Chef brings his food to the city
By Christian Schiavone -- December 27, 2007CAMBRIDGE - By the time Jerome Picca was in high school, he knew he wanted to be a chef. His passion for cooking took him to the Culinary Institute of America before going on to work for famed New Orleans chef Susan Spicer.
At the age of 23, Picca became the youngest instructor at the Culinary Institute of Washington in Washington, D.C., where his boyish looks often caused him to be mistaken for a student. Picca then headed several restaurants in Concord, Harvard and Bolton including the Seasoned Chef, the West Concord Depot and Jerome’s at the Nashoba Valley Winery.
Most recently, Picca and his wife Stephanie Rossi, who live in Boxborough, opened Small Plates restaurant in Harvard Square in Cambridge. The 65-seat restaurant builds on traditional tapas — multiple appetizer-sized portions coupled to form a meal — by adding a mix of flavors from Asian, Mediterranean and American cuisine.
Many of the items on the constantly changing menu are made from locally grown produce and cheese and organically raised meat. Dishes on the current menu include jerk chicken with a papaya, pepper and onion salsa, nut crusted duck breast with Dijon molasses and fig compote and a ginger peach bread pudding with southern Wild Turkey sauce for dessert.
During a recent interview on a snowy Thursday afternoon, the entrance to the restaurant, down a small alley from John F. Kennedy Street, was almost hidden by two sizeable snow banks. But inside, amidst the cream-colored walls and white linen tablecloths, the restaurant was warm and inviting.
Picca prides himself on providing affordability, culinary innovation and a relaxed environment. The kitchen doors are left open so customers can see their food being prepared and are even welcome to stop in and give their compliments to the chef personally.
Picca spoke to The Beacon recently about his experience as a chef and the progress his new restaurant has already made.
Q: When did you open? The restaurant is still pretty new, right?
A: Yup, we opened at the end of October, so it’s a little over a month and a half. I actually used to have my own business called the Seasoned Chef, which was in Concord. I started in West Concord and I ran the West Concord Depot, food services for the Concord Museum, the Fruitlands Museum, Shaker Hills Golf Course and Nashoba Valley Winery. A lot of people will probably remember the Seasoned Chef. Actually, we had a customer here shortly after we opened and she remembered me from when I had the restaurant at the Fruitlands Museum as part of my business and that’s going back more than 10 years ago. She said the food was great then and it’s even better now, which is absolutely amazing. My wife Stephanie and I, we opened Oct. 28.
Q: How have things been since then?
A: It’s always difficult with a new restaurant, it’s always challenging, but we’re in a good location. There was a restaurant here that served tapas that was very successful, he was here for 45 years and so we are basically riding on his coattails to some extent because people remember that there was a restaurant here that served tapas, now we’re serving tapas and they’re coming. … We’ve found that we have regulars, which I can’t believe — after a month and a half we have regulars. The neighbors have been very supportive. What I’ve found about Harvard Square is that even though it’s Harvard Square and in a metropolis and very international and transient group of people, it’s also a small town. It’s very much like Concord. Everybody knows everybody and everybody knows what everybody’s business is. … People come in here, they love the food, they love the fact that they can order just a couple things and they can get in and out for less than $20, they don’t have to pay $25 or $30 for just an entrée, $12 for an appetizer and $10 for a glass of wine. They feel welcome here. It’s very open, we keep the kitchen door open because I want people to see that we have nothing to hide. We’re very professional.
Q: Tell me a little bit about your menu?
A: We came in with the concept of doing tapas but rather than doing Spanish tapas, we wanted to world cuisine, international, new American tapas. So if you look at our menu it’s really quite a variety of things. Some of the things are from other countries, we’ve Americanized the names so that it’s recognizable to people. The ingredients are not native to this country, they’re not commonly combined with combined Asian and American and French influences, so there’s really a mélange of flavors on the menu. Also, my kitchen crew is very mixed when it comes to their ethnicity. My junior sous-chef is from Indonesia, one of my apprentices, while he’s American, he spent several years in Italy and Belgium, so he brings the Italian and Belgian and French influence. My background is I’m half English and half Malaysian on my father’s side so I bring a lot of English influence.
Q: Tapas is kind of the “in” thing in restaurants now, isn’t it?
A: The funny thing is that the whole concept of small plates has really taken off in this country. I had no idea we are part of that wave. I’m not trying to ride that wave because we started our concept back in May when the opportunity to take over this place first came up. We took it over at the end of May and we knew given the space, given the history and given the fact that … people don’t want to go out and spend $100 for dinner that I really wanted to go the route of small plates. I really wanted to have the opportunity to play with the food, too. Having small plates means you can change them very often and very quickly. You can respond very rapidly to what’s happening in the market place with agriculture, with seafood, with meat, versus entrees. When you have a have a typical restaurant with appetizers, entrees and desserts it’s much harder to respond to changes to the market place. We can change our menu from one day to the next, completely revamp it and be ready to go. We have already changed five or six items on the menu that have come and gone and we’ve rotated them in and out because the weather is changing, because of availability of ingredients, because we wanted to try something new. We like to play with our food. … This is actually the third iteration of our menu and we’ve only been open a month and a half.
Q: How did you get into cooking to begin with?
A: It’s always been an interest of mine. I’ve wanted to be a chef when I was in high school and I knew I was going to go to CIA. I’ve been in the business 30 years now. I started when I was 15 as a dishwasher and I’m 46 now. It was a toss up between being a chef and being an artist and I figured artists don’t make any money unless they’re dead but chefs can make money as soon as they graduate from culinary school. At this point in my career I’m spending half of my time in the kitchen and half of my time managing. Really, my full-time days of cooking behind a hot stove are behind me. Now I’m training the next generation.