Tim Recher, WCMC, CEC, AAC, MWMCS, had The Club at Mediterra in the back of his mind for years before the opportunity presented itself.
“Being in the club industry, I had heard of the Mediterra before I even moved to Florida,” he notes. “The reputation of this club is incredible, and it has an amazing culinary legacy. The chefs that have come through here have done phenomenal work.”
He’d known Chef Joachim Buchner, CMC, for decades, and he’s kept in touch with COO/General Manager Carmen Mauceri.
“I have a ton of respect for [Buchner], who was a great mentor of mine when we were in DC together,” Recher says. “I wouldn’t have been on the Olympic team or competed as much as I did or be working on a goal of becoming a [Certified Master Chef] without knowing him. So when he retired, [Mauceri] called me and asked if I wanted to talk to him. And I think we lined up really well on what our goals are and how we see things. I loved working at Frenchman’s Creek—the people I worked with were great, and it’s a beautiful club. But this was too good of an opportunity to pass up.”
“Plus,” Recher adds, “I lived during the work week over in Jupiter on the east coast of Florida, but my wife and son were still living here on the West Coast in Naples. I would go home on my days off, and it worked well, but being able to be home every night is certainly a selling point.”
Club + Resort Chef (C+RC): Tell us about your role as the director of culinary operations.
Tim Recher (TR): I oversee the two clubhouses we have. We have the main clubhouse, where most of the residents are, and then we have our golf courses here, our pool, our fitness center, sports and wellness center, all the racquet sports. And we have a beach club over on the Gulf Coast, about eight miles away, where we have a full-restaurant operation and some events out there as well.
Each place has an executive chef, and I work directly with them. The executive chef out at our beach club is Michael Anderson, and the Executive Chef here at our main clubhouse is Chris Fragola.
C+RC: What are your goals for your first year or so?
TR: The kitchen is very well run, so it’s great stepping into that. But of course we want to try to improve every day, to move things a little bit forward every day. I’ll be working with different vendors and bringing in some different foods that maybe some of our members haven’t had, while still respecting the tradition and the club favorites.
I’m really focusing on our a la carte operations. We want to be the restaurant of choice. We have about 800 houses here, and when our members are trying to figure out what they want to do for dinner, Naples has some amazing restaurants downtown, but I want the club to be the first thing they think of. That’s my goal here: to really grow these restaurants into the first choice for all our membership.
C+RC: You’re mostly inheriting staff, or do you have to do a lot of hiring for the season?
TR: I inherited a team. They’re a great, fully staffed operation. Fortunately, with the club having such a great reputation, and because I’ve been doing this a while, so there’s a few people that know me, I usually don’t have too much trouble recruiting, which is nice. But every chef is always working to get the best possible people.
So I inherited a really great team, and that’s a testament to the guys before me and the club itself. They are really skilled and very professional. It’s a pleasure to work with them. But we have openings now and then, as people move on and up, and that’s a great problem to have. We recently promoted Mike Anderson; he’s new at his role as executive chef at our beach club. And we’re finalizing now on our new banquet chef, and we added our sous chef role out at the beach club. So we do have, we have a lot of opportunities as people move on. And one of my goals as a chef, not just here at Mediterra, but especially at this point my career, is being able to help other chefs move on up, because it was done for me, and I feel like that’s something that I owe this business that’s been able to give me such a great life that I really love. I want to be able to help people that help grow their career as well.
C+RC: Can you talk a little bit more about Chef Buchner as a mentor of yours?
TR: When I first moved to Washington, DC, a long time ago, I joined the ACF, and he was very involved in that. He was on the culinary Olympic team for many years—a Certified Master Chef before I even knew what one of them was. He was at Chevy Chase Country Club, and then I moved into the Army Navy Country Club, and we were probably 10 miles away, but we met each other through meetings.
He’s been a judge of mine many times. I’ve had many incredible critiques and had the honor to cook for him, and when I got to see an example of what a Certified Master Chef really was, and what culinary competition could do for your career, how to use that and build your profession. So I learned a ton from him. In fact, when I started competing, before I even knew what I was doing, he would actually email me a mystery basket to write a menu, and I’d email back, and he talked me through the menu. He never failed to answer the phone or answer any questions.
C+RC: Can you share more about the restaurants at the club?
TR: We have a full-service restaurant at the beach club. Then we have a couple of different dining venues here in the main club. We have the Grill, which is our regular main dining room; it serves lunch and dinner every day. We have the Tavern, which is in a bar area that serves lunch and dinner every day, and then serves all afternoon.
Then we have a couple of other venues that open as we use them: the Atrium and different outdoor spaces. And we’re currently about to break ground on a new sports and lifestyle center, where we putting in a cafe and a boutique-style coffee shop. And in a couple of years, maybe another 18 months, we’ll be redoing our pool area and building a new casual restaurant there as well.
C+RC: Is there anything else that you want to add or talk about that we haven’t covered?
TR: There’s never been a day I didn’t pull up to where I work and not want to go into the kitchen. I’ve always loved that. Jobs are jobs. But I’ve always loved my profession, and it’s really nice that it lines up here, that I can do this. I come into work here really excited. The people here, everyone I work with, are tops in the business. I feel like I landed my dream job. And I’m hoping this may be my last club, and I’ll work out the rest of my career here and leave something for the next chef to come along and take it even further.
