Chef Ed Bilicki

I received a phone call today from a fellow chef who told me that a friend of ours was gone. Chef Ed Bilicki had had a massive heart attack and died last night. I was shocked. Didn't know what to say. My first thought was that he must have been yelling at someone on the line for screwing up something simple.

I instantly started thinking back to the times I worked with him, pulling out of my mind things I had completely forgotten. I remembered working at Kingfish Hall on Sunday mornings doing brunch while the jazz band played not 20 feet from where Chef was expediting. He would call out tickets to me, getting louder and louder, trying to shout over the band. After awhile he would get so exasperated, he'd throw his hands up and come around to yell at me on the line. He always hated that band!

I remembered Chef Ed bailing my ass out on the line Sunday nights when we would get super busy at Kingfish-me plating as fast as I could and him grilling and yelling orders to everyone.

I remembered visiting him in the restaurant he was working at in Florida and him yelling at one of his line cooks "Do I have to come back there and teach you how to cut bread!?!"

He would push you to strive for perfection, all the while teaching you as you went. His food knowledge was amazing and staggering at times. He could be a grumpy miserable bastard and you loved him for it. He would tell you his opinion whether you wanted to hear it or not.

I can't seem to get out of my head the last time I saw him. It was at my going away party in Boston. He had a beer in his hand and was standing outside the window in the rain smoking a cigarette and looking in at all of us all "creepy like". Classic Ed.

I owe a lot of where I am today and how I got there to him. He was a great Chef, mentor, and friend. He will be greatly missed.