Farewell Chez Pascal
photo credit: Deb Hickey (debhickey.com)
The restaurant Chez Pascal was located in a weird spot, on the corner of Hope and Ninth Streets in Providence…right in the middle of a residential neighborhood and diagonally across from a large park. The building is “mid-size” as far as restaurants go, with…I’m guessing…about 80-100 seats. The single-story building is almost diminutive amidst all the three-story homes, and there’s no parking except for what you can find on the street. It wasn’t a “bad location” by any means, but choosing to have a restaurant in this building, at this location, says something about the goals of the owners. To be successful, you’d need to rely on foot traffic and the tolerance of neighbors to allow parking to spill into their quiet streets. You’d also have to develop a following, a group of “regulars” who would keep the wheels spinning during slower months. You’d need to develop real relationships that meant something to both the staff and the people that came to eat or just have a drink at the bar. In short, you’d need to become much more than a great place to eat, you’d need to become part of the neighborhood.
About 20 years ago, Matt and Kristin Gennuso moved from Boston to Providence. The way I heard it, they met at Hamersley’s…a fixture in the South End, and then worked separately at a couple of other nice places around Boston before deciding to make the big move and start their own. Matt was “back of house” and Kristin was “front of house.” Matt’s approach to food was (and still is) heavily French influenced and the concepts of Chez Pascal’s early menus put forward an upscale bistro vibe that leaned on perfect execution of classics like escargot, onion soup, mussels, and charcuterie (oh, the duck liver paté!). In short time, Matt had full command of what Rhode Island’s food purveyors have to offer, and locally sourced seafood and meats began to take center stage on the menu. It was a rock solid foundation in the back of the house, able to push forward both familiar and unfamiliar dishes with techniques that drew out flavors sometimes segmented and layered across the plate, and other times slow-cooked into a singular explosion across the entirety of the palate in one bite.
In the front of the house, the welcome and warmth of Kristin and her team was set against the cozy colors of three small dining areas and a beautiful European bar at the front of the building. I never chatted a lot with Kristin (I’m just not a chatty person) but from my seat at the bar I watched her handle all kinds of situations with overly demanding customers and super busy nights (and even myself staying longer than I was supposed to). There were several nights when I saw things were close to getting out of hand. It’s the nature of the business. The phone would be ringing off the hook, patrons were backed up at the front door, people had ordered food that was no longer available, the kitchen staff was grumpy, wine was being delivered to the wrong tables, and then a glass would shatter in the dining room. These are the nights where you see what a staff is made of. Do they crumble? Or do they pull together and even find a few excuses to laugh it off? For the staff, Kristin was always able to provide perspective and grace. For the patrons, she always had time for an extra minute, an authentic exchange, whatever was needed to make each customer feel they were valued. Kristin brought a deep well of patience to the dining room, but was always good for a secret, biting piece of commentary on some difficult customer that would give the staff a good laugh just at the right time.
The food concept at Chez Pascal branched out quite a bit over the years. The foundation of the French bistro concept stayed in place, but Matt’s connection both to local food and the neighborhood continued to grow in ways that were sometimes masterful, sometimes whimsical. Several years ago, a Chez Pascal hot dog cart appeared out of the blue across the street in the park. During the day, while the restaurant was closed and the cooks were prepping, the cart sold some seriously delicious hot dogs will all sorts of homemade fancy toppings. I remember thinking this was just something innocent and fun, a way to connect with the folks in the park and break through any perceptions that this was “just a fancy bistro.” But one thing quickly led to another and a hot dog cart became Hewtin’s Dogs food truck, selling some of the best sandwiches in the city. Pork butt pastrami and bacon wrapped meatloaf were two decadent stars of the menu that helped lay the foundation for yet another stage of evolution…
…because it didn’t stop there. You see, if you’ve ever known great chefs, one of the common threads is a tendency toward obsession. Something takes hold in the brain of a chef and they just can’t let it go. For Matt, the hot dog cart and food truck had ignited a love affair with homemade sausage and, after retiring the truck with only a couple of years of service, the Wurst Kitchen was born. In an amazing display of resourcefulness, Matt and Kristin literally installed a new open kitchen at the front of the restaurant. They replaced a few dining room tables with a renovated “shared space” dining area and tiny service bar. The food was essentially an expanded version of the food truck menu and included an array of ever-changing sausages that gave diners a window into how a chef experiments and develops as a craftsman. Renovations with this concept also included a takeout service window connecting the tiny new kitchen directly to the street outside. It was a stroke of genius, providing yet another way for the neighborhood to connect with Chez Pascal. Can’t make it in for a meal? No problem, just step up to the window and grab some of the best lamb shawarma you’ve ever had…see you soon!
A sample of plates that looked simple, but there was nothing simple about the flavor profile on plates coming out of the Wurst Kitchen.
photo credit Deb Hickey (debhickey.com)
Chez Pascal, like so many restaurants, had to face the terrible reality of COVID-19. I never had a chance to speak with Kristin and Matt about this chapter in their restaurant’s story. But like so many others, I know it was a story of “innovate and adapt” or close your doors for good. I imagine the stress was unbearable, watching your staff slowly come to the realization that the dining room will be closed indefinitely. In an effort to stay afloat, Matt and Kristin moved to on-line service, creating a menu that lent itself better to takeout, while embracing a high-end comfort food approach that was so sorely needed by its patrons. Day by day, meal by meal, Chez Pascal stayed open. After the dark winter of 2021 and the gut punch of Omicron, Chez Pascal emerged intact and it is no exaggeration to say this restaurant was a symbol of rebirth for the neighborhood and everyone who couldn’t wait to “get back to Chez.”
This is where Chez Pascal was, at the height of its power, when Matt and Kristin got a call. Apparently, the Culinary Institute of America (CIA, where Matt went to school) has a school in Singapore. A position opened to teach charcuterie, and Matt got the offer. And just like that, Chez Pascal was closing. It was a serious blow to the neighborhood and the community that had grown around this establishment. Of course, everyone who loves Matt and Kristin was excited for their next chapter, but the sense of loss was palpable. At their closing party, with the restaurant filled with friends, people celebrated the new life Matt and Kristin were going to experience, and talked about all of the wonderful nights at the bar and their favorite dish they would miss most. As I sat there looking around the space, reflecting on my years in the business, I couldn’t help but feel the weight of this moment for this couple.
Let’s do a mental exercise if you’ll indulge me. Imagine you commit to putting a three-course meal on the table every night for the next two weeks…maybe for your family or close friends. Serve every individual something different and make sure everything is perfectly cooked, perfectly presented, and perfectly timed. You’d have access to all the ingredients you need and even a highly skilled helper in the kitchen. But the expectation from your friends and family would be nothing less than excellence every night for two weeks. Every plate, every presentation, the experience of every evening…you need to make it singularly special. Imagine the level of effort it would take for you to pull that off for just two weeks with just four or five people in your dining room.
Now there are obvious flaws with this comparison. People like Matt and Kristin were built for this sort of thing and have years of training. They have access to staff and equipment. But that’s not the point…trying to truly understand the relentless attention to detail that’s required is worth a moment of your time. What I want people to pause and contemplate is the almost unimaginable human investment it takes to run a restaurant like this for almost 20 years. To say the least, the level of commitment is way beyond what most people will ever experience in their careers. A back-of-the-envelope calculation suggests this team provided something in the range of 5,000 nights of service…maybe just shy of a half million people…probably over a million plates. And while the Wurst Kitchen wasn’t the most complicated food to put out, the main kitchen was serving most of the fare, and those plates often required enormous skill. Bavette steaks, fresh codfish, crepes, duck breast, and farm-to-table pork…every cut and every side dish needing to be cooked perfectly, in sync with the rest of the kitchen, within the flow of the waitstaff, complementary to the bartender, and on demand from the customer. When 15 staff members in a high end restaurant are serving a full dining room at full tilt, the complexity of tasks occurring in those hours of service is a ballet of organized chaos. And for those of us who have been a part of it, when it’s running like a Swiss watch, it’s an adrenaline high that’s hard to describe.
But with all the satisfaction that comes with good restaurant work, the demands on the mind, spirit, and the body in this business are enormous. Frankly, I’m amazed at how physically healthy Matt and Kristin appear to be after all this time. From an outsider’s perspective, the fact their marriage is intact is cause for celebration in itself and speaks to their shared passion, and how grounded these individuals are as human beings. (I’ve seen more than one marriage break under the weight of this industry.) What this couple delivered to the neighborhood and the Providence community is nothing short of miraculous and what they gave of themselves cannot be quantified. Nothing is perfect every night of the week, but the consistently amazing experience at Chez Pascal over an extended period is nearly impossible to achieve in such a demanding and fickle industry. Kristin and Matt moved into this neighborhood almost 20 years ago, opened their hearts, and worked their butts off so that we could meet new people and eat great food. How many of us truly get to say we made our corner of the world a better place? Kristin and Matt did just that, and I want to say “thank you” with all my heart.
Safe travels and great adventures to you both.
again…photo credit to the wonderful Deb Hickey.