Starting from scratch

By Sarah Feldberg

Friday, March 19, 2010 | 12:30 p.m.

The way a chef holds his knife is akin to the way a writer holds his pen — it's second nature, a skill so ingrained it reverts to instinct and feel.

Imagine then, after years of experience in kitchens, having to relearn the most basic culinary tasks — how to chop vegetables or slice fruit, even how to hold your knife.

"It was like going from graduate school to kindergarten," Bar Masa Chef Drew Terp says of his first days working for sushi god Masayoshi "Masa" Takayama, the man behind Ginza Sushi Ko in LA, Masa and Bar Masa in New York, and now Bar Masa and Shaboo at Aria at CityCenter.

In Masa's kitchen, everyone cooks according to the Masa school of cheffing, and for most chefs new to the family, that means starting at the bottom of the totem pole while they bring their skills up to the boss' standards. Terp, who now runs the Las Vegas kitchen, did time on vegetables and fruit in the New York location before being allowed to move up to proteins like chicken and fish and then graduate to working with the restaurant's most prized commodity: fish.

The time has paid off. Although the tall white chef isn't necessarily who you'd expect to see running the show at a restaurant known for the most pristine Japanese platings, Terp has chops, evident on every delicate, minimalist dish that leaves his line, whether it's sublime beef with black truffles or maitake mushrooms fried into a crispy bundle of earthy delight.

The star of the show, however, undeniably is the fish, most of which is flown in fresh from Japan three times a week. The deliciously pink fatty tuna that comes packed into Masa's toro toro roll arrives as a whole fish minus its head and tail, weighing in around 700 pounds, after which it is divided up by Terp and his staff with incredible precision and evident skill.

He may have had to start from scratch in Masa's kingdom, but Terp has learned not only to hold his knives but also to wield them very, very well.