How will chef changes affect these three popular restaurants?
Three restaurants — Legume in Oakland, Scratch Food and Beverage in Troy Hill and The Vandal in Lawrenceville — say hello to new head chefs, part of the industry’s standard staff rotations that may be ratcheted up by a tightening labor market that’s especially affecting restaurants.
Legume will have its first chef de cuisine outside of those who have risen in the ranks working for chef owner Trevett Hooper, with Csilla Thackray of The Vandal taking over the kitchen in the next couple of weeks, Mr. Hooper said.
Legume is the most tailored of the three restaurants run by Mr. Hooper and his wife, Sarah Hooper, and has turned out head chefs such as Jamilka Borges, now overseeing the kitchens at the trio of restaurants that includes Independent Brewing Company in Squirrel Hill, as well as Thomas Lonardo, now executive chef at Eliza Bistro at The Hotel Indigo in Oakland.
The Hoopers’ other restaurants include The Butterjoint and the newly opened daytime-only spot, Pie for Breakfast, both of which flank Legume.
Ms. Thackray has been with The Vandal since it opened three years ago. This past year, she was a semifinalist for Eater Young Guns, which gives shoutouts to progressive industry folks under age 30 in restaurants around the country.
Ms. Thackray’s move provides an opportunity for the owner of The Vandal, Joey Hilty, to switch up the menu to offer some of the casual fare he envisioned when the restaurant debuted as a counter-service place, he said. Fried chicken sandwiches and mac and cheese, beets and stracciatella, kale salad and cheeseburgers made their way onto early Vandal menus.
The recent acquisition of a liquor license late summer has allowed the restaurant to pivot from what started as a daytime cafe to a full dinner spot. Mr. Hilty and his business partner Emily Slagel are also behind The Bureau, the coffee house at Schoolhouse Pittsburgh in East Liberty that opened in October.
Over at Scratch in Troy Hill, Chris O’Brien has taken over the kitchen. He most recently was with the Richard DeShantz Restaurant Group, which includes the newly opened Fish Nor Fowl in Garfield and Poulet Bleu in Lawrenceville.
Before that, he was chef at the now closed Poros in Market Square as well as the also defunct Restaurant Echo, where he worked with Brian Hammond in Cranberry. The other half of that duo, Brian Hammond, is on the North Side, having opened Siempre Algo on East Ohio Street earlier this year.
Mr. O’Brien left the DeShantz Group in early January and has headed to Scratch to assemble a menu of snacks like marinated olives, mushrooms, tonnato crostino and linguica sausage; a vegetable short list that, for now, lists fennel with pear, hazelnut and Gorgonzola, pickled beets or broccoli; and large plates like pasta with ricotta, egg and walnuts, pan-roasted chicken and a daily fish. Prices are $4 to $9 for snacks, $7 for more substantive vegetable plates, and $37 for a New York strip.
The bar menu has its own listings like salt-and-vinegar chips, pork rinds and a burger on a brioche bun. Prices for that menu are $4 to $14.