Long before Lee Wolen, executive chef of Boka, became a force in Chicago’s dining scene, the East Side native cut his teeth in the cafeteria of Beachwood High School.
While attending Brush High School, Wolen participated in a partner program that sent students to learn culinary skills at Beachwood Bistro, a restaurant open to the public. Led by Danette McHale, a role model whom Wolen still keeps in touch with, the two-year program teaches food safety, culinary math and restaurant management. It still exists today. Wolen, who also spent nights and weekends working at the local Cafe 56, had grown up cooking with his grandmother and idolizing food celebrity Sara Moulton, but the experience at the student-run restaurant solidified his desire to be in the kitchen.
“It was like culinary school,” says Wolen. “I mean, we’re talking about club sandwiches. We were 15, but it was a real restaurant with normal tables and flowers and everything.”
Since graduating from Mayfield High School, which he attended after Brush, the South Euclid native has built quite the resume. After training as sous chef at Moto and Butter in Chicago, he went abroad to study in Europe at Le Manoir aux Quat'Saisons in Oxford and El Bulli, a now-defunct but still-acclaimed three Michelin star restaurant in Spain. Eventually, he returned to the United States and got a job at the now-defunct Moxie thanks to a high school friendship between Wolen's mom and owner Brad Friedlander. After three months, he got the itch to move again.
“I was like, I can't live in Cleveland,” he says. “I don't know why. I just, I wasn't done doing. Probably living in my mom's house didn't help. So I said, you know what, I'm gonna I'm going to try New York. I went to New York and spent two days at Eleven Madison Park, and I was like, I got to work here.”
SUGGESTED: Cordelia Chef Vinnie Cimino Moves On to Final Round of James Beard Award
Since 1998, the fine-dining restaurant has been the creme de la creme of upscale New York City dining. The grand art deco dining room in the Flat Iron District overlooks Madison Square Park. Today, the menu is entirely plant-based — “Back then, it wasn’t vegan food,” says Wolen of the somewhat controversial move — but the restaurant was then famous for its buttered lobster and its aged, spiced duck. Wolen served as sous chef while the restaurant earned three Michelin stars.
“Everything means something,” he says. “There’s a purpose for every single thing that a place like that does, whether it's the way they place the forks or the knife or the napkins or the way they cook the pork. It’s not just Oh, do it. There’s always a why, and that’s very important to me.”
Finally, in 2012, he returned to Chicago, earning rave reviews and a Michelin star as chef de cuisine The Lobby at The Peninsula Chicago. In 2014, he became executive chef and partner of Boka Restaurant, where he earned recognition from local and national publications, was named a James Beard Award finalist five times and maintained a Michelin star since 2011.
“(Chicago) is obviously much bigger than Cleveland, but it’s very similar,” says Wolen. “It’s a little more of a city, but when people say Chicago is like New York, Chicago to me is just a big suburb. The people are very similar to the people of Cleveland, too.”
After a decade and change in Chicago, Wolen is growing his empire. In 2021, he opened his second restaurant, Alla Vita, a slightly more casual Italian restaurant, and GG’s Chicken Shop, a laid-back rotisserie kitchen concept named after and inspired by his mother. He’s also launching his first cookbook, Boka: The Cookbook, which celebrates the restaurant’s 20th anniversary.
“I don’t know if you’re going to cook out of it. I don’t know if I’d ever cook out of it at my house,” says Wolen. “But I think a restaurant like a Boka — kinda like a Lola (Bistro, which is now closed) — are important to the fabric of our cities.”
In his April 16 event at Cordelia, Wolen plans to showcase some of the seasonal American dishes in that book. One highlight of the menu is the aforementioned duck, which is aged for 21 days before being rubbed with spice and honey. The entire shiny, roasted duck is then presented at the table before being taken back to the kitchen and cut up.
“It’s a really beautiful thing,” he says.
SUGGESTED: Cordelia Is Cleveland's 2023 Best New Restaurant
Cordelia and Boka make sense as a pair for Wolen’s April 16 event. Like Cordelia, our 2023 Best New Restaurant and a James Beard Award Finalist, Boka focuses on seasonal American ingredients from local farms. Both restaurants work to elevate those Midwestern tastes and sensibilities.
“I really like what (chef Vinnie Cimino) is doing at Cordelia,” says Wolen. “He’s doing stuff that pushes the boundaries enough for Cleveland that makes it really fun.”
One of Boka’s most popular dishes is a black truffle roasted chicken ($39), which is brined and stuffed with black truffle sausage under the skin. It’s then dried for two days and roasted whole. To Wolen, that dish speaks to the essence of Midwestern fine dining. While his tastes might be more adventurous, the chef, now 40, is happy to be known for chicken. After all, everybody loves chicken, he says.
“For me, it's very, very important to cater to guests,” says Wolen, who takes a “20% for me, 80% for the guest” approach. “I think cooking can become very egotistical. That's the worst of the worst to me. We cook for guests. At Alla Vita, our No. 1 seller by three times anything else is the rigatoni alla vodka. Not my favorite, but everyone else's favorite, you know? Sure, we would love to have the No. 1 seller be you know, squid and clams or something a little more imaginative, but that's not what people want and you have to cook what people want.”
Despite Cordelia being a kindred spirit and Wolen having a book to sell, the event is a homecoming first and foremost. In that same dining room, Wolen “staged” (sorta like an internship) for Michael Symon at Lola Bistro and even had his bachelor party there. Evident by his event’s lightning-fast sellout, the chef maintains his Cleveland roots. He’s good friends with chef Douglas Katz of Amba and Zhug, and his entire family still lives in Lyndhurst and Mayfield.
“I would move to Cleveland in a heartbeat if there was a big opportunity,” says Wolen. “I love Cleveland.”
Well, chef, we’ll keep holding out hope.
For more updates about Cleveland, sign up for our Cleveland Magazine Daily newsletter, delivered to your inbox six times a week.
Cleveland Magazine is also available in print, publishing 12 times a year with immersive features, helpful guides and beautiful photography and design.
