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Photos by Morgan Levy
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How did your career as a chef begin?
I moved to the South from Philadelphia straight out of High School without much of a plan. I didn't have any career ambitions, or skills for that matter. I was just looking for some fun and adventure, and was hoping to get involved with the exciting southern DIY punk scene as a musician. Finding work was a necessity, not a passion. Through some musician friends, I landed a pretty cool position in the kitchen of a vegetarian cafe where they taught me the basics: how to hold a knife, set up a station and manage the lunch rush. I hated it! I hated cooking professionally at first and I wasn't especially talented at it either. But it was easy money and I was learning a skill, however begrudgingly. I didn't connect to food in a genuine way until folks from the cafe started inviting me to their potlucks where we could cook whatever we wanted and eat together in a community building sense. This unlocked something important for me. Seeing the way a meal could build safety, security, community and family rather than just fulfill a mindless need for sustenance was so inspiring. I started to show up at work in earnest hoping to learn how best I could roll pasta, build flavor in a soup, or roast a chicken. I wanted my food to be the best that it could be, not because I needed to be the best chef, but because I wanted to make my chosen family feel over-the-moon happy. I wanted to see them truly nourished. So, I caught the cooking bug. It took me on a wild ride through many different professional environments. Not all of the kitchens I cooked in embodied a spirit of generosity or care, and that was a tough reality to witness. Now I get to cook for people I really care about and create meaningful experiences for them everyday in a space that I love. HAGS is a full circle moment in my life and career.
Tell us about your East Village fine dining restaurant, HAGS!
HAGS is a special place. It's a super intimate, comfy little restaurant that exists purely to celebrate people through elaborate, fun and yummy meals. Whether you come for the 7 course tasting menu dinner or a Pay What You Can sliding brunch, HAGS works to ensure you leave in better shape than when you arrived. How you feel matters to us. How you want to feel matters to us. I try to cook in a way that feels like a hug.
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What’s your favorite part about the New York culinary community?
I love how supportive the New York culinary community is of niche concepts, outsized dreams and diversity. HAGS is a niche concept, and I often revel in how accepted we are by our fellow chefs and neighbors. I think we'd have a tougher time in a different community. Around the corner from HAGS there is a 100 year old Italian bakery, their owners come by and say "Hi" from time to time. They are sweet to us. They like to see the ways we contribute to the block. I buy cookies from them. When I go to the farmer's market, the farm stand worker will compliment me on my skirt. They aren't put off that I look so differently from them, they just want me to taste their fresh wasabi greens. Sometimes, I run into Brooks from Superiority Burger and we grieve how difficult it is running a restaurant in the 2020's - both of us knowing in our hearts that we are lucky to do such extremely specialized projects. What binds us all are our big, big dreams. In dreaming, we find a beautiful community.
We love that HAGS hosts weekly "Pay What You Can" meals at the restaurant. Can you tell us what inspired this model?
This sliding scale practice is not new. There are so many historical and contemporary examples to draw from. For us, we lifted this directly from our days hosting punk shows and potlucks. Often these events were donation based, free or on a sliding scale. That was such a common experience for me as a younger person that it didn't feel like a giant leap to bring it into HAGS. What I wasn't anticipating was how incredible it would feel to host these Pay What You Can services. On Sundays, the dining room feels full to bursting with warmth and genuine happiness. It's a salve to the rest of the work week. I leave brunch every week feeling renewed, grinning ear to ear.
Being a hyper-seasonal kitchen, how do you find inspiration for what to create using in-season produce?
Luckily, inspiration is easier to come by when you cook seasonally. For the most part, I can almost let the inspiration come to me rather than seeking it out. The chef team and I go to the Union Square Farmers market 3 days a week, and the produce we find at Norwich Meadows or Halal Pastures or Lani's Farm instructs us what we ought to do. Sometimes, there is a surprise waiting for me there. Like recently Halal Pastures had a bunch of fresh, in-the-shell peanuts. I never see these locally. They are abundant in the South and I have missed them so much. So of course I'm going to get as many as I can and show them off in the dining room. Every once in a while, the seasons give you a gift like that and if you know how to spot it then you don't need inspiration at all. It's almost more like luck. Other times, mid January for instance, the market feels bare and I have to remind myself to quiet my expectations. Those are times when it's important to day dream and read books, look at art, talk vulnerably with my friends. I think those things have a season also, just like produce. When I turn to them, inspiration flows.
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