Taking an unusual path to culinary distinction

Jim Cohen would probably be a photographer or maybe an anthropologist today, if he hadn't discovered cooking. The executive chef at The Phoenician, a luxury resort in Scottsdale, Arizona, learned to cook, he says, by necessity. He needed to pay for the darkroom supplies required for courses at UB in the mid-70s.

Cohen began cooking at Mulligan's on Hertel Avenue, "making thousands of crepes," while he pursued his UB studies in anthropology and photography. "We took courses in that old building near Bennett High," he muses.

The fascination of the restaurant kitchen took over, and he went on for more formal training at the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, N.Y.

In the 20 years since he left Buffalo, Cohen has cooked in Atlanta, where he helped open a new restaurant in the Colony Square Hotel, at the Denver Country Club and the famous Tante Louise Restaurant there, where he was chosen by Julia Child as one of the 15 regional chefs featured in the PBS series, "Dining with Julia." He was also chef/owner of Plum Tree Caterers and Cafe in Denver. For the past 12 years he was executive chef and food and beverage manager at the exclusive Lodge at Vail, an Orient Express hotel in Vail, Colo.

Newly arrived at The Phoenician, he has ambitious plans to make his mark on a huge operation that includes several posh restaurants, and where his staff numbers around 275. "The biggest focus I want to have is on the type of food," he says. "I want to move away from a lot of processed and prepackaged foods, to food that is fresh, organic and local."

The emphasis on local produce will involve farmers markets, and Cohen sees this having a major impact on his menus. "They will need to be seasonal," Cohen says, "they will need to change. And there will have to be a reeducation of the public."