“Cooking is alchemy. I love the idea that food can be turned into gold simply by putting your soul into a dish. Be a Jack of all things food and try everything. This is the road to good cooking.”
—Ian Marks
A San Francisco native, Ian describes experiencing an upbringing of “cooking all around me.” Raised by parents who nurtured an interest in cooking and baking, his older brother (who Ian still works with regularly) went to culinary school while Ian was still in high school, and Ian always felt the same calling. However, Ian didn’t follow the path to culinary school that his brother took. Instead, he learned in the kitchen at Liberty Café, Hog Island Oyster Company, and Fatted Calf, where he picked up the art of charcuterie. Ian says, “It wasn’t till I quit that I learned it was something I really enjoyed and missed.” His experience in charcuterie came together in November 2010 when Ian and fellow Hog Island alum Dylan Denicke opened Beast and the Hare, a restaurant serving American and Italian cuisine with an Asian flair.
Ian wanted a feature of Beast and the Hare’s menu to be meat cured on-premises and encouraged patrons to start with the charcuterie plate (a combination of chicken liver pâté and house-cured meat). The menu itself is “animal-focused.” The numerous sandwiches on the menu reflect Ian’s training at Fatted Calf, with a main feature being a daily special called the “Provisional Sandwich” based on how he’s feeling each day. Ian says, “Beast and the Hare is really my start into the world of charcuterie…. It always amazes me every time I cure salumi. I can taste the days that passed. The natural fermentation or buildup of good bacteria that creates flavors unable to create anywhere else. Our salumi tastes like our salumi. Similar to a baker, the food is specific to the house it was made in.”
Surprisingly, Ian’s tattoo isn’t based around his love of food. He got his first tattoo with a girlfriend when he was eighteen. He says, “I was dating this girl, and she had all these tattoos and piercings and was like, let’s get a tattoo. So I said sure and we went.” He ended up picking a piece of flash from a book, a “terrible tribal dragon thing.” In the summer of 2011, a local artist and friend in San Francisco named Jill Bonny offered to cover it up for him. Inspired by one of Ian’s favorite songs, Bob Dylan’s “Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts,” she designed an elaborate shoulder tattoo that evokes the song’s complex lyrics. The finely shaded black ink piece focuses on a playing card–style Jack of Hearts with elaborate surrounding adornments. Ian says, “She just drew it out in a couple of seconds, and I thought, oh man that’s so fucking cool.” The tattoo covered up the dragon and was completed over several sessions at Jill’s house. And while the tattoo doesn’t showcase Ian’s culinary talents, he would bring a bottle of whiskey and cook dinner for Jill after she’d finished tattooing him. Ian’s next tattoo will be a scene from Jimmy Hendrix’s “Long Hot Summer Night.” He says it’s only in his head right now, “so we’ll see how it turns out.”
NOTES FROM THE CHEF
Feel free to substitute any of the herbs in the Salsa Verde for your favorite. Ian says, “Any herbs will do here. I used parsley, chives, and marjoram, but mint, oregano, or cilantro can easily be substituted.”