AN INSPIRED CHEF COMBINES EQUAL PARTS PASSION AND PRECISION TO WHIP UP A HAVEN OF HAPPINESS IN HIS DINING ROOM, KITCHEN, AND PERSONAL LIFE BY KT HARRISON PHOTOS
BY ALEX BARRETO
While today’s kids mime the moves of viral TikTok dances, back in the ‘90s, youngsters would act along with a TV show. In 1997, a certain lively Point Pleasant third-grader would rush home from school for his three o’clock daily challenge. Poised before the family TV, he’d duplicate the razzle-dazzle routine of his idol, Emeril Lagasse. “BAM!” the eight-year-old would whoop, slam-dunking an imaginary chile pepper and flinging a mock fistful of Cajun salt into an invisible pot. “Emeril Live made cooking seem like playtime,” recalled Kris Kloepping, now 36. He and his younger brother Charles reenacted Food Network-inspired kitchen throwdowns, “trying to outdo each other with balsamic-glazed mushrooms or soy-marinated London broil,” he laughed.
This young foodie had found his place: in the kitchen. “My great-aunt Chuchia, a first-generation Southern Italian and instinctive chef, took me under her wing,” he said. “She lived with us. The two of us would prepare our family’s ‘Sunday gravy red-sauce feast.’ I was in charge of the meatballs. My friends wanted to become pro athletes, Ninja warriors, or rock stars, but I couldn’t imagine any place more inviting than a kitchen or a life more exciting than a chef’s,” he recalled dreamily. “By the end of fourth grade, our stapled-together yearbook identified me as Chef Kris.”
The childhood dream came true. Today the kitchen kid is a formidable executive chef, an intensely trained, versatile, worldly cook who’s at ease masterminding an unforgettable celebratory dinner for two or a polished business luncheon for 100-plus guests. With the stamina of an athlete, the skill of a ninja, and the savvy of a music icon, he’s brought a devoted following to Charlie’s of Lincroft.
This handsome, 250-plus-seat dining palazzo bestows convivial, elevated evenings out. Here, you’ll wave to numerous neighbors, perhaps even Charlie’s owners, a local family whose granddad and granddaughter are named Charlie. With only one other Charlie’s in existence (located in Bay Head half an hour up the Shore), this is no cookie cutter corporate eatery. Charlie’s of Lincroft is a locally owned gem that meets the gold standards of hospitality in ambiance, service, and dining. Chef Kris’ inventive Modern-American repertoire leaves no cravings behind. His menu reflects his global palate, his Italian upbringing, his West Coast culinary degree, and his native Garden State’s bounteous seafood and produce.
What this chef does with humble rice illustrates his erudite palate and his kitchen’s f lair. Delectably crisped sushi rice underlies the crew’s irresistible Spicy Tuna Rainbow appetizer, heaped with lush tuna and hamachi and dressed with Asian seasonings and sauces. Patiently perfected Italian Arborio rice transforms Chef Kris’ varied seasonal risottos. It’s always on the menu because “diners love risotto, I love it, and it keeps us cooks sharp,” he noted. “Making risotto, you can’t let your mind drift for one second.” The budding chef encountered risotto’s secrets alongside his first cooking mentor: great-aunt Chuchia. (He added, “We’re Italians with a German surname from a great-great-grandfather.”) Chuchia “made me see that risotto is all about paying attention and never cutting corners,” said Chef Kris. “Risotto even made me understand my mom better. She was a single working mother, yet she gave her three sons endless love and guidance. She’d tell us, ‘Just concentrate. You’ll forget your worries and you’ll get it all done.’ Take that, risotto! Mom was right.”
This laser focus is Chef Kris’ key to scrupulous cooking and on-the-job contentment. “I tell my 20 cooks to check their issues at the door and then think about nothing but work,” he said. “It’s kind of magic how this creates a group vibe and mental freedom, too. For a cook, it unleashes the chef inside. And that’s when the kitchen works in sync, like a great sports team. I felt this playing high-school football and Little League baseball. Now, I know it’s a cliché, but Charlie’s kitchen is the crew’s happy place. And believe me, a happy kitchen puts out happy food.”
Chef Kris and his cooks finesse this joyful fare seven days a week, through lunch, dinner, and weekend brunch. In their “scratch kitchen,” everything but the Balthazar bread is attentively and passionately house-made, and a full-time pastry chef fashions delectable desserts. Charlie’s generous owners entrust Chef Kris with sourcing the food, so “what we serve is the freshest and highest-grade,” he promised. “The seafood absolutely sparkles, and the beef is gorgeous.”
His flavors are big but distinctive, “with plenty, but not too much, happening on the plate,” he said. Dry-aged ribeye is heightened but not overwhelmed by its coffee-based dry rub, and snowy halibut’s ocean sweetness is complemented by pistachio risotto (which is the chef’s personal recipe, of course).
In the same way he maximizes his dishes, the slim, bearded chef has made the most of his own life. Just a couple of years ago, he dropped 200 pounds. “I’d always been chubby,” he conceded. “And as a professional chef, food became my day-in, day-out work. It became a total takeover, and I was terrified.”
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His impressive feat, accomplished in 18 months, sidestepped gastric surgery and GLP-1 meds. Chef Kris shrank himself with a minimal carb keto diet, a robust daily workout routine, and sheer willpower. “It was do or die,” he said. His eyes on the prize, he couldn’t sample even one spoonful of his kitchen output. “So I made tasting collaborative,” he said. “Our ace general manager Mark Bernard, who’s also a chef, would chime in.” So would the cooks, “who loved being tasked with this crucial step,” said Chef Kris. “The crew kicked our partnership up a notch.” Diners benefitted as well, as Charlie’s top toque emerged from his metamorphosis with a renewed respect for green sides “not drenched in butter,” inventive salads, and meatless options.
The chef’s social life blossomed, too, and a woman he’d admired from afar even became his girlfriend.
“I’m so energized I can keep up with my preschool nieces,” he exulted. “Those chef throw downs I used to hold with my brother Charles? I can’t wait to throw it down with them.”
Charlie’s of Lincroft
700 Newman Springs Road, Lincroft
732-812-4500 / charliesoflincroft.com