‘Chopped’ star Xavier Santiago new culinary director of The Place 2 Be
Food Network star will work out of West Hartford restaurant
Xavier Santiago, a winner in Season 41 of the Food Network reality show “Chopped,” is the new culinary director of The Place 2 Be.
Santiago will work from the newest location of the brunch-and-cocktails eatery in West Hartford’s Blue Back Square. Santiago will help roll out new menu items for that location and the two in Hartford, as well as the upcoming location in New Haven, The Place 2 Be has announced.
Gina Luari, CEO of The Place 2 Be, said Santiago “will take whatever we have and just elevate it with better ingredients ... creating new ideas with it.”
“He’s created a really fun churro-stuffed
French toast, which is French toast smothered in powdered sugar and cinnamon and deep fried with a churro on top and stuffed with churro filling,” Luari said. The churro-stuffed French toast will debut next week.
Other changes to the menu, she said, include a Fruity Pebbles French toast, Baked Alaska French toast, crème brulee pancakes and a wide assortment of avocado toasts.
Luari said the New Haven location, currently in development, is at 338 Elm St., in the location once occupied by Box 63, which closed as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. “It’ll have two floors. We’re adding a second-floor patio courtyard,” she said, projecting an opening in January.
Santiago, a native of Puerto Rico who now lives in Newington, has been executive chef at Carbone’s Prime, chef de cuisine at David Burke Prime and Caputo Trattoria at Foxwoods Resort Casino and executive chef at Trattoria Toscana, Barcelona Wine
Bar and Rooftop 120.
He said although his previous jobs have been at restaurants that focused on dinner, he was attracted to The Place 2 Be because “working with eggs is a craft.’’
“In French history, if you want to call yourself a cook, you have to be able to cook the perfect omelet, poached egg, fried egg. Egg cookery is something you have to master and there are a lot of chefs out there who call themselves chefs who can’t do an egg to save their lives,” he said.
He added that the hours at the restaurants — closing at 8 p.m. in West Hartford, 7 p.m. in downtown Hartford and 5 p.m. on Franklin Avenue — will give him more time with his wife and two children. “I want more time with my family. That’s never happened before. I always worked night times,” he said.