Pete List, exec chef of Beatrice & Woodsley, on handling customer complaints, the pitfalls of social-network review sites and the feathers that flew in his kitchen

Lori Midson

"If I could get away with putting shit on a shingle, I would." Pete List, the executive chef of Beatrice & Woodsley, is reminiscing about growing up in a family of formidable home cooks, who had no qualms about serving "shit on a shingle" -- military slang for creamed chipped beef on toast, a dish that List, who also admits to a fetish for bread pudding, pot roast and slow-cooked meats, says was a dinner-table ritual. "We had chipped beef on toast once a week, on Sundays. It was a typical Sunday supper," he says.

Several of the dishes he cooks at Beatrice & Woodsley to reflect the food of his youth -- at least until he turned sixteen, and his parents gave him the boot. "I was an obnoxious, rebellious kid and had my fair share of childhood problems, so my parents kicked me out," confesses List, who trudged his butt up to Keystone, where he got his first dose of restaurant life by diving into the dish pit and then climbing his way up to pantry. "While I was working pantry, I discovered I had a natural ability to cook, and that's when the whole kitchen thing took hold," he says.

He eventually moved back Boulder -- "I didn't like living in employee housing," he confesses -- and made amends with his parents, then got serious about his career, snagging a job as a line cook at the long-gone European Cafe, where he worked alongside Radek Cerny, who now owns L'Atelier, for five years, before heading down to Denver as the opening sous chef of Papillon Cafe, which Cerny opened in 1996 and shuttered in 2002. "Radek was very particular about his standards for food, and he had a very defined vision of what he wanted his food to be, and to his credit," says List, "he's never wavered from that."

He learned a thing or two from Cerny, too, including temper control. "Radek can be one of those chefs who flies off the handle and screams and yells, and because of that, I've never been a yeller or screamer -- and I've never thrown anything out of frustration or anger," says List. Instead, when his blood begins to boil, he steps off the line. "I can count on one hand, in the three years I've been here, the number of times I've raised my voice," he notes, "and when I do raise my voice, there's a damn good reason, and people listen."

After four years at Papillon, List listened to his own inner voice, which told him that it was time for a change, so he stuffed his bags and headed for Chicago. "My brother already lived there, and I wanted to try my hand in a big city," explains List, who spent seven years in the Windy City, doing time on the line at a "succession of restaurants that began with the letter 'S.'"