interest in the arts because we had freedom to explore who we were and who we wanted to be.”

McLean, who earned a B.A. in English Literature from the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay, started working in restaurants during his college years and got swept up in the lifestyle. “I enjoyed the late nights, starting late in the afternoon and being able to sleep late. I think the idea of hospitality and entertaining people – being part of peoples’ entertainment – is intriguing to me.”

McLean studied culinary arts at Fox Valley Technical College in Appleton to bolster the skills he’d learned on the job. “Fox Valley is different from the other programs in the state because the food services are not contracted out.” This program gives its students the opportunity to apply their skills as they’re learning them.

“Classic French method is what I learned there and we applied it to everything from hamburgers to board dinners. The heating techniques are all the same. Sautéing is still sautéing, grilling is still grilling, braising is still braising. If you take good fundamental French method and apply to a set of ingredients, you can’t go wrong. Use regional ingredients with classic techniques and voilà, you have cuisine!”

Before landing at Eagan’s in March of 2005, McLean gained invaluable experience at Sauce in the Third Ward, the prestigious Grenadiers Restaurant, Hotel Metro and Osteria del Mundo.

“Eagan’s is a seafood bistro where I can produce casual upscale fare and draw on my fine dining experience to create special plates based on the various styles I now understand, switching up dishes to keep people interested in what we’re doing.” While McLean has put his imprint on the menu, he has retained customer faves like the lobster BLT and the beer-braised steak and mashed potatoes.

McLean eschews the popular laundry list of ingredients in his dishes. His signature is marrying a few complimentary elements into singularly attractive edibles. Evidence: mussels steamed in coconut milk with soupçon of Thai green curry paste and crispy fried leeks; black and white sesame seed crusted salmon on a tangy mango sauce; halibut with pistachios on a bed of steamed greens. Each is simply prepared, beautifully presented and a pleasure to the taste buds. He also has a flair for desserts like lemon crepes and profiteroles. “An executive chef should have a grip on pastries,” he avers.

To see Chef McLean in action, come to the Beaux Arts Stage at Bastille Days on Sunday, July 16 at 1 p.m. McLean is one of a dozen celebrity chefs featured at the 25th anniversary of one of the largest French festivals in the world. VS