Rick Billings
CLIO | Boston

Biography
Like most chefs, 25-year-old Rick Billings’s entrée into the kitchen began with a job washing dishes as a teenager. Rick graduated from New England Culinary Institute in the Advanced Placement Program in Montpelier, Vermont. Ironically, his favorite course was Meat Fabrication, and his least favorite was Pastry. "I didn't connect with the display case desserts with all their diagrams of assembly and the pounds of buttercream. They all just sat there in the case looking sad, and I didn't see much love in them.”

Rick choose to intern at L' Espalier in Boston, where he was exposed to a completely new take on cooking. Then moving back to his home state of Utah, he worked under Jonathan Perno at the Metropolitan. But the east coast beckoned again. Returning to Boston, Rick found Kristen Murray, the talented pastry chef at No. 9 Park, who helped him see the way a well-organized pastry kitchen was run. Under Kristen, Billings was exposed to a working environment where everything was fair game in pastry (including such unusual ingredients as sweet peas, tobacco, mead, and parmesan). After spending a day with the then-pastry chef of Clio, Alex Stupak, Rick was opened to an entirely new way of approaching pastry.

"Alex doesn't think like anybody else I know. His take on what dessert is and what it could be is a huge part of how I view pastry’s role in dining.” Rick is now the Pastry chef at Clio restaurant, where Chef Ken Oringer’s limitless creativity and inspiring techniques push him to create desserts that balance the cuisine of Clio.

Having spent the majority of the last ten years on the savory side of the kitchen, Rick approaches pastry the same way he did savory cooking. Constantly seeking a balance of flavor and texture while applying new techniques, his desserts at Clio admittedly ride a little closer to the savory side. The same curiosity that drove the young dishwasher to "constantly want to learn and move to better restaurants and just absorb every possible bit of information and technique available" is the same that pushes him to this day.

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Interview Cont'd
AT: How did you enjoy your culinary school experience?
RB: I loved NECI. It was a lot of fun and a great experience, but ironically my least favorite course was pastry. I never got into the display-case desserts that were built to last in a case for hours using buttercreams and heavy mousses. I didn't see any life in them. I like that plated desserts have a short life. Ice creams melt, foams fall, herbs wilt –
there’s much more life to that!

AT: What restaurants that you have worked in as a pastry chef have been the most influential?
RB: I would have to say as assistant to Kristen Murray at No. 9 Park. My experience there taught me a lot about the way a pastry kitchen should run. As far as the desserts, anything was fair game, and we had a lot of fun with the tastings. While at No. 9 we went to Clio to get a dessert tasting, and I was in shock at the stuff Alex Stupak was doing. I was completely intrigued, so I arranged to work a day with him. Alex was so open with everything. He showed me anything I wanted to know, every recipe, nothing was secret. He was very generous with information and definitely a huge influence on how I feel about pastry.

AT: What pastry or kitchen tools can't you live without?
RB: 1) The Pacojet –because I have a sub-zero (-30°F) deep freezer, I can spin every ice cream to order. With the Pacojet, you can come up with completely new textures, powder, liquids, and get a perfect texture every time. 2) The Vitaprep – I have a lot of agar-based sauces, and you need a powerful blender to get the gels to be totally smooth.

AT: What are your top tips for dessert success?
RB: Work in the kitchen as much as possible. That’s where all the real learning and inspiration comes from. I definitely feel that pastry chefs should plate their own desserts. I work hard to come up with plates, developing the recipes, sometimes for weeks before I'm happy enough with it to put it on the menu. I get a lot of satisfaction out of plating it the way I envisioned it. I think you lose touch with the food if you only prepare the dish, and never plate it for the customer.

AT: Who are your pastry heroes?
RB: Michel Bras (for all his food) and also Oriol Balaguer from L'Estudi de la Xocolata in Barcelona. I really admire the way Sam Mason and Alex Stupak are pushing pastries forward here in the States as well.

AT: What are your favorite desserts?
RB: My grandma's cobblers and fruit crisps. She's this little Swiss lady who can seriously bake. There’s so much love in all the food she cooks, I'd never want to make anything I wouldn't serve to her. Aside from that, copious amounts of Coca-Cola and mint-chip ice cream.

AT: What trends do you see emerging in the pastry arts?
RB: A lot of chefs are using new technologies and ingredients that weren't used for fine dining before. Gels, gums, new starches. I think there’s going to be some incredible things happening in the next few years.

AT: Where do you see yourself in 5-10 years?
RB: Eventually, I'd really like to have a place with great cocktails and amazing desserts. I think what Ferrán Adrià is doing with cocktails (liquid nitrogen, glass-less, hot foams) is going to influence what we start to see in lounges and restaurants in the near future. Good drinks and dessert, what else do you need?

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