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The Vision Of Van Aken

How One Beloved Chef Became Florida’s Culinary Icon

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It's hard to imagine that Norman Van Aken — a culinary pioneer and icon in his own right — had no idea he wanted to be a chef growing up.

“It was not part of the discussion. Most people that I knew were workers and carpenters and painters,” Van Aken says.

A free spirit who grew up in rural Illinois, Van Aken attributes his maternal grandmother, who moved in with his mother, two sisters and him after his parents divorced when he was ten, for igniting a wondrous curiosity in the world which he still carries today.

“She was very well educated and very smart. She was very comfortable with her being a worldly person, especially compared to the people that grew up where we grew up, so, I just gravitated toward her, and I thought she pretty much saved me from being a dull person that wouldn’t have found a passion nearly as readily if it hadn’t been for her sparking that imagination.”

But it took a while for the man widely known as the founding father of New World Cuisine — a celebration of Latin, Caribbean, Asian, American and African flavors, to find his path in the culinary world. A brief stint in college after graduating from high school in 1969 proved not to be a fit. From there Van Aken explored a series of odd jobs: making picture frames, packing books to be shipped to bookstores and even shoveling glass onto a conveyer belt. Finally, he landed a gig as a tar roofer.

“It was pretty backbreaking work. Me and six other knuckleheads on top of a roof of a high school or a bank building or wherever, getting the patching done — that job is just miserably sticky…it’s brutal,” he adds.

A summer thunderstorm approached, and while all the roofers ran to their cars for shelter, Van Aken chose to roll around in the grass in the pouring rain, arms outstretched, having the time of his life. Until he bumped into his boss, who fired him on the spot. He headed home and turned to the help wanted ads.

“I remember I was still wet from the rain and laying this paper out on the kitchen table and then seeing an ad that said, ‘Short Order Cook Wanted, No Experience Necessary.’”

He drove two towns over, tucked his ponytail in, and got the job. At 21 years old, Van Aken began his culinary journey as a breakfast cook in a diner in Libertyville, Ill.

It’s a decision that shaped his entire life, right down to the waitress he fell in love with and married 46 years ago. They embarked on the ultimate adventure: facing the world together, raising their son Justin and collaborating on Van Aken’s multiple ventures, from his restaurants to his books (of which he’s authored six cookbooks and one memoir).

“I realized that the discipline of writing the recipes was something that was a painstaking process. It gave us the opportunity to share the life, which gave us that shared purpose. I gave her the recipe as it existed in the rough draft, and she’d set out to find the ingredients. And go shopping and shopping!”

Key West Fusion

Lured by the laid-back lifestyle and warm weather he had briefly experienced on an earlier visit, Van Aken first made his way to Key West in the summer of 1971. And while he always felt his calling was a creative one, he admits to initially missing the connection between artistry and what he was doing in the kitchen.

“In my mind’s eye, since the age of 8, I thought I would be some kind of a writer or musician or in theater or something. I never thought of myself doing anything other than that.”

It took six years of working as a cook before he realized he wanted to become a chef.

“I began to see that — here it is in front of me all along — the ability to be creative doing cuisine!”

He worked at a series of restaurants, notably The Pier House (now Pier House Resort & Spa) climbing the ranks and landing a position as Executive Chef at Chez Nancy in 1979. There were a couple of short stints that brought the Van Akens back to Illinois, but by then, the easygoing nature of Key West felt like home. In 1985 he took a position as Executive Chef and Partner at one of the island’s most celebrated restaurants, Louie’s Backyard. It is during this time that he first applied the word “fusion” as a descriptor for his cuisine, inspiration that grew organically.

“I’d go to the little restaurants and bodegas in town and with a reporter’s notepad begin to write down my ideas. I actually interviewed people sitting on the counters next to me, whether it was a policeman or a schoolteacher or a housewife on a break with her kid, asking them to translate the menus because they were much more likely to be in Spanish than English and I didn’t speak much Spanish.”

Ingredients like plantains, black beans and coconut milk began making their way into his menu at Louie’s Backyard, formerly serving a blend of Italian and French cuisine.

Van Aken had found his cooking style, yet he is careful to emphasize it is not of his making, but rather, one that has been around for years.

“Fusion cuisine has been something that people have done to be able to survive, to adapt. If you are forced to move from China to Cuba to work in the sugar fields, you’re not going to stop being Chinese because you came across the ocean.”

New World Cuisine

In 1987, Bon Appetit magazine wrote a piece on Louie’s Backyard and Van Aken, bringing both to the national stage. With a culinary identity well in place and an established name for himself, Van Aken headed to the mainland in 1991, where his talent and vision would play an integral role in redefining South Florida’s cuisine, launching it onto the global spotlight. He became a member of the “Mango Gang,” trailblazing chefs (others were Mark Militello, Allen Susser and Douglas Rodriguez) who incorporated classic, fine-dining techniques with Miami’s diverse cultural and tropical flavors.

Influenced by another book, “Why We Eat What We Eat: How Columbus Changed the Way the World Eats,” by Raymond Sokolov, which outlines how much the New World changed the cuisine on the planet — namely through the transoceanic exchange of ingredients — Van Aken defined this innovative style as New World Cuisine. An unstoppable force, he opened A Mano, inside The Betsy Ross Hotel in South Beach (now The Betsy) in 1991 before opening his flagship restaurant Norman’s in Coral Gables in 1995.

Norman’s, A Legacy

Fast forward to 2023 and you’ll find Van Aken eagerly gushing over his latest restaurant, aptly called Norman’s, which opened May 2023 in Orlando. The 71-year-old’s illustrious career has accumulated too many accolades to list, among them being the only Floridian chef inducted into the James Beard Foundation’s list of “Who’s Who in American Food and Beverage,” as well as a James Beard semi-finalist for his cookbook, “New World Kitchen” and having his personal collection of papers, menus, photographs and letters displayed in the Otto G. Richter Library at the University of Miami “Special Collections.”

He lovingly refers to his latest eatery as “3.0.” The original Norman’s in Coral Gables (which he calls the mother of the two subsequent ones) was an instant hit and dazzled diners until it closed in 2019. Along the way, it received the James Beard Award nomination for The New Best Restaurant in 1996 and garnered Van Aken the coveted Best Chef: Southeast in 1997.

He opened Norman’s at The Ritz-Carlton, Grande Lakes in 2003. The elegant establishment catered to high-end guests craving iconic Van Aken fare like “Down Island” French Toast (Curaçao-scented foie gras, griddled brioche and savory passion fruit caramel), Pork Havana, served with “21st-century mole” and a plantain crema with black bean salsa or Serrano Ham Crusted Sea Bass with chorizo risotto and lime foam. It closed its doors in 2019. (He also had another brief run in Coral Gables with Norman’s 180, which opened and closed in 2010.) Van Aken finds similarities in his latest establishment, located in Orlando’s famed “Restaurant Row,” with his flagship restaurant.

“We are back like we were in Coral Gables days — we’re in a neighborhood so we’re aware that people will want (I think) new things to taste and see and enjoy. It’s almost like the circular part of it returning to the neighborhood.”

While his latest endeavors have led him to Central Florida, he and his wife Janet still call Miami, where both their son and 10-year-old granddaughter reside, home. In 2022 Van Aken signed on as the Culinary Director for the nonprofit Camillus House where he helps teach people how to cook with their children, work he thoroughly enjoys. But throughout his extensive career and the multiple doors his talent has opened, one thing remains unchanged:

“I’d still like to do something where I can jump on the line and go make plates because I still love making plates.”