Five Mahoning Valley Chefs: Their Plate, Your Palate
YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio -- What distinguishes five of the finest restaurants in the Mahoning Valley is their executive chefs and these chefs’ attention to detail.
What all have in common is a passion -- each chef mentioned the word at least once, some repeatedly -- for preparing food and seeing that their customers leave with the satisfaction of having eaten a memorable meal.
Meet Damier Cescon at D’Vino in Niles; Nick Mileto at the Springfield Grille in Boardman, Patrick and Stephanie Lavanty at Nicolinni’s, also in Boardman, Justin Winck and Ken Daughenbaugh at the Whitefire Grille & Spirits in Canfield, and Chris Jenkins and Ron Quaranta at Caffe Capri in Boardman.
What they have in common is uncannily similar. For example, all use fresh ingredients to the fullest extent possible and buy locally when possible. All make their own soups, salad dressings, sauces and desserts from scratch, and make much of their own pasta as well. The prep cooks follow family recipes at Nicolinni’s and Caffe Capri.
If the restaurants don’t make their own bread and rolls on premises (and most do), the kitchen help bakes it in their ovens.
And the executive chefs oversee the selections of beer, wine and liquor.
“Running a kitchen is a whole lot of common sense,” Patrick Lavanty offers.
But coordinating the preparation of the courses and ensuring that the servers take to the tables while the food is still hot (or cold), the bus boys clear the tables, the dishwashers clean the plates, dishes, cups, glasses and silverware is no less daunting than conducting a small military exercise. “It’s most closely like being the conductor of an orchestra,” Lavanty reflects.
“When you’re serving, you’re on stage,” says the Springfield Grille’s Mileto.
“It’s all about the guest experience,” says the Whitefire Grille’s Winck. Adds his colleague, Daughenbaugh. “It’s about service. It’s about atmosphere. It’s about food. In that order.”
All the chefs grew up or came of age in or near a restaurant kitchen. Ron Quaranta is the third generation to run his family’s business; Pat Lavanty is second-generation. Chris Jenkins and Winck studied at Le Cordon Bleu Institute of Culinary Arts in Pittsburgh while Damier Cescon was 16 when he went to study at a culinary school near Venice, Italy.
All put in long hours, arriving anywhere from mid- to late morning and usually staying until closing at least five – and often six – days a week. They work side by side with their prep cooks, who arrive about 8 a.m., sous chefs and dishwashers.
“Being a chef is more than just earning a living,” says Caffe Capri’s Jenkins. “There’s a lot of emotion – it should be emotional. You become part of a family.”
To succeed, says Mileto, “You have to have a strong work ethic and love for what you’re doing.” When he interviews applicants for a job, “I don’t want people who just want a paycheck. I want people who want to get involved.”
All chefs are cooks but not all cooks are chefs. It’s simplistic to say the difference between a cook and a chef is the difference between eating and dining. Not one could pinpoint when he crossed the threshold and became a chef but all have gained the confidence, skills and experience to earn the title.
This week BusinessJournalDaily republishes in a series of profiles Dennis LaRue's comprehensive story published in the November edition of The Business Journal. We begin this online series at the Springfield Grille.
‘Food Brings People Together’
Nick Mileto | Springfield Grille
Not only did Nick Mileto’s mother teach him how to cook, she instilled in her son a love of cooking. “I cook every day,” says the executive chef at the Springfield Grille, either at the restaurant that just marked its 17th anniversary in Boardman, at home or both.
At home, “I love to make homemade pasta with meatballs,” he says. “Sharing food brings family together. And add a couple of bottles of wine.”
That philosophy, “Food brings people together,” he says – underpins how the cooks and servers at the Springfield Grille treat their customers.
When Mileto was a junior at the former Woodrow Wilson High School, “I needed a job,” he recalls. So he applied to wash dishes and bus tables Friday nights and weekends at Joey Petrella’s original Boathouse where he watched the chef, Richie Herrera, in the kitchen.
Mileto went on to work in the Tavern by the Green at the former Avalon Golf and Country Club, Howland Township, cooking and serving hamburgers and hot dogs on the patio before he was brought into the kitchen to prepare salads and learn to saute. “That’s when I got involved in cooking,” the executive chef says. While he considers himself “self-taught,” Mileto went to work at other restaurants here and elsewhere in northeastern Ohio where he learned his trade from the ground up.
“I had a lot of great chefs to work with – great teachers,” he says, crediting John Pellini in Akron with teaching him how to prepare seafood dishes.
One of his roles as executive chef is teacher. Twice a year he and his cooks meet to present the others the dishes they have created. They sit at a table and sample the efforts to determine what to add to the menu.
Another role is manager, coordinating the 25 cooks, servers, dishwashers and bus boys. “As a chef, you have to know how to manage people,” he says. “Cooking’s only 20% of being a chef. The other 80% is cleanliness, sanitation, being able to work with other people. … Get that and the cooking falls into place.”
Just as timing is everything in a play, timing is everything in a white-tablecloth restaurant – from the hostess greeting customers to escorting them to their table, servers taking their orders, delivering them to the kitchen, the cooks preparing the meals and the servers’ delivery to the table. Then bus boys quickly clear the table for the next customers.
The Springfield Grille serves American cuisine, a broad category, and is known for its turtle soup, served every day. “Steaks are our most popular meal,” Mileto reports. “Our sirloins are prime. Only 10% of beef in the U.S. is prime.”
Also popular are the crab cakes and other seafood. “As the old saying goes, ‘Don’t change if it ain’t broken,’” he says.
“I like Asian cooking,” Mileto relates. “A lot of Korean.” Of late he’s been trying “fusion – Spanish and Asian in the same dish.” Thai cilantro is the herb that unites the two, he says.
Growing in demand are gluten-free meals. “People are more health-conscious,” Mileto reports, “but a lot of that comes from people with allergies.
With the size of the portions served at most restaurants, diners tend to feel satisfied when the server presents the dessert tray. Many turn regretful when they see the pastries on the tray.
A small number have saved room for dessert, Mileto relates, although they usually divide one. Roughly one in five tables orders a dessert or two to go.
Pastry chef Randy Johnson has been at the Springfield 16 years and Mileto is proud that the restaurant “make[s] our demigloss [that adorns some of the desserts] from scratch. Nobody does that anymore,” he says. “That’s something we take pride in.”
The Springfield Grille has a wine cellar that holds an increasing number of wines from Washington State “and Oregon is huge. A cabernet sauvignon or pinot noir is half the price of a California,” Mileto says, “and they’re just as good.”
The restaurant has a wine dinner once a month and a beer dinner twice a year. Customers continue to favor mass-market domestic brands of beer, the chef says, but the younger customers favor the beers from microbreweries. “We carry a wide variety,” he says, “12 of them on tap.”
TUESDAY: Patrick Lavanty, chef at Nicolinni's.
Editor's Note: First published in the November edition of The Business Journal.
Copyright 2013 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.
CLICK HERE to subscribe to our free daily email headlines and to our twice-monthly print edition.