Cover chef Charlie Kassels and Sacha Levine, the subject of the next story in our special food section, have a lot in common. The two Jewish chefs not only share a passion for cooking that began in high school, they each love the idyllic, expansive settings of the locally owned Valley restaurants where they respectively practice their art. The classic steakhouse El Chorro sits on 12 acres in the same building that has housed the restaurant for 77 years. Located on The Farm, a 10-acre working farm in southern Phoenix, Quiessence offers a romantic setting to dine on farm-to-table, hand-crafted cuisine.
Chef Charlie Kassels
Executive Chef El Chorro
For more than four years, Chef Charlie Kassels has created classic American dishes at the historic restaurant just minutes from the synagogue he grew up attending.
“El Chorro is a classic American steakhouse and fish house that has been in business for 77 years,” says Chef Charlie, noting popular dishes include rack of lamb, braised short ribs, Diamond Ranch prime rib, crispy chicken livers, sticky buns and a variety of fish dishes. Having spent most of his life in Arizona, Charlie says he also enjoys preparing southwest favorites.
He says El Chorro hosts about a dozen bar or bat mitzvah celebrations a year, most from the nearby Reform synagogue Temple Solel. The restaurant has many classic dishes that can fit into a kosher-style diet.
It’s easy to go to work each day at the beautiful 12-acre site nestled in an urban area, says Charlie, extolling the views of Camelback Mountain from the restaurant. Originally built as a school in 1934, it was converted into a restaurant and lodge in 1937. In 2009 Valley philanthropist Jacquie Dorrance and operating partners Kristy Moore and Tim Moore acquired and renovated the historic facilities, incorporating a number of green-building features that made it the first restaurant in the state to earn LEED Gold certification.
Charlie, who had worked for the Moores in the past, was happy to return to Arizona to take charge of the El Chorro kitchen after serving as executive chef of Santa Fe’s El Dorado Hotel and Spa for several years.
Charlie has been cooking professionally for 30 years.
He grew up in Phoenix where his mother moved after his parents divorced, but spent summers with his father, Jascha Kassels z”l, in Saratoga Springs, NY, a small spa community that was a popular summer destination for NYC’s Hassidic community. Both of his parents were raised Orthodox – their grandparents and great grandparents had immigrated to the Boston area from Russia and Eastern Europe. Though neither of his parents considered themselves Orthodox, he says, “they were kinda old school” and found the Saratoga Springs Orthodox shul a better fit than the only other congregation in town. He became a bar mitzvah at his father’s congregation there and attended the Reform Temple Solel in Arizona.
His favorite childhood food memory is helping his mother, Victoria Kassels z”l, make chopped liver. He said his 90-pound, 4’11” dynamo of a mother would fry the livers, and he would do the physical work of turning the crank on the hand grinder clamped to the kitchen counter.
He began working in restaurants during high school and college.
“When I was close to graduating, I realized I liked cooking better than accounting,” he says. So he headed for New York to attend the Culinary Institute of America, from which he graduated in 1987. He went to a resort community near Saratoga Springs for his culinary apprenticeship before returning to Arizona in 1989.
He served as the executive chef for the Westin Kierland Resort in Scottsdale; banquet chef at the Boulders Resort in Carefree; and executive chef at Continental Catering and Barmouche, both in Phoenix, before moving to Santa Fe as El Dorado’s executive chef for a few years. He was named the best new chef in Santa Fe in 2007 and was the featured host chef for the Santa Fe Wine and Chile Festival in New Mexico.
Having worked with the Moores in restaurants previously, he says he was delighted when the operating partners asked him to return to Phoenix to serve as executive chef of El Chorro in 2009. “I love working for the Moores,” he says. “El Chorro is a family operation in a huge restaurant setting.”
His own family includes wife, Mary Kassels, and two children. Herschel Henry, 11, is named for both of his grandparents, while 9-year-old Sara Victoria is named for her grandmother.
Charlie likes to use local, fresh ingredients. He blends seasonal and regional organic ingredients with influences from the Southwest, Continental and Sonoran cuisines.
Sacha Levine
Sous Chef Quiessence
Sacha Levine loves preparing farm-fresh dishes in the old farmhouse that has been converted into a high-end romantic dining adventure known as Quiessence. The converted farmhouse offers a variety of intimate dining options ranging from the outdoor table for two on the brick oven patio to dining rooms of varied sizes indoors. The restaurant is the site of about one marriage proposal a week.
Sacha specializes in preparing vegetables, pickling and charcuterie. Situated on a working farm, Sacha and executive chef Dustin Christofolo make extensive use of vegetables and herbs harvested on site. Many of the garden herbs become part of the pickling. The Farm’s citrus grove provides the basis for many a house-specialty cocktail and the kumquat upside-down cake on the seasonal menu.
“I feel vegetables are so undervalued,” says Sacha. “They are naturally beautiful and wonderful and unadulterated. When I eat a carrot just harvested from the farm, the intensity and flavor and sweetness is just amazing.”
Vineyard Road lambs are raised just down the street.
“I get whole lambs and break down and treat each lamb part differently. I make stock and pate,” says Sacha.
Born in Chicago, Sacha and her mother moved to Bullhead City, AZ, after her parents’ divorce. Her Bubbe and Uncle Steve, a “very Jewish but not religious guy,” became major influences in her life after her father’s death when she was 8. Having married into a Jewish family, Sacha’s mother always incorporated Jewish food and traditions into the family life. She would make rugelach every December. Once a week, she would come up with Bullhead City’s best approximation of lox and bagels – with smoked salmon often standing in for the lox.
“I was super scholastic and into theater and was the speech and debate captain in high school,” she says. “But the family was poor, and we knew I needed a career. Our high school had a culinary arts program, and I started in it as a sophomore.”
She says she did great in high school cooking competitions and earned a full-ride scholarship to the Arizona Culinary Institute, graduating in 2003. Her first job was at Atlas Bistro, where during two years she rose from intern to chef. Since then she has worked in a variety of Phoenix restaurants – all independent. She earned a gold medal honor in a National FCCLA Food Production competition. In 2010 she took a break from restaurants to work on a farm, where she expanded her preserving repertoire. Before joining Quiessence, she spent two years at Scottsdale’s Rancho Pinot. Before that she was sous chef at FnB Restaurant.
Sacha says her Jewish roots were clearly evident in a series of “pop-up” dinners she and her partner Sandy LeVar created last year. Every other Sunday, with the help of several restaurant friends, Sacha and Sandy created a themed dinner for about 30 to 40 people – reservations required. In honor of the Jewish tradition of eating Chinese food on Christmas, she created a Chinese-kosher mashup she called “My Kosher Christmas” for one of the December dinners. The menu was sprinkled with Yiddish. Sacha says her Bubbe, who died about four years ago, used to give her a hard time about all the fried food she ate. So Sacha created a Bubbe’s Nightmare pu pu platter of traditional Jewish fried foods. Another dinner featured Middle Eastern fare.
Though she thinks the pop-up dinners are a great way to build community through food, she doesn’t think she’ll do another series since Quiessence, where she became sous chef in November, keeps her very busy.
“I love working at one of the most high-end restaurants in Phoenix,” she says. “Quiessence is unique. The farm is right there, that’s a rarity in Arizona.”
