Rhode Island moments to savor

Everyone has had a Rhode Island “moment.” You’re in a faraway city, don’t know a soul, and you find yourself in a café on some crowded street. You strike up a conversation with a total stranger at the bar and find that the person you’ve just become acquainted with is a nephew of the daughter of your next-door neighbor in Rhode Island.
During my visit to Stowe, Vt., earlier this summer, in addition to finding two chefs at the same food event who started out in Providence, I was in the village general store at 8 a.m., on Saturday morning, anticipating taking in some local conversation. What I got was “Hey, by any chance, do you carry the Providence daily paper?” in an all-too-familiar accent from a vacationer who couldn’t get away from the Ocean State.
Like so many other aspects of our lives, the restaurant community here has its own share of Rhode Island moments. The classic moment involves someone’s family tree. And so it went at the new sidewalk café at Temple Downtown Restaurant and Lounge in the Renaissance Providence Hotel opposite the Statehouse. Vincent Lo Buono, of Cranston, just took over as general manager of the restaurant, named for its surroundings in what was intended to be a Masonic Temple.
Lo Buono’s move to Providence was actually a homecoming. Having worked for Todd English Enterprises since 2002, he was the general manager of Tuscany, the Todd English property at the Mohegan Sun Casino. In addition, Lo Buono moved all over the Todd English empire, with stints at the celebrity chef’s restaurants, including Kingfish Hall, Figs and Olives in and around Boston, Ca Va Brasserie in Times Square and The Plaza Food Hall at the Plaza Hotel in New York City.
His tenure included stops at the company’s restaurant outposts in Las Vegas and Boca Raton, Fla. As it happens, he started his restaurant career on Federal Hill. And having gotten recently married – to a Rhode Islander – he found it to be in his new family’s best interest to return home. But his reason could as well have been the result of the influence of family members going further back than that. As he told me at lunch during Providence Restaurant Week, his family ties were even more binding. His uncle is Nino d’Urso, the beloved chef at Capriccio for so many years. Uncle Nino is well-enjoying retirement in warmer climes and giving nephew Vincent and those at his table a Rhode Island moment. Recently, The New York Times caught up with Wylie Dufresne of cutting-edge restaurant WD-50 in New York. The topic? Guilty pleasures in the chef’s pantry. In Dufresne’s case it was blocks of Land O’Lakes American cheese to snack on. [An aside – I elicited a confession on that subject from Domenic Ierfino, chef-owner of Roma on Federal Hill, who sponsors my radio show. He keeps on hand the real Italian Nutella – the hazelnut and chocolate spread. The import is made with real sugar.]
The Rhode Island moment about Dufresne is that he is the son of “Dewey” Dufresne, of the old Joe’s Upstairs that was located in the Thayer Street area in Providence. But that’s not all. The elder Dufresne’s eatery was the first restaurant to employ George Germon and Johanne Killeen of Al Forno fame. So Wylie scores a double Rhode Island moment.
At Farmstead and La Laiterie, chef-proprietor Matt Jennings has a parting gift for staffers who leave his bistro and cheese shop on the East Side. It’s not luggage. His gift? A Heath Bar cake from Gregg’s. Now here is a James Beard-nominated chef who is married to a pastry chef and baker. Between them they could create amazing, memorable dishes drawing from any number of sources. But they choose just as we do night after night, to visit an iconic Rhode Island restaurant. What a Rhode Island moment. &#8226


Bruce Newbury’s food and wine talk radio show is heard Saturdays and Sundays locally on WPRV-AM 790, on radio throughout New England and on the Stitcher mobile application. He can be reached by email at bruce@brucenewbury.com.

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