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Where a Menu Inspired by Latin American Roots and Cross-Cultural Travel Celebrates New England’s Four Seasons
Siobhán Chavarría couldn’t help but drink in the unique culinary culture of her native Costa Rica when she was a child—flavors that she didn’t leave behind when she moved from the lush Central American country to Providence later in her youth. The family kitchen continued to celebrate that heritage as she grew up; Chavarría by her parents’ side as they made traditional Costa Rican dishes like sweet plantains with honey or Gallo Pinto—rice and beans usually served with huevos fritos and tortillas. READ MORE >> |
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Our Daily Bread
The lives and lore behind the loaves we love. Bélinda Quinn is a wielder of sensory pleasures. A baking wunderkind, she fell in love with making bread the very first time she visited the boulangerie where a friend worked, tied an apron around her waist, bellied up to the counter and extended her hands downward. “As soon as I touched the dough,” she recalls, “I said, ‘Oh, my God. This is what I want to do.’” In Quinn’s native France, bread-making is a profession that’s near sacrosanct, insinuating itself into every aspect of French culinary culture. “Bread has been in the world forever, and still today, it’s part of our diet. Bread-making is our thing in France,” Quinn says in a thick Parisian accent, with an unapologetic chuckle. READ MORE >> |
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Below Deck with Chef Ben Robinson
Chef Ben Robinson boasts an enviable resume across land and sea, cooking under master chefs around the world and perfecting his craft at a three Michelin star restaurant. But Robinson won hearts and minds as the charismatic executive chef on two hit reality television series on the Bravo network, “Below Deck” and “Below Deck Mediterranean,” which follow the lives of yacht crew working aboard charters sailing the Caribbean and the Mediterranean. With his unadulterated swagger, culinary bravado, spiky auburn coif and charming Cheshire grin, Robinson became a fan favorite, turning him into a sought-after celebrity chef for charitable events. READ MORE >> |
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Inside Michele De Luca-Verley’s La Maison de COCO
A Kitchen Atelier Designed for the Love of Chocolate “I know this may sound strange, but every time I walked into the barn on the property, it would whisper to me, ‘This is where you need to be making your chocolates.’ I would respond, ‘I know; someday it will happen. Patience,’” recalls Michele De Luca-Verley. She bought the circa 1630 Portsmouth farmhouse with her husband, Cyril, when they decided Aquidneck Island was where they wanted to call home (prior years had been spent in New York, Boston and Cyril’s native France). When she learned the home that was known as The Durfee Tea House throughout the 19th century (an issue of Harper’s Monthly from the period named the proprietress, Ruth Durfee, “the Goddess of the Glen”), Michele had no doubt that it was where she was meant to be. READ MORE >> |
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New England Hotels Luring Guests With Celebrity Chefs and Buzz-Worthy Food
Celebrity chefs have been winning the hearts, and wallets, of gastronomes far and wide for years as dedicated devotees plan pilgrimages to dine at the hotspots that made them famous. Today, hotels and inns are luring culinary luminaries to lead in-house restaurants (many eponymously named) so travelers can experience a comprehensive palate-pleasing getaway. Culinary travel is a booming market attracting gourmet adventurists who collect dining experiences like others do passport stamps. With no shortage of exceptional talent behind the line throughout New England, foodies far and wide are flocking to stay, dine and play in one-stop-shop delicious destinations where menus are as important as thread counts. READ MORE >> |
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Lunch Break
For nearly a year, countless people across the globe and in our own community have had to adapt to working from home. Those accustomed to “grabbing something close to the office” for lunch are having to plan their own midday meals — a chore that can quickly lead to what’s colloquially called “food decision fatigue.” But with some careful planning and the introduction of interchangeable meal components, convenient lunchtime options abound. “Leave me in a kitchen with groceries, a label maker and matching containers, and in four hours you’ll see what a serial killer’s refrigerator looks like,” laughs Jen McMahan of Newport. READ MORE >> |
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Mission Accomplished
With four restaurants in their portfolio, the Mission Group is changing the way Newport eats. Anna Burnley’s fondest childhood memory is when she would sneak into the kitchen at the Clarke Cooke House, steal a few mussels, and tie them to a string that she’d submerge in the bay to catch crabs. Back then, she recalls, “you could roam Bowen’s and Bannister’s wharves at even 5 years old and no one was concerned where your parents were.” For most of her life, Anna’s father has been the general manager at the Clarke Cooke House, arguably Newport’s most famed restaurant. “We saw how much hard work my dad put in; how mentally, physically and emotionally demanding it was,” she recalls. Then and there, Anna declared that she would never pursue a career in the restaurant business. All of which makes the fact that she co-owns four local restaurants — including Mission and Winner Winner — all the more ironic. READ MORE >> |
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What's For Dinner?
Supper's here and you're fresh out of ideas? Local parents offer tips for quick and tasty dishes. Two backpacks lie listlessly in the foyer of Matt and Tami Mullins’ Newport home. They’ve been tossed there by Matthew, 15, and his brother Connor, 13, who have abandoned the demands of the school day and succumbed to the demands of their stomachs. Meanwhile, their parents are tying up the loose ends of their workday, and dinner is on everyone’s mind. It’s a scene that plays out in households around the world, as parents take quick stock of the refrigerator’s contents and ponder how to make a satisfying, wholesome meal on the fly. READ MORE >> |
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Executive Chef Rich Silvia of the White Horse Tavern
Moving a 344-Year-Old Public House Forward, All While Maintaining Tradition Many are the chefs who strive to make history. Few are the chefs who get to be a part of it. It’s clear to Rich Silvia, executive chef of the historic White Horse Tavern in Newport, that each day he shows up for work, he has an unsurpassed responsibility that differs from any other chef coast to coast. He leads the kitchen at America’s oldest operating tavern. The White Horse Tavern opened in 1673, welcoming early American movers and shakers—Colonists, British soldiers, Hessian mercenaries, pirates, sailors, even founding fathers—to gather, drink, discuss their day and, maybe, trade secrets. Though Silvia was born and raised just 10 minutes away in Newport’s Fifth Ward neighborhood, the White Horse seemed a world away. READ MORE >> |
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Chef Jake Rojas of Tallulah on Thames:
A Texas-Born Chef Gets Local in Li’l Rhody On the rare occasion he has the opportunity to escape from behind the line at the widely acclaimed Tallulah on Thames in Newport, Chef Jake Rojas is the first to explain that his farm-to-fork philosophy is old news—very old, in fact. “We’re not reinventing the wheel,” he concedes. “We’re just going back to tradition—and trying to keep these small farms alive too. It’s nothing new: farming the land and then eating what comes from the farm—whatever season it may be.” His back-to-the-earth ethos, however ancient, is translating into carefully orchestrated dishes known to resonate on the palate and win the loyalty of a notoriously skeptical local dining public. READ MORE >> |
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The Edible Schoolyard at Green Animals in Portsmouth
More than 400 students from schools across Aquidneck Island have participated in this innovative (and delicious) “edible curriculum” at Green Animals in Portsmouth. Digging Dirt and Pulling Carrots: Growing a Healthy Appetite for Good Food and Gardening for Aquidneck Island’s Youth Elementary education has come a long way since the centuries-old “three Rs”—reading, ’riting and ’rithmetic—formed the backbone of school curriculum. And while technology has advanced the spectrum of capability for today’s students, innovators like Alice Waters saw the antithesis of technology as fertile ground (quite literally) for expanding children’s minds—getting them back to the earth. READ MORE >> |
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Thanksgiving Reimagined
This won’t be your typical holiday. So why serve your typical dishes? This year, with pandemic concerns and subsequent travel uncertainties, holiday gatherings may be small for many Americans. In the spirit of optimism and making the most of the challenge before us, perhaps it’s time to introduce some new traditions — starting in the kitchen. “It’s a time to reflect, instead of worrying about the actual volume of food,” suggests Brigid Rafferty, a local chef and business owner. “Maybe make your meal more mindful and sophisticated, and have more self-care in it.” READ MORE >> |
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In Favor of Flavor
Future Chefs Put Their Noses (and Taste Buds) to the Grindstone at JWU “Put away your scales. Put away your mixers,” Chef Jaime Schick commands from the helm of her kitchen classroom inside the glass-encased Cuisinart Center for Culinary Excellence at Johnson & Wales University’s (JWU) Harborside campus in Providence. The 16 fresh-faced students, clad in their mandatory pristine double-breasted chef jackets, chef hats and checked slacks, scurry about furiously and gather around the table. They are here for Day One, the first in a multi-day series of chef-led intensives exploring all facets of culinary education. READ MORE >> |
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Chef Joe’s Restaurant Redux
Mediterranean Flavors Pair in Harmony with Local Seasonal Foods Much like the dishes for which he is best known, Chef Joe Simone is a dichotomy: uncomplicated but elegant, classic but effervescent, calculating but captivating. So when he was ready to start a new chapter in his cooking career after closing his daytime dining hotspot in Warren, he proceeded with caution. In the few years it was open, The Sunnyside garnered a wide-range of loyal customers and an enviable reputation. Capitalizing on those two critical components and confident that Rhode Islanders would have a long memory—long enough that they’d remember his classic dishes that let the flavors speak for themselves—Simone opened his eponymous restaurant, also in Warren, in October 2014. READ MORE >> |
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