Category: Massachusetts Chefs

The Commonwealth should be recognized for its culinary excellence. But behind the thousands of great restaurants, you have someone who has a vision, unmatched skills, and a palate that allows for creativity and excellence. These are some of Massachusetts’s Chefs and the stories about how they have gotten to where they are today.

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Chef Jacob Bowser’s Nose-To-Tail Eating At The Urban Kitchen

Chef Jacob Bowser from The Urban Kitchen on Shrewsbury Street in Worcester

The Urban Kitchen and Bar, which opened for business this January, bills itself an “American Brasserie.” That means two things for Executive Chef Jacob Bowser: Brasserie for the relaxed, lively, convivial feeling of the space and American for the food, which Bowser calls “a melting pot of flavors” deeply rooted in French and Italian techniques.

“You could call what I do refined comfort food,” says Bowser, who trained at the French Culinary Institute and with some of the top chefs in New York City. “For me it is very important to maintain that refinement. Comfort food is delicious but that’s really about the quantity of food put on a plate. We have to get away from quantity as a measure of quality. We put more touches on our food to make things interesting and deliver value in the experience, quality, and refinement we bring to it.”

For Bowser refined doesn’t mean fancy but twists on the most simple and rustic dishes. Even the Urban Kitchen’s pastas are not classic red-sauce Italian dishes. They start with fresh pasta Bowser’s fiancé makes using the skills she acquired as a chef in New York City. Then, Bowser creates dishes that draw on his passion for mixing flavors and defying diners’ expectations: A tortellini filled with duck and cooked with Brussels sprouts and shallots, a potato ravioli served with caramelized onions.

Bowser calls his salsify clam chowder “the best idea” of this approach. He takes the base of a classic New England Clam Chowder but uses salsify – a white root vegetable similar to a carrot that complements the clams’ sweetness – to thicken the broth. Combined with the other flavors and vegetables you expect from the chowder and finished with local clams and a little bacon, it is fresh and familiar yet a little different, right down to the oyster crackers, which are baked in house.

“It’s not about being different,” says Bowser. “It’s about how we can make what has already been there forever better. I’m not reinventing the wheel just putting our touch on things.”

That starts with not only an idea but also great ingredients, which are seasonally focused and hopefully more and more local and sustainable, a point Bowser makes while standing in front of his “Living Lettuce” – small greens grown in the kitchen and cut fresh before being served. For Bowser, this is not a gimmick but ties into the quality of life he seeks in returning to Massachusetts. (Bowser hails from Leominster and lives in the woods in Sterling.)

“The beautiful part about Worcester is there are so many small farms around us that we can get cheese or seasonal produce from. Why do we need to get apples from Chile if we live in New England? We get our fish straight from the piers, not purveyors. You can’t just keep buying things from big corporations and ignore what we have here. It’s important to do our part for where I want to live and work in now.”

That’s why Bowser also plans to do “nose-to-tail” cooking at Urban Kitchen & Bar, eventually bringing in whole pigs and using the familiar cuts for dishes and the extra bits for house made charcuterie – something few chefs in Massachusetts are doing.

Bowser hopes to make people a little more open minded to offal. Maybe not brains, he adds, but chicken liver, beef tongue, or a venison pâté de campagne (country terrine) that features pistachios and duck liver. “I know it is going to be hard and a bit of a challenge to sell that but it’s delicious and the people who have it really enjoy it.”

For Bowser, that’s the biggest compliment a diner can give him – to appreciate what he does, understand what the food connects to, and have an experience that interests and inspires as much as it satisfies: “I am doing what I love. Food is it is the only art form that requires all five senses. You don’t really want to smell and taste a painting. The intuition and process of satisfying all those senses for people – that is the most fun for me.”

Editor’s Note: Executive Chef Jacob Bowser left the Urban in June 2015.

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Chef Michael Muscarella: The Man Behind The Burgers

Chef Michael Muscarella from The Fix Burger Bar on Shrewsbury Street in Worcester, MA

The man behind the burgers just might be one of Worcester’s most unlikely chefs.

Michael Muscarella, chef at The Fix Burger Bar on Shrewsbury Street, began his professional life about as far away from the kitchen as you can get. With a marketing degree, Muscarella was an inside sales manager for a company that dealt in heavy machinery — excavators, wheel loaders and the like.

“I was good at it and the money was good, but I just wasn’t happy with it,” Muscarella says.

So, he threw it all away and did something radical. Muscarella enrolled at Salter College to study culinary arts. He’d always loved food, but until that pivotal moment had never considered making it his life. He’d already spent a quarter of a million on his marketing degree, so he sidestepped the big culinary arts schools. But he wanted some education before jumping in. Then, when a friend of his became the general manager at the Whistling Swan in Sturbridge, Muscarella got his first taste of working in the kitchen. It’s a make it or break it industry, but Muscarella was a quick learn. And Whistling Swan led to his next job, and a formative experience at that — working in The People’s Kitchen under then-chef Bill Nemeroff.

“For me, that was awesome,” the 37-year-old Muscarella recalls. “TPK was doing a new menu every week. They were throwing everything away and starting over.”

It was a learning environment — the kind that demanded creativity — and the standards were high. When Nemeroff went on to head up Ceres Bistro, then under the management of Niche Hospitality Group, located at the Beechwood Hotel, Muscarella went with him. That’s when Niche’s Michael Covino approached Muscarella about a new venture. The concept was simple, but required the right flare — a restaurant devoted to burgers.

“So, burgers are a really classic dish. It’s an iconic American dish. And it’s a great dish,” Muscarella says. “It’s ground beef, soft bun, french fries, you only have a couple of ingredients, but because so many people have experienced it, you have an opinion about it — a fairly informed opinion. So, any sort of dish like that I feel that it’s really difficult to get just right.”

With a population full of burger experts, nearly everyone has a place they think has the best burger they’ve ever eaten, Muscarella says. His goal has been to make The Fix that place.

So, what does make a good burger? For The Fix’s chef, it’s a flat top burger — cooked on a griddle rather than a grill, allowing the meat to cook in the fat.

“I want a little bit of crust, good seasoning, a solid quality piece of meat,” Muscarella says. “It’s all about the texture. Just enough crust.”

The Fix’s burgers run just under a half inch in thickness. From there, the options are robust — 20 to 30 different toppings, 15 different sauces.

It’s a simple food, honed to perfection.

“Just because something is more complicated and more difficult to make does not mean it is necessarily better,” Muscarella says. “I really enjoy this concept because of the kind of vibe it has. It’s not super expensive. It’s comfortable. We have interesting food, really great cocktails. I find that more interesting. I’m not interested in what super-rich people are eating.”

The Fix Burger Bar has an extensive menu of not only meats, but fixin's.The concept is spelled out clearly right on The Fix’s website: “The Fix menu is designed to make you feel good. We think juicy burgers, cold beers, house-made sodas and spiked shakes do just that.”

It’s the perfect challenge for the one-time sales manager turned chef. Working with a small crew in the kitchen, Muscarella enjoys the fact that the success of the food is up to him and his team.

“If we want to start serving eel burgers then we can do that,” He says.

They don’t serve eel burgers (yet), although The Fix has offered up bison burgers, lamb burgers, duck burgers, wild boar burgers — yes, there’s a house-made veggie burger, too. The most popular is the crunchy burger, made with lettuce, fried prosciutto, parmesan crisp, potato chips, garlic mayo, mustard pickle and served on a sesame roll.

When it comes right down to it, the food, the atmosphere — Muscarella’s whole reason for jumping into the long-hours and hard work of the restaurant business — it all has to be deliciously fun.

“Why is it so great?” Muscarella asks. “Because it is so great. You’re going to have tasks that look almost insurmountable — like the wheels might fall off tonight, but somehow you pull it together … this happens all the time … you pull it together and make it.”

The Fix is located at 166 Shrewsbury St., the former location of Mezcal.

House Grind Burger with Focaccia Roll from The Fix on Shrewsbury Street in Worcester, MA
House Grind Burger with Focaccia Roll from The Fix on Shrewsbury Street in Worcester, MA