Andrae's Kitchen

Gourmet food in a casual way

Andrae Bopp came to Walla Walla and cooking in a round-about way. He always enjoyed food and cooking, but didn't really think about doing it professionally. How things change.

He cooked during high school and college. "Even my first date with my wife was me cooking for her," Andrae recalls. His first career, however, was in landscaping. "About 20 years ago, I was just done with it. My wife encouraged me to get into cooking. I took a job at a contemporary American restaurant in Boise called The Dish to see if I liked being in the kitchen. I was washing dishes. I really loved it." In 2002-2003, Andrae attended the French Culinary Institute (now called the International Culinary Center) in Manhattan. "I was lucky to intern at a lot of great places in New York like Bouley, Danube, Balthazar, and Le Bernardin, and learned so much. It was really a fast track to opening my own place."

Andrae with his self-designed smoker

He and his wife returned to Boise and opened Andrae's in 2004. "It was contemporary French, kind of art-on-a-plate." More a New York kind of place than Boise at the time, "There was a learning curve for people. But they realized they could have a very special meal there. We had a good wine list and did lots of dinners with winemakers. We also went to Walla Walla to do wine dinners with winemakers like Justin Wylie of Va Piano and Eric Dunham of Dunham Cellars." When the five-year lease on his restaurant was up in 2008, he wasn't sure what he was going to do. But his Walla Walla winemakers/friends were-he was going to move to Walla Walla.

Andrae put together a business plan, had his eye on a location, and he and his wife moved to Walla Walla. As the economy got shakier, he pulled the plug on the restaurant idea. "It just wasn't the right time and I didn't want to take the risk," he says. It was late summer and he needed work. He called Chad Johnson and Corey Braunel of Dusted Valley and said he'd like to work crush. "They decided to take a chance on me." Eventually he became the assistant winemaker, as well as designing wine dinners for them. He also went into restaurants and paired Dusted Valley wines with their menu items.

Voodoo fries (Cajun spice, pulled pork, Crystal aioli, pickled peppers)

As Chad and Corey and Andrae all knew, eventually he would want to get back into food. More and more of his time went into dinners and catering jobs. "We're all friends and I still do all their events." During 2008, he also did underground dinners and created La Porte Brune as his catering firm. In 2009, friends sold him on the idea of a food truck. "I had no business plan for the food truck. I had met Josh Henderson of Skillet and looked at an Airstream he wasn't using, but decided against that. I designed the truck I have and set it up for how we wanted to roll. I ordered it in 2009 and opened in 2010." From then on, things just morphed. The truck was open daily. He went to the wineries that were nowhere near food options. But his business really grew when he moved the truck into the parking lot of the gas station/convenience store in downtown Walla Walla.

Currently, the truck is open March-December and does special events. La Porte Brune, named for the brown door in his Boise restaurant, handles catering jobs all over the state. And Andrae's Kitchen is starting its fifth year operating from what was for years the Walla Walla Farmers Co-op (which is gone, but everyone still refers to the location as 'The Co-op'), and is now a Cenex gas station. He has a full commercial kitchen which is 95% scratch. They use local products as much as possible, make their own bread (with one exception), smoke their own meats, make their own sauces, do their own pickling, and grind their meats. They use prime grade beef from the mid-west. "I prefer corn fed simply because of the taste," says Andrae. "Our burger is a mix of chuck and brisket. When we can get sweet onions, we caramelize those for the burgers and use pickled green tomatoes." The Co-op location is open for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Plus, there's a grab-and-go section with items made in the kitchen that is available 24 hours a day. It's not an obvious location-inside a gas station convenience store, with a drive through outside-without great signage. "It's the busiest intersection in Walla Walla," states Andrae. And once you know it's there or stumble upon it, you're hooked. Look for the smoker outside.

Mexi-Press (roast poblano & red pepper, pickled red onion & jalapenos, Ozxaca, iceburg, and chipotle)

It all adds up to delicious food pretty much any time you want it. As Andrae's saying goes "You're hungry, eat something!"

Connie Adams/March 2016

Andrae's Kitchen
706 W Rose Street
Walla Walla, WA 99362
509-572-0728

andraeskitchen.com

Egg Benedict sandwich courtesy of Andrae's Kitchen on Instagram