When Saracen Casino in Pine Bluff officially opened its doors in the fall of 2020, it brought with it elements previously unseen in Arkansas, not the least of which were dining options that immediately put the property at the top of must-try lists for natives and visiting high rollers alike.
Under the astute leadership of Todd Gold, Saracen Casino Resort’s Senior Director of Hospitality, the past five years have done nothing to diminish the initial splash made by the property. Now, as it prepares to bring hotel and convention services online, it has invested heavily in the culinary expertise required to continue to delight guests and exceed expectations.
Arkansas Money & Politics took the opportunity to speak with three food and beverage professionals who represent the next chapter in Saracen Casino Resort’s continuing drive to redefine the luxury experience in the Natural State.
Michael Qandah
Michael Qandah
A Man of Many Tastes
The only thing that seems to rival Chef Michael Qandah’s encyclopedic knowledge of foods is the delicious smorgasbord of experiences that have marked his storied career.
Quandah, the new executive chef at Red Oak Steakhouse at Saracen Casino Resort, first fell in love with food thanks to his family’s barbecue joints in Little Rock and Benton. Through them, he learned the restaurant business from the ground up.
“That was kind of my first step into the culinary field, just growing up in a restaurant,” he said. “Like, I joke with people, ‘I’m so old. I remember emptying ashtrays off of tables at the restaurant.’”
By the time he was in his 20s, Qandah had committed himself to a career in the kitchen, and he set off to learn everything he could, guided by what held his interest at the moment and taught by working artisans who were willing to take him under their wing.
“I have had no formal culinary training, and I don’t believe in ‘self-taught,’” he said. “Everything that I wanted to learn how to do, I went and did it.
“I tend to hyper focus on stuff sometimes. I’ll do something for, like, a year or so, get really focused into it, get to a point where I feel like I’m proficient, and then I’m like, ‘All right, what’s the next thing that I can do to keep my brain happy?’”
That approach has turned Qandah into a versatile cooking savant, one equally celebrated for his vegan creations as for his mastery of butchery and one who learned to make bread and cheese at the elbow of working masters and learned seafood as a buyer for Whole Foods. His journey has taken him from Arkansas to Memphis and from restaurants specializing in ramen and pho, to gigs serving members of the Chenal and Little Rock country clubs.
At each stop, he applied his unique perspective and restless experimental spirit to his craft in a way that brought new energy to the most conservative of menus. In time, his flair with food caught the attention of Saracen leadership, and he was invited to interview as executive chef at Red Oak. Qandah said it was a match made in heaven from his first day of work last spring, especially as the shock of getting the job has worn off.
“I came up here, and I saw the kitchen. I saw what I was going to get to work with,” he said. “They told me, ‘This is going to be yours. You get the creativity you want, and you get the freedom that you want.’ I remember telling my wife after my interview, ‘Yeah, they’re going to tell me no. They’re going to be like, “Yeah, no, you’re not getting this. This is a joke.’
“When they offered me the job, I was like, ‘I don’t think this is real.’ I still don’t know if I have the full gravity of this job, but after working here the leadership, the crew, the team, everybody, they’re just phenomenal. They’re all great people. They all work hard. I haven’t worked in a job where I’ve had so much support and so much concern about me as a human being and also my work. I’m over the moon about it.”
Matías de Matthaeis
Matías de Matthaeis
Home, Sweet Home
For the record, Chef Matías de Matthaeis loves both sides of the kitchen, the savory and the sweet, and he has got the success to prove it. The Argentinean master has artfully ridden herd over Red Oak Steakhouse as executive chef after serving as sous chef at ultraexclusive Alotian Club and roles at Chenal Country Club and The Capital Hotel.
That said, the bulk of his career thus far has been in pastry, so as Saracen nears completion of its hotel and banquet facilities, he has been called back to familiar territory as executive pastry chef.
“My passion [in food] is in everything, but people that know me closely have said that my heart is in pastry,” he said. “I don’t know. Maybe they’re right.”
Chefs often see savory and sweet skills as polar opposites — the savory side is where experimentation and adjustments can happen on the fly, while sweet is ruled by the laws of chemistry. Asked if he had demonstrated a flair for mathematics or sciences as a youth, fields that mimic the precision required of most pastry chefs, de Matthaeis chuckled.
“That’s a good observation. Yes, I was really good at math. I was very obsessive,” he said. “I was the kind of kid that would overdo it on the math homework. I liked chess. I liked logical thinking. I was a super nerd, and I still am.
“Honestly, my approach to savory is very much like pastry. I like to know the chemistry of it, and I like to know how many grams of salt consistently goes on this amount of potatoes or whatever it is. I like to have a good solid base. There are other very famous chefs that have the same approach, which is considered to be more like pastry, more like baking, than savory technique.”
That said, de Matthaeis was not a natural when it came to the art form, at least not initially. He said the only culinary class he failed coming up and was forced to take over was related to pastry. By the time he began serving internships, he had set his mind on savory cooking, but the culinary world disagreed.
“I did a lot of internships, and I wanted to go to this really prestigious restaurant to work with Michel Bras, who is a French chef. I wanted to learn from him,” de Matthaeis said. “The only spot they had was in pastry, so I took it. By the end of it, they told me, ‘You have a good hand. This is what you should be doing.’”
During his time at Red Oak, de Matthaeis was over the entire kitchen, and he looks forward to being able to focus on just his element, particularly as the company broadens its offerings.
“We are expanding, and we have the convention center. We’re going to have more restaurants in all these beautiful plans of expansion,” he said. “With everything that is moving forward, it’s important to have an executive pastry chef full time because banquets are going to take a lot, and we have also expanded our menu for desserts. It’s wonderful. I love eating, and I love cooking, and I love making people happy.”
Kenneth Lipsmeyer
Kenneth Lipsmeyer
A Bottle of Red, a Bottle of White
No one can know everything there is to know about wine. That, said Kenneth Lipsmeyer, general manager and wine director at Red Oak Steakhouse, is the first and most important lesson to learn as one moves from consumer to connoisseur to professional.
Lipsmeyer should know. He has spent years of formal study on the enigmatic beverage, has credentials certifying that he knows more about wine than all but a sliver of humans on the planet, and is still not done.
“It’s a lifelong process,” he said. “It never ends, and the goal isn’t to end; it’s just to keep learning and keep growing.”
Lipsmeyer has a Diploma of Wine and Spirits from the prestigious Wine & Spirit Trust, one of only two Arkansans to hold such a credential and one of a handful worldwide. WSET is a global organization offering training at different levels geared toward people in the wine and spirits industry and covers the gamut of wine as beverage and business.
“[The WSET] is more the umbrella of the wine industry and covers everything from vineyard production, winery production, wine maturation, the chemistry of wine and the business of wine,” he said. “It covers the contemporary issues involving wine but also has a very heavy component on actual wine examination, or tasting.”
Working one’s way through the study and testing is a process measured in years and miles, as Lipsmeyer has traveled extensively in his pursuit of knowledge. The Master of Wines is a three-year program; Lipsmeyer is currently in his second year of studies and considered a candidate for Master of Wines. He is the first Arkansan to enter the Master of Wines program and when completed, he will be one of about 400 worldwide.
“I’ve been to Burgundy several times. I’ve been to Spain. I’ve been to Italy, Germany, like, four times, and I’ll be going back to Germany shortly,” he said. “I go to Napa Valley at least twice a year and other parts of California, Washington and Oregon. Last year, I spent a lot of time in South America, mostly in Mendoza, and I’m looking forward now to heading back to the southern hemisphere, where I’ll be spending time in Australia and South Africa.”
Lipsmeyer, who began working with Saracen as a consultant when the casino space opened, admitted that even for a place as upscale as Red Oak Steakhouse, the level of knowledge achieved through the Master of Wine program is excessive. He continues, he said, because of an innate desire to feed a hunger for lifelong learning and to use that knowledge in service to customers and coworkers alike.
“I think to have a fulfilling life, you’ve just got to keep growing, and for me, that’s what this is,” he said. “It’s not that I feel like I need the credential. It’s really just a desire to discover and a desire to know more. I can’t describe for you the difference in how I think and how I analyze things now.
“You also have to understand my goal here isn’t to do one thing for myself. My goal is to influence others, and for the last 20 years, I’ve been trying to develop others. I see wine, the wine industry and the service industry in fine dining as a great way for people to improve themselves. For me, that’s the joy and the value of it.”
