Chef of the Year Sam Gelman sets out to build something ‘different’ in the Iowa City restaurant scene

IOWA CITY — Sam Gelman, the Iowa Restaurant Association Chef of the Year, doesn’t strive for awards.

Sure, he’s thankful for the recent validation of the work he’s doing. His award, bestowed by the trade advocacy group in November, comes after rapid success with his first two ventures in the Northside neighborhood of Iowa City.

The Webster, his flagship opening with wife, Riene, has redrawn the boundaries of fine dining in the Corridor since 2021. Paper Crane, the ramen shop opened in 2024 with partner Edwin Lee, has perfected an Asian niche in a chic package just down the block.

But with a different approach to dining than the vast majority of Iowa restaurants, Gelman is forging his path to recognition uniquely after eschewing the template standard restaurants follow.

“I’m not after an award. A lot of restaurants will hire consultants and PR firms and they’ll say, ‘OK, we need to win a James Beard (Foundation) Award,’ ” Gelman said. “I’m out to do something I can get satisfaction out of, make a living off of, and provide an environment for other people to do the same.”

The Webster was named one of America’s best restaurants by the New York Times in 2023 — the only one in Iowa to make that list — and followed by recognition on a USA Today list.

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After 20 years working under acclaimed chefs and building Momofuku’s noodle bar restaurant empire across North America, he knows enough to concede that success this rapid is unusual. He nonchalantly chalks it up to the foundation of what The Webster has been doing since the beginning.

“I think we are doing something different from what was here in Iowa City, and that’s what we set out to do — something different,” Gelman said.

Excellence is what he strives for — whether it elicits applause or not.

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Knives out

Gelman, like many chefs, knew his academic career wasn’t long for this world.

His love of food started to develop early thanks to parents who made the right moves. When the family took vacations to bigger cities, they went to quality restaurants instead of going for fast food.

The budding interest was further encouraged by watching the Discovery Channel’s “Great Chefs” series after school each day.

By high school, he was picking up habits most his age didn’t have. In addition to buying professional-level cookbooks, he remembers buying a set of cooking knives from a Paris department store before walking into the Louvre on his first international trip as a teenager.

In his hometown of Iowa City, he worked the cash register and deli counter at Movable Feast (which later became as Melrose Market) in the late 1990s before getting what he calls his first “proper” restaurant job at Giovanni’s — the Italian restaurant decked in a Miami-esque color scheme apt for that decade.

Landing the role took a little initiative on his part. The teenager set his sights on the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York. But to apply to the school, he needed six months of experience.

The chef at Giovanni’s was a “CIA” alum from whom he hoped to get a recommendation letter.

“I literally showed up to the back of the kitchen and said, ‘Hey, I got some knives. I just want to learn,’ ” Gelman said of when he first appeared at Giovanni’s. “I think I worked there maybe two days for no pay. Then they were like, ‘Look, if you’re gonna work here, we have to pay you.’ ”

Giovanni’s suffered a fire that closed the restaurant before Gelman could get six months of experience. But it didn’t quell his curiosity about culinary arts.

He worked at the Iowa Memorial Union, being wowed by cooking things in mass quantities, like 30 pounds of pasta at a time. Upon graduation from high school in 1999, he made a beeline to New York.

Building a career

A classmate persuaded Gelman to move to New York following culinary school and a stint in Boston.

In the Northeast, he spent years honing his craft under acclaimed chefs like Ken Oringer, Doug Saltus and David Chang. For 12 years, he climbed the ranks in Chang’s Momofuku Restaurant Group, opening restaurants across the United States and Canada, including a location in Toronto he headed as executive chef for four years.

But by 2019, with a son and wife, his family was ready to come home.

Building something new

At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Gelman set out to open a new kind of restaurant.

With whole animal butchering he does himself and exceptional local sourcing of other ingredients, it’s not just the “farm-to-table” concept that has become a cliche in some cities. Menus can change weekly, if not daily in the spring and summer.

“I don’t proclaim to be a farm-to-table restaurant. For me, it’s more about seasonality than anything else,” he said. “Our menus are driven by what feels right to be eating that time of year.”

Prime beef comes from just 15 miles away. Strawberries from Kalona are served fresh in the summer and as preserved jam the rest of the year.

Jessica Dunker, president and chief executive officer of the Iowa Restaurant Association, says Gelman’s commitment to local ingredients, down to artisanal butter, is “beyond compare.”

“We’re finding our culinary identity as a state. He’s a gold standard on that,” Dunker said. “He is so committed to local farms and local ingredients and celebrating what makes Iowa an amazing place.”

To that end, Dunker has enlisted Gelman to help create a new agritourism farm-to-table experience finder. She said the new effort, contracted by the Iowa Tourism Office, recognizes that there's something special here that should be celebrated — ways to help people discover the state.

At the Webster, a tour could start with produce at a morning farmers market, move to an auction, stop by the farm where the cows are raised and end with dinner in Iowa City.

“There’s a movement to get people back to the source. That’s not very hard to do here,” Dunker said.

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In the kitchen

Today, Gelman most loves the days when he can simply cook. The Webster, named after his grandfather, is built on the same plot of land where they enjoyed egg salad sandwiches and milkshakes together at the counter of Pearson’s Drug Store.

As his restaurants grow more successful, those days are growing fewer for the small business owner. As cooks become chefs and restaurant owners, more time is spent on administrative duties and management.

Despite other pressures, partner and Paper Crane chef Edwin Lee said Gelman manages to maintain consistency in the kitchen.

“A common pitfall to fall into as you evolve into a (successful) chef is you don’t keep up with the skills to be a good cook, to be hands-on, getting involved in the process and tasting things,” Lee said. “Unlike a lot of chefs, Sam is a really good cook as well.”

Lee said that as chief “snacker,” Gelman inserts himself into daily cooking with samples from each station for quality assurance. His passion for the art of cooking remains unjaded, even after decades in high-pressure kitchens.

“What comes through is he really gives a damn about really good food,” Lee said. “It’s grounding when you have a chef that’s so adamantly present about the food.”

The close business partner and colleague describes the chef’s leadership style as “intense but fun,” with no tolerance for frivolous errors that affect the dining experience. He’s direct and unhesitating both in his decisions and in giving feedback.

One of the biggest things he has imparted to Lee is the value of valuing your food — do not undercharge for a good product. Gelman tells his staff to think about the food they serve in terms of how many labor hours it would take them to afford it — an effective deterrent to cutting corners.

After honing his skills in New York, one of the most intensely competitive cities in the world for food, heading kitchens in Toronto and Iowa has required an adjustment in leadership style.

But being nicer than his bosses were to him isn’t something he considers a negative. He says kitchen culture is changing for the better.

He is thankful he can still rely on a strong Midwestern work ethic in his kitchen staff. The dream for him is that they become boomerangs, like him.

“You can build people and develop people and grow people, and then you can be happy for them when it becomes time for them to leave and to go and learn and experience more and different things,” Gelman said. “Then the ultimate is that they would want to come back at some point to work for me or with me again.”

That, Dunker said, is another quality that makes Gelman stand out from his peers in a state that’s constantly concerned with the educated and talented residents it loses to other states as “brain drain.”

“He came home. There’s something to be said for that,” she said.

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Staying in love with food

Gelman says he remains engaged and in love with what he does precisely because of the varied duties that come with owning a restaurant.

Owning a successful one means that no two seasons should look exactly the same on the menu, year to year.

That’s on top of dealing with the compounding economic pressures and trends in the industry. In addition to declining alcohol sales and rising costs, Gelman and Dunker anticipate a hit from the prevalence of GLP-1 weight loss drugs in use by 12 percent of the adult population, according to KFF (formerly known as the Kaiser Family Foundation).

But for Gelman, simply having an excuse doesn’t change the reality of what it takes to survive.

“Restaurants can make excuses all day long about what isn’t working,” he said. “Restaurants have to change and grow. If you don’t, you’re dead in the water.”

What’s more is that his vision is being applied to a full spectrum of service models that are providing quality and variety to Iowa’s culinary scene. In an industry looking at slimmer and slimmer profit margins each year, a strong business acumen is worth more than the Webster’s prime meats.

Iowa restaurants still are an underdog in annual James Beard Foundation awards — one of the highest recognitions in the industry. Semifinalists and winners here number fewer than other in states and regions.

Having spent much of his life in the cultural capital of America, the 44-year-old says Iowa’s culinary scene still is in development.

“I think there’s a lot of room for doing things that are different from what has been done in the past,” he said.

“I don’t think we lack maturity. I think we lack identity,” Dunker said.

No matter where his next nod comes from, he said it won’t just be for him.

“What’s good for one is good for all. I hope what we’re trying to do is helping to make other people more comfortable about trying to push harder and do more,” he said.

Comments: Features reporter Elijah Decious can be reached at (319) 398-8340 or elijah.decious@thegazette.com.

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