Being a professional chef in Rhode Island, says Melissa Denmark, executive pastry chef at Gracie’s restaurant in Providence, is unlike anywhere else. It’s mutually supportive.
Folks look to help each other.
Along with working at Gracie’s, Denmark also started the bread and pastry program at its sister location – Ellie’s Bakery in Providence – overseeing several bakers between the two locations.
Rhode Island’s foodie community made an impression on Denmark after she and her team began using Hope & Main’s commercial kitchen in Warren in 2014. They had outgrown their space at Ellie’s, migrating to the larger kitchen part time at first, then full time.
“It’s a cool organization with food-incubator space for new or growing businesses,” said Denmark, a 2010 Johnson & Wales University grad. “We’re all like-minded … we help each other.”
Denmark loves leading classes, watching bakers grow in the industry, put their own desserts on menus and teach classes themselves.
Her baked creations have won her awards and accolades from Edible Rhody and StarChefs magazines and nationally, Zagat and Food & Wine, which recognized her as one of the 50 best new pastry chefs in the nation six years ago.
Some recent Ellie’s offerings, for example, have included unique, layered flavor combinations such as peach, chive and goat-cheese scones; honey, sea salt and cornmeal biscuits; chocolate toffee chip cookies; and jalapeno cheddar corn muffins.
Bakers, Denmark said, are a unique breed when compared to chefs, with a different skill set.
“We bakers are very detail-oriented, we note every nuance,” said Denmark. “Cooking is more spontaneous; the chefs I know are more into risk-taking and more loose with recipe development,” and their craft allows room for that.
‘[Denmark] has an amazing mind in exploring new techniques.’
Ellen Slattery, Gracie’s and Ellie’s Bakery owner
With science critical to her work, new-recipe experiments become more of a process with baking. Denmark is careful to note what goes into each recipe and every step along the way for successful re-creation, but also noted that it’s important to embrace the “mistakes” and uncover inspiration they may hold as well. Being too quick to scrap something may mean missing out on what could, with a strategic tweak or two, be a favorite dessert or breakfast pastry.
She said that bakers at Gracie’s and Ellie’s will often start with one idea or theme for a cake in production, and have it turn out much differently.
“It forces us to think creatively,” said Denmark, with an opportunity to pivot and turn the dish into something else, getting feedback from the owner and other staff members along the way.
The support Denmark gives to bakers she works alongside and the mutual support within the Hope & Main environment echo early support she experienced growing up.
She recalls a summer her mother made lemon meringue pie after lemon meringue pie, working to perfect the recipe.
“I kind of do that too, I obsess,” said Denmark.
Her dad pushed her to go into culinary school, telling her that if she didn’t like it, she could try something else. Denmark wasn’t thinking of baking as a career at the time. Today, she’s grateful, doing what she loves.
Dishes she invents often have a nod to her childhood, she said: crab apple and sesame flavors, or Concord grape jam with hazelnut stemming from memories of peanut-butter and jelly, for example; or her cheesecake with raisin sourdough crisp with jam, amid memories of her aunt making toasted raisin-bread with cream cheese for breakfast.
At Ellie’s, her French macarons run the gamut of creativity and change often: everything from a Harry Potter-inspired macaron to a beach rose macaron, to those with Guinness Stout, pistachio, pumpkin or salted-caramel fillings.
“If we didn’t have something chocolate, it would upset a lot of people,” she said.
Fresh, local ingredients make a difference, said Denmark. It’s another area where she is involved, and somewhat out of her comfort zone.
Denmark and her wife started Moonrose Farm in Cranston last year, selling flowers and vegetables to restaurants and to community-supported agriculture members. With beekeeping, honey production is getting underway as well.
Owning a local farm brings Denmark full circle with the farm-to-oven-to-table process, where guests and customers at Ellie’s and Gracie’s benefit and find value.
She called farming “kind of humbling,” admitting she has a lot to learn. For guests of the bakery and restaurant, however, Denmark’s added knowledge, on top of her baking mastery, can only be a benefit.
“She has an amazing mind in exploring new techniques,” said Ellen Slattery, owner of Ellie’s Bakery and Gracie’s. “She is a gem in Rhode Island … and possibly all of New England.”
