Esther Davidowitz

Food Editor, @EstherDavido

Leonia native Paul Beaugard graduated from arguably the best cooking school in the nation. He trained in Michelin-starred restaurants in Italy. He worked at a slew of high-end restaurants in the tri-state area. He was chef/owner of the highly praised fine-dining restaurant Beaugard's in Dumont, which received 3.5 out of 4 stars in The Record. So what is the 58-year-old chef doing in a nondescript deli in Hawthorne making chicken cutlet hero sandwiches and chicken noodle soup?

"I can't tell you how many of my chef friends want to do what I'm doing," said the chef, wearing a blue T-shirt and faded jeans and sitting in one of the green leather banquettes in his popular 6-year-old deli, Bogie's Hoagie's. "They don't want to do that high-end stuff. It wears you down."

Instead of working "18-hour days" as he had at fine-dining establishments, especially his ("It destroyed my marriage," he said), nowadays he works more normal hours, opening his shop at 9 a.m. and by 6 p.m. he's done. He has no tables to set, no silverware to polish, no waiters to supervise. And no filet mignon order to worry about. "Food is always a challenge," he said. "The more on a plate, the more that can go wrong. Less can go wrong in a sub shop."

But don't be fooled. While Bogie Hoagie's may look like any other neighborhood deli, the food is not what you'd expect from your neighborhood deli – unless your deli makes its chicken broth from scratch, hand cuts its fries, smokes its brisket and hand rolls its ravioli. In a review of informal restaurants, The Record deemed Bogie's "worth the drive from anywhere in North Jersey."

"I use every bit of my training here," said the father of two. "I make everything from scratch. Everything that we can make we make." For his homemade mushroom soup, he uses 10 pounds of fresh mushrooms, he said. For his chicken stock, he uses a case (or 40 pounds) of chicken legs. He puts his red sauce through a food mill so that, he said, "all the flavors – of the basil, the carrots, the onions – come through." For his brisket, he slathers a dry rub on it and smokes it in a special $6,000 oven for 18 hours. And he rolls and stuffs his ravioli by hand.

"If you have passion and you care, you're going to give your food your all," he said, "no matter what you're making or where you're working."

Ever since he was a young child, Beaugard cared about food. "I was fascinated by food," he said. He recalled watching his grandmother scramble eggs. "I was mesmerized – by the sound of it, the motion of it." He begged her to let him scramble some eggs. "Mostly all I'd be allowed to do was clean," he said.

His father, a urologist; and his mom, a nurse, were not thrilled when he decided to become a chef. "They were hoping for something more scholarly, I guess." But he wasn't a scholar. "I was a pretty wild kid," he said. When his high school counselor asked him what he liked to do, he answered, "I like to cook eggs."

Miserable at school, he dropped out and joined the military at age 17. "My father said the happiest day of his life was signing the consent form." He earned a GED in the Navy. "It was good discipline," he said. After his four-year service, he worked at various local restaurants, "learning to cook." At age 27, he entered the venerated Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, N.Y. "I was still not a student. I graduated 73rd out of 75 students." While in school, he worked full-time at a classic diner in Red Hook, N.Y., learning "a lot of what you shouldn't do."

Two days after graduation, he flew to Italy and landed in a two-Michelin-starred restaurant in Merano, a small town in the north, surrounded by the Alps. "When I saw the chef make green parsley pasta and bright red beet pasta, that was it for me. I was enthralled." There, among other things, he learned how to make ice cream and sorbet, how to cook risotto, how to make pasta from scratch. The red sauce he makes at Bogie's, he said, is the same sauce he learned to make in that small Italian restaurant.

When Beaugard returned to the States, he began cooking in a slew of impressive Italian and French restaurants in New York City, including Palio, La Reserve and Le Regene, all now shuttered. "I learned a lot," he said. "I always want to improve." In 1990, he opened his eponymous restaurant. "We did great critically and we were busy Friday and Saturday nights." But during the week. the restaurant was quiet. "Beaugard was my 'Field of Dreams.' I thought that if you build it, they would come. But we didn't make money. The restaurant business is tough."

He sold the restaurant in 1995 – and worked at various restaurants including as chef at Pegasus at the Meadowlands Racetrack and sous chef at the highly acclaimed Montrachet in Manhattan. He also worked at country clubs. When he ran out of work, he called a friend and asked to work at his place. "I said I'll do anything. I'll peel potatoes." His friend told him to go look at a closed deli on Lafayette Avenue in Hawthorne. Beaugard's response? "Where in the bleep is Hawthorne?"

He's grown to love the town, and today he lives one floor above his shop.

"Every person should follow their bliss," he said.

Bruce Reiser of Wayne is glad Beaugard followed his. "I am at Bogie's every day," Reiser said. "All his food is good. I never had bad food there. Now my nieces, my nephews, my brother go there. Everybody loves it. Even my doctor from Ramsey goes there."

Chef Nick Gatti, who worked with Beaugard at Glenpointe in Teaneck and is the former executive chef at the Alpine Country Club, is a big fan too. "He's pretty talented," Gatti said. "He puts his all into it. It doesn't matter if you're at Per Se or Bogie's Hoagies, you bring that intensity into what you do if you care. And he cares."

His father is also pleased, Beaugard noted. "He is happy with the way things turned out."

"Bogie's is instant gratification," Beaugard said. "I get immediate feedback here. I see a customer smile, and I smile. It's a win-win for everyone."

Bogie's Hoagies is at 421 Lafayette Ave., Hawthorne 973-423-2221; http://www.bogieshoagies.com.