John Benhase is Executive Chef of a brand new food truck to come on to Savannah’s scene. It’s a converted old school bus. They added some modern cooking equipment, made it shiny and beautiful, wrapped it in a brand new paint job and rolled it out this week at Starland Yard. It debuts to the general public tonight February 21st at 6pm. What can you expect from this concept? Here is my chat with John.
Where did the name Loki come from?
John: Loki is the Norse God of Mischief and Shapeshifting. I guess troublemaking. Something I’ve always been interested in and actually kind of a cop out with having to pick a concept for the truck. The shapeshifiting allows us to do a lot of different things with our concept and do a lot of different cuisines.
You came back to Savannah about a year ago to help get Starland Yard off of the ground, but it was always with your eye on doing a truck and perhaps some other stuff in Savannah, right?
John: Yeah, the market in Savannah is kind of in a unique and beautiful place right now. There’s a lot of good stuff happening, but then there’s a lot of room. It doesn’t have the saturation that a lot of other bigger markets already have. So I feel like there’s a ton of space to do more. I think it’s a good kicking off point for a lot of small businesses to do some fun stuff.
I lived here and started cooking here 10-11 years ago. I was here for about 5 years. Then I moved to Atlanta and then moved back.
The term “Street Food” is overplayed in a lot of places. It is still kind of a myth in Savannah. Would you agree with that?
John: I would, yeah. I think a lot of terms right now are overused.
Yes, absolutely. Farm to Table and the rest of it.
At this point, if you have to say Farm to Table, you are already in trouble.
Getting back to Loki, I enjoyed some of the food the other night. It is fair to say that you are going for a-and here’s that term again-street food type of element. Right?
John: Yeah, I think so. I think we want to spend the time and technique on the ingredients. I think the farm scene in Savannah is only growing as well. From a presentation standpoint, from a vibe, yes. Absolutely. We want it to be street food. Coming out of a truck.
The food scene in Savannah is what it is. Those of us that have been here almost 20 years are excited about what it is. But it still pales in comparison to a ‘real food city’ like a Portland or a Charleston or New Orleans. Was that part of the rationale to come back here and do what you are doing?
John: Absolutely. However, I think the consumer in Savannah hasn’t been enough credit so far. We’ve had a lot of people try concepts and people say “Oh, I don’t think Savannah is ready for it.” I think the people of Savannah are definitely ready for it. There are plenty of people who are pumped about new concepts and quality food. But people have to do them and do them right and do them consistently in order to earn that trust.
What is your background culinary-wise?
John: I never did the culinary school thing. I mean, I went. I was already working in a kitchen at the time. I had good folks teaching me. To me, it’s something you need to be in there getting your butt kicked every day. I’ve had people who were incredible mentors and teachers, so I preferred to go that route.
Can you pick one place you worked or one person you worked with that was most influential on your career to this point?
John: No, but I don’t want that to be a cop out. I think I’ve had an extraordinarily fortunate journey where each place I’ve been I’ve kind of learned really big lessons. I’m pretty obsessed with seafood and really obsessed with raw seafood, which we are currently working through the legality of doing that from a food truck.
I learned that at The Optimist in Atlanta. I was at The Optimist twice. Once as lead line cook and once as one of the chefs. I spent two and half years at The General Muir. Which is an incredible place. That’s kind of where I fell in love with Israeli cuisine. A lot of cuisine there was much more New York or European Jewish cuisine, but we did a ton of Israeli flavors. That was my biggest exposure to that. Being one of the chefs there for 2 and a half years, I really enjoyed learning there. They had a really big focus on keeping stuff extremely simple and technique driven, which for a young chef is way harder than it sounds. I think I learned a ton from that.
The theme this week is inspired by North African and Israeli cuisine, right?
John: Yeah and I think we are going to stick with that for a while.
But week to week, within that cuisine, will you change out dishes perhaps week to week?
John: That’s a pretty huge region to claim as our inspiration. I want to try a few different things from that massive culinary influence. Part of it is making sure I can get really good ingredients and do them justice within that. A big part of menu will be driven by the time of year and what kind of things we can do that time of the year.
In an ideal situation, how often will you change up what you serve from Loki?
John: I think honestly the menu can change every time we are open. I want to keep it fun. We already had a few people who were really excited about the first menu but bummed that there’s no falafel on it. We’ll probably have to do a falafel dish in the near future.
Ok, I’m gonna put you on the spot and ask you to give a shout out to a dish or restaurant that you’ve really enjoyed in Savannah since you’ve been back.
John: I’ll go two meals. I ate at Husk recently and think Chino (Executive Chef Chris Hathcock) is doing crazy good food over there. I think he’s really pushing the constraints of the Husk Southern focus thing. What he is doing with Japanese techniques and fermentation is really cool. We are lucky to have him in town.
The other one will be in Savannah soon so I can count it but Brandon (Carter) over at FARM Bluffton is making crazy good food every single day. I think I could not be more excited for them to be in Savannah in our neighborhood soon. Their food is no joke.
As we said, Loki is an ever changing thing. Tell us about this first menu?
We have a Sabish which is an eggplant and egg based pita. I’m doing mine with a wood-fired baba ghanoush. There’s Harissa Shrimp with avocado puree. We are making a labneh from yogurt from Bootleg Farms. It’s a goat yogurt that’s really acidic. It’s funky. Really cool. It’s good to have yogurt that tastes like yogurt.
Ideally how many nights a week will it roll out?
John: We are hoping for two nights a week. Then eventually we will hire another chef and be able to roll from there.
How can people find you?
John: We’re gonna have a website soon, but we want to keep it kind of guerrilla warfare for as long as possible so it’s just Instagram for now.
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