Four chefs who’ve moved between top local restaurants share their thoughts on what’s working — and what’s still to come.
What’s the state of Happy Valley’s food scene? This Restaurant Week, we’ll hear from diners as they taste their way through dozens of offerings. From classic to creative, casual to gourmet, and simply delicious to delightfully over the top, this year’s entrees, appetizers, cocktails, mocktails, and desserts showcase an exceptional variety of dishes. The view from the table end of things certainly alludes to a scene that covers a whole lot of tasty territory.
But what’s it look like from the kitchen end? To find out, we talked with a handful of chefs who have recently moved from one local restaurant to another. Because who better to speak to the behind the scenes of our local food scene than those who’ve had a peek behind multiple culinary curtains?
In talking with chefs John Clickner (Gigi’s Southern Table to Federal Taphouse), Alex Singh (American Alehouse to Allen Street Grill), Tony Caracillo (Red Horse Tavern to Alloy Kitchen at Titan Hollow), and Andrew Maines (Happy Valley Brewing Company and Pine Grove Hall to Central Reservation), we got to hear about what’s working here in Happy Valley, what they think is missing, and what makes our area special.
So what’s working?
Alloy Kitchen’s Tony Caracillo said, “We have a lot of really passionate restaurant owners and chefs who are driving the scene and it elevates everyone to want to be better and more creative. You can taste whether or not someone cared when they put your dish together.”
A chef whose culinary journey started at age 16 in the kitchen at Cici’s Pizza, took him to Otto’s where he worked his way through every station, to Arizona where he learned from high-level chefs in high-pressure award-winning restaurants, back to Central PA where he partnered with Happy Valley Chef, and then to Red Horse Tavern, Raising Canes, and now, to Alloy Kitchen, Caracillo’s learned a range of skills from a whole lot of teachers.
Some of those teachers had more… unorthodox… methods. He had one chef in an especially competitive high-end Arizona kitchen throw a menu at him on day one and tell him to figure out how to make everything that came off of his station, making it clear that he was easily replaceable if he wasn’t up to the task.
While motivating in the moment and overall an environment that he credits with making him the chef he is today, Tony also picked up a softer set of food skills outside of restaurant kitchens, watching his dad prepare simple dishes fresh from his garden. “His tomato cucumber salad with red wine vinegar was the most amazing thing but so simple and I think that’s really important. You want to highlight flavors but you don’t want to mask them. One thing that he definitely showed me was to cook with love.”
After his dad passed in 2010, Tony threw everything into cooking. And now, because of what kitchens have done for him in his own life, he’s working to turn Alloy Kitchen into a space that’s nurturing and where young chefs can come in and learn. “I will never yell because I know what that feels like. You can do so much more with positivity than with negativity. In order to really pull off something great, you really have to build your team and you’ve gotta have people who want to be there, who want to work with you and be involved. You need to nurture their creativity and you need to look for talent, because you can build that.”
Chef John Clickner, who joined the Federal Taphouse team last summer after 10 years at Gigi’s, knows it’s all about the people, too.
“I love the people here. The people are the best.”
Like Caracillo, he also understands the value of nurturing the next generation of culinary professionals and would love to see more culinary retention in the area. He said that State High’s Culinary Program and the apprenticeship program that his own restaurant is working on are both helping with that. “There is a career here in State College for people.”
Clickner is also focused on quality, trying to bring a fine dining flair to the Taphouse menu. “We want to make sure the food is fantastic, follow the seasons, and get everything as close to local as we can get it.”
When fine dining in Happy Valley is the topic of conversation, a mention of Allen Street Grill is likely not far away. After five years heading up the kitchen at Alehouse, Chef Alex Singh is relishing the wiggle room he has to play with dishes at one of State College’s most consistently impressive restaurants.
Like Caracillo and Clickner, he also recognizes that restaurants around town are raising the bar, trying to bring elements of big city food scenes to the area, and travels to Chicago, Miami, and New York to gather inspiration to bring back to his kitchen.
And with front and back of house staff that Singh says truly treat each other like family, we’re getting the impression that when great food comes out of supportive, collaborative kitchens, it’s not by coincidence.
The playfulness and creative freedom of Allen Street Grill’s kitchen is a quality that Central Reservation’s Chef Andrew Maines values in his kitchen as well. Especially in the summer. “Summertime’s fun for me and we get to do fun things that are more time consuming that we can’t do during football season.”
After taking over four different restaurants that share one kitchen this past January (Maines is leading the way at Local Whiskey, Ernie’s, and the Phyrst in addition to Central Reservation), he’s finding ways to make things his own while maintaining the high standards he inherited from Chef John Forshey after the latter departed for Millheim’s Elk Creek Café.
“It’s interesting coming in behind someone like John, where the food was all top notch, instead of coming in and having to put out a bunch of fires. Foodwise, everything was working smoothly and my goal is to keep that standard.”
So what did we hear from these chefs who’ve been behind the scenes in so many of our local kitchens?
“The local restaurant scene is thriving.”
“One thing that’s great about this town is that it’s always ready for collaboration.”
“We have so much of everything – little pizza shops that are incredible, the breweries, the distilleries.”
“Competition isn’t a bad thing – we cover a lot of bases.”
And while they’ve each got a few things on the list of what they’d like to see more of in the area — More street food! A traditional Italian place downtown! High quality seafood! — the overarching feeling is one of confidence in the Happy Valley food scene and pride in all that it has to offer those of us who are lucky enough to visit or call this area home.
