When was the last time you had an in-depth conversation with one of the nation’s up-and-coming chefs? Never, because whenever you see one, he or she is hip-deep in calamari, fluke, lamb, root vegetables and the like, making sure patrons are happy and are planning their return trips.
In this week’s issue staff writer Emily Gowdey-Backus sat down with Benjamin Sukle, the owner of birch and Oberlin, two Providence restaurants that have made national waves in their brief lives, and what she learned reveals not only what motivates the 32-year-old Johnson & Wales University graduate, but what connects him to one of the defining characteristics of the Rhode Island culinary scene – its connection to local farms and fishers.
As it would happen, our restaurant-scene columnist, Bruce Newbury, speaks to that issue in this week’s issue as well, noting with ample evidence that pioneering chefs were visiting local farms three decades ago. Some of them established relationships with the farmers that allowed them to go into the fields and pick the produce they wanted.
For his part, Mr. Sukle’s approach belies the stereotype of the esoteric chef forcing adventurous (and maybe disastrous) dishes down the throats of paying customers. “I’m not trying to make people try things they don’t want,” he said in the interview. It’s a locally based, customer-centric approach that any smart businessperson can recognize and appreciate. And it makes his success understandable.