KC's Iron Chef

On the night of the First Friday art openings in February, dressed-up couples pack 1924 Main. Among them, a man feeds chocolate to a woman in a slinky red dress sitting among the row of stools surrounding the restaurant's open kitchen. Not more than 5 feet from the woman in the red dress, in his usual black chef pants and white coat, Dalzell watches the room from his edge of the kitchen. His eyes dart. His hand keeps reaching for the walkie-talkie at his hip so he can relay commands to his staff.

It's 8 p.m., and he's been working 15 hours. His blue eyes look dull; bags hang under them; he takes occasional pulls from a tall, disposable cup of coffee. On the other side of the line, three white coats prepare entrées that include Berkshire pork loin and braised lamb. A young cook sets up salads and desserts. Dalzell inspects everything. A beef tenderloin needs more sauce. A table needs checking. Where's Margarita?

Located in the Crossroads, 1924 Main is the flagship of Dalzell's empire. He offers three- or four-course meals for a set price of $38 or $48. The menu changes monthly and includes sophisticated offerings such as mushroom-stuffed ravioli of monkfish served with capers and raisins.

The prix fixe concept and his entrées are too highfalutin for some KC diners. And Dalzell doesn't run his kitchen as most chefs do. Hoping to inspire creativity in his employees, he doesn't use recipes. He gives his chefs primers on the dishes, then lets them use their own measurements when cooking. It's a novel approach, but it can be inconsistent. The Souperman clam chowder, for instance, may taste rich and flavorful one day and dull the next. Even the dough at Pizza Bella comes out chewier some days. The results may irk some customers, but Dalzell's methods help him teach the young chefs working under him.

First Fridays are always good nights, and on this one, Dalzell doesn't relax until the 90-minute rush subsides. He looks down at a stack of white napkins that Kiley Zumwalt, the hostess, has just folded. The corners aren't square; the stack leans. Dalzell smirks at her and says, "How you do anything is how you do everything."

It's the kind of thing he rattles off to his staff daily: "If you're not on time, you're late." And "lack of preparation is the kiss of death." His tone is paternal, but despite being the father of two baby girls, Dalzell, with his flashing blue eyes and young features, seems more like a know-it-all big brother.

Zumwalt rolls her eyes. Earlier that night, she spilled water on some customers on her way to the downstairs storeroom. She approached Dalzell with some trepidation to confess, but he just laughed and teased her for being clumsy.

He says she reminds him of a lump of coal.

"That's not nice," Zumwalt says.

"But I can see the diamond inside!" he insists with a smile.

Dalzell leaves cleanup duty and cuts out early for a change. He stops at the bar for a vodka press (Belvedere on the rocks, a splash of soda, a little Sprite) and heads to the basement. Trey Davis, one of Dalzell's high school buddies, strums an acoustic guitar in the downstairs bar. Tomorrow, Dalzell will do something else unusual: He'll take a day off to spend with Davis. The chef says it will be his first Saturday off in three and a half years.

With his eye on Davis, Dalzell leans against the stone wall and reminisces about Fayette, where he spent 22 years of his life. His mother, an elementary-school teacher, took Dalzell and his sister to work with her at 4 a.m., and they sat in her classroom while she graded papers. "She definitely taught me how to get up early," he says.

He played wide receiver for the Fayette High School Falcons and then for Central Methodist University, where his father was vice president of development and institutional advancement. Dalzell planned to teach and coach high school football, and he got a degree in history education at Central Methodist.

Hoping for something better than a teacher's salary, Dalzell took a job out of college at Enterprise Rent-A-Car in Overland Park. He hoped to advance quickly, but carting around grouchy businesspeople in a regimented, 9-to-5 day didn't suit him. "There were times I almost envisioned running my car into a tree," he says.

Food was already a passion by then. At 16, Dalzell worked as a busboy at Le Bourgeois, a winery in Rocheport, Missouri. "My whole childhood consisted of average home cooking and fast food," he says. The pudgy teenager balked when the Le Bourgeois chef demanded that he sample some mahi-mahi, roasted potatoes and fried green beans. But the first bite changed his life. "At that moment," Dalzell says, "I didn't know what I thought I knew about food."