When Cheryl Scantlebury was offered the job of executive chef of the new Hyatt Regency Denver at the Colorado Convention Center, she leapt at the opportunity.

The 1,100-room hotel is owned by the city of Denver and is its largest hotel. The grand opening was last December.

Scantlebury had already achieved the milestone of executive chef, a position held by only eight women within Hyatt worldwide. Previously, she was executive chef of the Hyatt Regency Tamaya Resort and Spa at Santa Ana Pueblo in New Mexico. She was hungry for another challenge—being involved in opening a brand new hotel.

It was a long journey for Scantlebury who grew up in Canada’s smallest province, Prince Edward Island, known for Anne of Green Gables, malpeque oysters, and potatoes. Scantlebury always enjoyed cooking and started assisting her mother in the kitchen from the age of nine or ten. At the age of 16, her most treasured birthday present was a copy of The Joy of Cooking. She was so passionate about cooking that her parents encouraged her to go to the Culinary Institute of Canada in Charlottetown, PEI, after high school.

After graduating from the Culinary Institute in 1988, Scantlebury worked as a line cook at the Hilton Harbour Castle (now a Westin) in Toronto. In 1990 she was offered a job at the Hyatt Regency Houston. Since then she has remained with Hyatt, working at properties in Vancouver, Atlanta, Dallas, and most recently New Mexico.

The Hyatt Regency Denver has one restaurant, the 300-seat Altitude, which is open daily for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Other food venues in the hotel include Peaks Lounge on the 27th floor. The lounge has a phenomenal view of the Rocky Mountains and serves light appetizers and cocktails from its service kitchen. There is Perks, the 24-hour coffee and gift shop, and Strata, the lobby bar.

Specialty Kitchens
The hotel has two full-service kitchens: the banquet kitchen and a presentation restaurant kitchen. Scantlebury had no input in the design of either kitchen and says, “Like every chef I would love to have more space in the banquet kitchen facilities.” She was able to “tweak” the space a bit by putting in bigger steamers from Garland, a double-decker convection oven, and a double decker pizza oven.

The banquet kitchen, which typically handles between 500 and 600 meals daily just for hotel employees, includes a garde manger kitchen and a small pastry kitchen.

Scantlebury says it’s helpful to have a garde manger kitchen, which is where all the cold food is prepared. The ambient temperature of the kitchen is cooler to help maintain “delicates” such as salads, seafood, canapés, and cold sandwiches at optimum freshness. Having a specialized area lets “two groups of people focus in on two very different types of food reparation.” The 31 cooks and seven sous chefs who work under Scantlebury move from kitchen to kitchen. Scantlebury says “cross utilization” keeps employees focused on a career and helps them build essential skills.

The Hyatt Regency, with 60,000 square feet of meeting space, has hit the ground running with its banquet business. On a recent Saturday night the hotel handled a reception and dinner for 1,400, a dinner for 400, a dinner for 200, and another dinner for 50. As the newest kid on the block and the one with the most up-to-date facilities, the hotel is enjoying a lot of attention. Although Hyatt has core items on its banquet menus that are standard in its properties, Scantlebury says she does “a huge amount of custom menus.”

Altitude’s display kitchen has a big glass wall so guests can see all the action and drama within. The kitchen is well lit and even has views to the outside. “Cooks love it,” says Scantlebury. “It’s spacious. It has a nice feel to it.” She adds that it’s not a challenge to always be on display. “To be honest, you don’t even notice [the guests] are there. You get in the zone.”

All Hyatts have a corporate standard breakfast menu, but each property is allowed to put in three or four regional specialties. What has surprised Scantlebury about what performs well in Denver is the southwestern specialties such as huevos rancheros and burritos. “I guess it’s become sort of a breakfast comfort food.”

Scantlebury has more free rein in the design of the lunch and dinner menus, which change quarterly. Lunch is the most popular meal of the day at the hotel, and currently handles around 300 covers, of which 60 percent comes from the buffet. Scantlebury says it’s a spectacular buffet that always features nine hot items and a full salad and dessert bar for $16.50. The luncheon a la carte menu features “grab and go” sandwiches like “the ultimate ham and cheese” made from extra sharp white and yellow cheddar and black forest and honey cured ham piled on fresh-baked focaccia and grilled. All sandwiches are accompanied by house-made potato chips, fried to order.

Altitude typically handles 140 dinner covers daily. The dinner menu focuses on “Colorado comfort food” such as buffalo black bean chili, grilled duck breasts with truffled gnocchi, 20- ounce cowboy ribeye steak, and grilled halibut. “It’s high end but it also has a comfort component to it because a lot of guests are business travelers,” says Scantlebury. Scantlebury is particularly proud of creations such as bison tenderloin served with olive crostini and huckleberry port sauce accompanied with sautéed mushrooms, banana peppers, and napa cabbage; and seafood pasta paella with shrimp, scallops, clams, mussels, halibut, and chorizo, served on top of saffron gemelli.

Scantlebury tries to include something from Prince Edward Island on her menu, such as mussels and oysters if she can find them. “Anyone who knows me well will tell you my absolute favorite food is a PEI lobster.”

Thanks to the buffet, the hotel’s lunch crowd is gaining a growing local business. Altitude is also working on targeting the local pre-theater crowd. “I think the goal of every successful hotel restaurant is to gain a following from locals,” says Scantlebury. “You want people to say they’re going to Altitude at the Hyatt. You don’t want them to say they’re going to the Hyatt to eat at Altitude.”

The hotel offers room service between 6AM and midnight, using the Altitude kitchen. “Room service in a 1,100-room hotel can be challenging,” says Scantlebury. Breakfast is by far the meal most ordered via room service, and there is another spurt of activity late at night. The Altitude kitchen also handles food for Strata.

Controlling food costs in such a large property, says Scantlebury, entails being hands-on. “As a chef, I have to sign every invoice for every bit of food that’s received into this building. It’s knowing what you have and having a great relationship with your purchasing department. I walk every freezer and every cooler every day to know what’s in my building.” She adds that a cryovac machine is one of her most important pieces of equipment to help with leftovers and portions.

Scantlebury has been able to familiarize herself with regional tastes in each new hotel in which she works by “becoming best friends with employees from that area.” When she worked in New Mexico at Tamaya she quickly realized the cuisine was influenced by Native American and Hispanic cultures. Although Denver is relatively close to New Mexico, Scantlebury was surprised at the difference in tastes: “A huge part of Colorado loves meat and potatoes, and then you go to places like Boulder and people are into organic and natural. It’s a very blended state when it comes to cuisine.”

Scantlebury gets inspired by listening to guest requests and reading trade magazines on food trends, but her biggest source of inspiration is her colleagues: “Sous chefs, the young people working for me coming out of the culinary schools—everyone brings things to the table.” Cooking is collaborative, says Scantlebury: “You can’t do it in a vacuum.”

Born to Cook
Cooking has always been Scantlebury’s passion. “It seems like it was where I was destined to be,” she says. Everything in Scantlebury’s memory bank is entwined with food. For example, one of her first memories is learning to print. Her mother, a great baker, lined spice bottles up in front of Scantlebury as she was baking, and Scantlebury copied the labels. “It seemed natural, it was always there.”

There is many a fine chef who has no interest in becoming an executive because of the administrative duties, but Scantlebury says, “I love the administrative and organizational side,” then adds, “mind you there are some days I would rather just only be standing out there with a knife in my hand.”

Scantlebury’s day starts at 6AM. “I love my first couple of hours of the day,” she says. “I go through the printouts from the sales abstracts from the day before. I sign the requisitions for all the areas that need anything out of the store room. I make sure all my restaurant and breakfast cooks are up and going, that the banquet cooks are there.”

Scantlebury admits she has been courted by other hotel brands but has chosen to stick with Hyatt. “The company has been very very good to me. I’ve had great opportunities for personal and professional success. The opportunities to move around and build a career are there. They grow many of their top managers from within.” She was particularly thrilled to be involved with a new property. “I have a huge project in front of me. I’m very excited about it ... everything from the initial hiring of staff to loading in every last bit of kitchen equipment to training—it was pretty amazing.” The next progression for her professionally would perhaps be to become a GM, “but my heart and soul is in the kitchen.”

Scantlebury works 12 hours a day, six days a week, and claims to still enjoy cooking at home. “Barbecuing is one of my favorite things,” she says. “I love simple foods. A lot of olive oils and fresh herbs and pastas and grilled vegetables.”

For recreation, Scantlebury enjoys hiking and biking, being out in nature. She also loves to spend quiet time reading or listening to music. On vacation, she prefers camping at national parks. “I’m not a person who goes and lies on a beach. I don’t take cruises. I don’t go to Europe.” Although she could travel at a great discount by staying in other Hyatts worldwide, she prefers not to do that saying, “I think it becomes an occupational hazard if you’re staying in another hotel to be looking at the service. Sometimes you become more of a critic than relaxed.” This summer she will return to Prince Edward Island, the first time she’s been home in 10 years.

The Hyatt Regency Denver is unique in that three top positions are held by women. Donna Robinson is the food & beverage director and Monica Cheeks is the catering director. “The three amigos are women which we find amusing. It’s unique.”

People constantly remind Scantlebury it’s a real honor to be among a handful of female executive chefs. Scantlebury says modestly, “I just consider it my job.” She says she gets “interesting reactions” when people find out a woman is in charge. “There’s still quite a bit of stereotyping out there—that women will go to more boutique places and restaurants and country clubs.” Scantlebury concedes that many women chefs end up running their own businesses and catering companies to better accommodate their personal lives. Few can meet the demands and rigors of working with a large hotel.

Scantlebury, who has been married for 20 years, made a decision early on not to have children in order to focus fully on her career. Her husband, whom she has known since high school, and who works as a building engineer, has faithfully followed her from post to post. “My husband is very understanding,” she says. “He’s been with me throughout this entire odyssey.”

Beth Rogers is a frequent contributor to HOTEL F&B EXECUTIVE.