One of the more interesting debates in the restaurant world, centers around the background and qualifications of a chef, especially celebrity chefs. Where did they learn to cook? Who did they cook under? Where else did they work? The dining public seems preoccupied with lineage and pedigree almost to the point of ignoring the obvious – can a chef really cook?

At The Restaurant Review, we have interviewed hundreds of chefs, many are household names and many are simply ordinary journeymen of the cooking trade. Our culture raises the chef to super-star status. I would guess that everyone of them, that I have interviewed, really aspire to one day be like Michael Schlow, Bobby Flay or Wolfgang Puck. The financial rewards are seductive, the recognition is so important. No one wants to just cook any more. Or do they?

I recently met with Keith Hicks, the executive chef, at the Gunsmoke Grill and Saloon. Keith breaks the ordinary mold in so many ways. Self taught, no formal background, but a true artist. He expresses his art through food and has a wonderful, disarming nature that hides a whopping great talent to create dishes that are really works of art and taste divine.

A brief description of Gunsmoke is in order. The Gunsmoke Grill and Saloon is located at 3105 Cockrell Avenue in Fort Worth, Texas. It's an upscale steakhouse that is beautifully appointed and unashamedly Texan. You can sit at the bar on a saddle or admire the pile of Winchester repeating rifles outside the bathroom. The menu is broad ranging and covers everything from Pan-seared Ahi Tuna to Wild Striped Bass to Escargot, but the focus is on superb meats including a brilliant Tenderloin Oscar, topped with crab meat.

Keith, their executive chef is a bearded, jovial and relaxed man, comfortable in his skin and unabashed about the way he started his cooking career. He left the “service” about ten years ago and stuck for a way to pay the rent, he took up a chef's knife and went to work. He says that his cooking abilities spring from time spent watching his Grandma cook and he likes to joke about being a graduate of the well known University of Grandma's Cooking. He describes the basic skills that Grandma helped him developed: a sense of how to blend and meld flavors, a feeling for food and it's taste, and perhaps most importantly, to see cooking as a way of sharing an experience and communicating with another human being. Sounds like art to me!

Keith's cooking has come a long way since the day he launched his career. The dishes he now serves are beautifully presented, beautifully balanced and delicious. No pretentious food here, just a real sense of what tastes good and what goes with the Gunsmoke's impressive wine list.

I don't care that Keith is not a graduate of the world's finest cooking school. I do care that he has a natural and innate talent to cook great food. I think it's time to stop worrying about pedigree and listen to our taste buds. If you do, then you might discover your own connection with chefs like Keith. After a good meal you can wipe your mouth and reflect on cooking as an art form. It's definitely not a science that can be taught and programmed. Long may it stay that way. Oh, and watch out for Keiths along the way. There's one in a restaurant near you, if you look.