Bruce Beaty of Red Hat on the River

Like many native Tennesseans, Bruce Beaty knew how to catch and cook catfish when he was a teenager growing up in Nashville. But otherwise he possessed little awareness of the culinary arts. His intention was to start or join a band - not something that overjoyed his schoolteacher mother or mechanical engineer father.

But when he arrived in New York City in 1984, he soon discovered that demand for guitarists was nil, even if they were from Nashville. Work was available in the restaurant industry however -  provided one was willing to start at the bottom and accept minimum wage and Beaty was. The highlight of his first day at work in a restaurant, he remembers, was peeling onions.  But a new world was opening. "I was exposed to food I had no idea existed," he recalls. Introduced to dishes of French, Italian, Asian and Mediterranean origin, he experienced tastes vastly different from catfish and cornbread.

So much for music as a career. His spare change was invested in cookbooks and when he could, he would steal glances at the cooks toiling in the kitchen. He read cookbooks like other people read novels. Perhaps he didn't know it right away, but he had chosen his career path.

One cookbook in particular called The Silver Palate Cookbook published in 1982 became essential reading for Beaty. "It had hundreds of remarkable recipes and I probably cooked every one of them," he said.

In 1986, he joined Jams, an advent-garde restaurant opened by Jonathan Waxman, a trombonist turned chef widely recognized for his creativity at leading California restaurants who would go on to become a cookbook author, television celebrity chef and founder of Washington Park and Barbuto. Beaty also worked at Waxman's other restaurant Hulot's. Next, he joined the trendy and immensely popular Gotham Bar & Grill and trained under chef Alfred Portale. [The Gotham Bar & Grill was named Outstanding Restaurant in America by the James Beard Foundation in 2002].

After eighteen months at the Gotham Bar & Grill, Beaty decided he could best accelerate his career by gaining experience at Parisian restaurants. Not versed in French but bearing an influential letter of recommendation from Portale, Beaty landed a three-month, nonpaying position (known as staging) at La Maison Blanche in Paris. Similar arrangements followed at Eponymous in Dijon where he worked under esteemed chef Jean-Pierre Billoux and with Jacques Le Divellec, whose Paris restaurant Le Divellec was considered one of the best places in France for seafood. But it was as a stager with chef Michel Rostang at Michel Rostang Restaurant  in Paris where Beaty began to understand he could marry French cooking with his own ideas and develop his own style.

Back in New York two years after leaving for France, the experience Beaty had picked up overseas paid an immediate dividend. The late chef/co-founder Gilbert Le Coze at Le Bernardin, a New York Times four-star-rated Manhattan seafood restaurant, offered him a job on the spot and he stayed for two and one-half years. He then moved to Le Madeleine in the theater district, advanced to executive chef and remained for ten years. He was honored as a "Rising Star of American Cuisine" by the James Beard Foundation on February 24, 2000.

Beaty comes to Red Hat

Beaty joined Red Hat three years ago when it was still located on Main Street in Irvington and known as Red Hat Bistro. Six months later, proprietors Jim Parker and Mary Beth Dooley opened Red Hat on the River in a refurbished 100-year-old former power plant at the Irvington, New York waterfront.

For the opening at the new location, Beaty added several new dishes including spice-crusted roasted Hudson Valley duck, braised beef short ribs and Berkshire heirloom pork.

Popular dishes developed by Beaty and currently available on the menu or as specials include yellowfin tuna tartare, with avocado, cucumber, chili-lime dressing; grilled Atlantic swordfish in a lemon-artichoke broth with summer vegetables; and grilled double-cut pork chop with a caper-currant relish, creamy organic polenta and pork jus vinaigrette.

Red Hat on the River is located at 1 Bridge Street in Irvington. It is open for lunch Monday through Friday (noon to 3 pm); dinner Monday through Thursday (5 to 9 pm), Friday and Saturday (5 to 11 pm). On Sunday, its hours are noon to 8:30 pm. 914-591-5888. www.redhatbistro.com.