By Johanna Wilson Jones

Chef Steve Brown is loquacious and energetic. Talk to him and be amazed that the man can speak 50-word sentences without breathing.

He is excitable, and Brown gets hyped when conversation evolves around food. He is unashamed to admit his career thrills him because of the creativity it allows. Food is a trip, and he wants to see where it can travel.

The executive chef at the Brentwood Restaurant & Wine Bistro credits his spirited connection to food to his eclectic family, his penchant to scrutinize any space where food and flavors exist, and his confidence that won’t quit.

“Steve is amazingly talented,’’ said Matthew LaGala, a sous chef and kitchen manager at Brentwood, located at 4229 Luck Ave. in Little River. “Now, he is good-tempered. When I first met him, I had to pull him out of the kitchen a couple of times. I told him, ‘You can’t talk to the guys like that.’ He wasn’t disrespecting anybody. He was more of a Gordon Ramsey in Hell’s Kitchen.’’

Brown, who is Japanese and Native American, has extracted a wealth of food knowledge from his family and their customs.

Brown’s intensity and unbridled innovation for cuisine of various kinds go back to his earliest recollections of being in the kitchen with his Japanese grandmother, Kimiko Sasai, in Kent, Ohio.

“I learned how to make gyoza, which is like pork pot stickers,’’ Brown said. “We pan-fried them. I would mince all the pork and carrots, and we used a lot of MSG and soy sauce. I was four and in a full kimono.”

While other kids his age were playing, Brown preferred hanging out in the kitchen with Sasai.

“I learned how to roll sushi,’’ Brown said. “I was stepping up on the stool, always trying to help. I didn’t know what I was doing, but I wanted to learn. I knew the food tasted good.”

Sasai taught him things he would learn much later after less than a year at a Las Vegas culinary school, including knife skills.

“When you are doing gyoza, everything has to be a 16th of an inch dice – so that’s your cabbage, your pork, and your onions,’’ Brown said. “If not, when you roll over your gyoza, it’s going to bust open or you can’t fill it. Time is with my grandmother was freaking, super, crazy amazing.”

Those advanced tutorials initiated an innate fascination with fragrant smells, the simplicity and complexity of food, its appeal, and hunting all laid the culinary concrete to make him a chef strong in comprising cuisine with panache that titillates palates.

Brown’s tuna poke, for instance, is bodaciously delicious. Pansy flowers that taste like pepper, red sorrel, green sorrel, pickled ginger, and a secret sauce give the saku tuna a three-dimensional taste – it is earthy, piquant, and a tad tart.

“The way Steve’s mind works and the way he sees things make him unique,’’ LaGala said.

LaGala calls him “Iron Chef Steve’’ because of his aptitude to take apparent irreconcilable ingredients and make them inseparable and incomparable friends.

“Honestly, I don’t understand Steve myself,’’ said LaGala, who has been in the industry for 13 years. “We’ll be cooking, and you will see this look on his face. Then, he will go and get a mango. He will puree, chop it, sauté it, or whatever he wants to do with it and add it to something that isn’t supposed to work – but it does. I’m not starstruck, but there are times when I will say, ‘Wow. What made you come up with this?’’’

The Need to Know, The Knowledge to Grow

The family’s Japanese name is engraved on his olive skin. His grandmother did it herself in her handwriting. Brown is thrilled to know wherever he goes, she is with him.

He extracted all he could by watching and imitating his elders.

His maternal grandmother, Jean Bouldin, taught him how to catch clams and crabs with his bare hands.

His grandfather, Dave Brown, who served in the Air Force, schooled him about wild game.

“He taught me fur trapping and the anatomies of animals,’’ Brown said. “We would go to Virginia, and I would learn how to trap muskrats, beavers, and other animals.”

No matter what they caught, Sasai would transform the wild game into a delicacy – and he ate every bit.

At 14, he landed his first job in an Italian restaurant in his native North Carolina. Cinnellis, which has since permanently closed, was in Ocean Isle Beach.

He was a dishwasher and a busser, but he kept his eyes and nose in the kitchen as much as possible.

While working one day, he sniffed and detected sage and basil wafting through the air.

The kitchen manager at Cinnellis caught him mid-sniff and asked if he wanted to learn how to cook.

Of course, Brown was down like four flat tires to transfer into the kitchen.

“Jason, the kitchen manager, immediately dropped 400 pounds of calamari onto the prep table,’’ Brown said.

After a short tutorial on how to clean and cut the squid, Brown got to work.

“Because I had already had knife skills at that point from my grandma, it took me two hours to clean 400 pounds,’’ Brown said.

He struggled to carry the cleaned calamari via two large tubs to the walk-in cooler.

“I then cleaned up and sanitized the table like I was supposed to do,’’ Brown said. “Then, I went back to washing dishes like nothing ever happened.”

When the kitchen manager at Cinnellis circled back around, he was shocked to see Brown washing dishes.

His manager told him it was impossible to clean 400 pounds of squid in such a short amount of time. He informed him that four men typically took three hours to perform the same task.

Then, he inspected the calamari and found a piece of squid not cut properly.

The next day, he got called into the office. Brown was scared because he thought he was in trouble because of his lone knife error.

His supervisors told him they wanted to teach him how to cook.

Brown had only been on the job for about four months before he got promoted.

Nose Navigations

When he was Sweet Sixteen, he moved out to California to live with his dad.

He worked in his high school cafeteria, but his adventures away from campus are what captured his attention. Ultimately, he went to dine at an Italian restaurant in San Diego.

“When I smell the basil and the thyme, I walked into the kitchen and asked them what they were doing,’’ Brown said. “I said, ‘Man, this smells good.’ The chef was like, ‘What are you doing?’ If you aren’t here to help me out, kick rocks.’’’

Despite that, he still stuck around a bit longer to observe an elderly lady rolling pasta. Her talent and speed amazed him. Due to the smells and sights in that kitchen, Brown decided to become a chef.

His time in California, however, was short-lived.

“I maintained my grades, but I had extracurricular activities,’’ Brown said. “I smoked pot down in Tijuana and Baja Mexico, and I surfed all day. I was skipping school, and my dad sent me right back to the East Coast.”

Brentwood’s Beauty & Duty

Brentwood is pleasantly old-fashioned in its appearance and décor. The Victorian home, built in 1910, has multiple dining rooms filled with antique pieces like a phonograph and rotary phones.

Staff members are friendly and accommodating. Strange noises rustle in the background while people have conversations. It is a mystery as to why odd things happen here, but enigma about Brown’s expertise to make food sing perfect-pitched high notes.

Donna Mozeley knows this.

She and her brother, Jay Mozeley, own Jays at Little River, an old-school tavern featuring bar food and country vittles.

Brown moonlights at Jays, helping with bartending and cooking whenever he wraps up work at Brentwood.

“He is like a member of my family,’’ she said. “He is so outgoing, so energetic, so full of ideas. He never gets upset, and he is ready to jump in and does whatever needs to be done.”

On this particular day when she visits Brown at Brentwood, he has scooted away to interview a potential busboy.

“His food is fantastic,’’ Mozeley said. “He adds his twirl to stuff. I am not a fancy cook, and he is a very fancy cook. It’s like watching a food show. I never had anything of his that wasn’t outstanding.”

Moments later, he is chatting with a wine purveyor.

Then, he zipped back into the kitchen to help with the preparation of a barbecue.

Before he materialized at Brentwood more than two years ago, he had already spent time working for casinos and other eateries that helped pad his 20-year resume.

His staff said although Brown is great at his job, he also welcomes the ideas of others and incorporates them into the menu.

“He has a great personality,’’ said Pedro “Pete” Alejandro. “Sometimes, we clash when we both have great ideas, but we resolve it and eventually come out on top.’’

Brown said what sets Brentwood devotion to fresh ingredients and being intentional about putting love into the food.

“I think what makes me special is that I care,’’ Brown said. “I care about the ingredients. I care about what comes out to the table. Food intrigues me because there are so many preparations. Everyone can teach you something about what to do with food – even a dishwasher.”