The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
‘IT’S ALL OUR RECIPES’
Family to open barbecue restaurant on Winsted Road
TORRINGTON » Louis Gabriel, his son Zach, and his wife, Gina, are getting ready to open “Zach and Lou’s Barbecue” on Winsted Road and move from catering — including at the Main Street Marketplace — to a sit-down business.
Before all that, the Gabriel family had to eat a lot of macaroni-and-cheese, he said this week.
He had to get the recipe just right, and his family were the logical test subjects. So they partook in a small batches of variations on the classic — different cheeses with different flavors, different pastas. The process lasted for months, Gina Gabriel said.
But Lou Gabriel said it allowed him to settle on using large shells, which better cup and hold the cheese.
“We’re trial and error,” he said. “We want our own signature on things. We want to say that it’s ours.”
A love and passion for barbecue prompted the Gabriel family to go from holding backyard parties to running a catering businesses, and now, to open their own restaurant at the former Noujaim’s location at 2936 Winsted Road, just over five miles from the family’s Torrington home.
Gabriel said he first got into cooking as a way of carrying on family tradition — he wanted the chance to carry his aunt’s Italian recipes on into the future — and found that he enjoyed it.
He said the family held barbecues in the backyard, found that people responded, and began to take jobs catering for friends.
They bought a smoker, parlayed that into a catering and vending business, and Zach and Lou’s Barbecue was born. They’ve brought it all over the region, including at the Main Street Marketplace, and made fans over time, Lou Gabriel said.
He said the chicken is popular — they started with a
“We’re trial and error. We want our own signature on things. We want to say that it’s ours.”
— Lou Gabriel
chicken thigh, six ounces of beans, and a Big Y roll — and the “Porkzilla” was the top seller this year. That’s a layer of pork, a split sweet sausage link, bacon, coleslaw, and more pork, Lou said.
Zach Gabriel said Friday
he grew up cooking — it was natural in an Italian family — and went on to attend culinary school. He said that when the Gabriel family opened the catering business, he wasn’t a fan of barbecue — but that changed.
“When we started treating it like the art form it is, everything opened up for me,” said Zach.
Lou Gabriel readily
talked about the finer parts of barbecue.
For example, he said the family uses fruit wood for chicken and pork and hickory for beef — preferred choices to infuse the meat with flavor. He said there’s a “sweet-heat” aspect to their food, with multiple flavor profiles.
“We’re going to bring them food that they can’t get anywhere else, because
it’s all our recipes,” said Lou Gabriel. “For now, we want to bring excellent to people, and we want to have fun with people. It’s all about food and fun for us.”
The plan is to open the new restaurant in mid-September, beginning with the catering menu they know well, he said.
From there, they’re aiming to add weekly specials to the menu over time, and
maybe add live entertainment as well. Lou Gabriel said he’s excited to open the business, have the chance to experiment with food, and talk with people.
He said they’re a bit nervous, but had to take the risk — the time was right, and he didn’t want to leave any ‘what-ifs’ hanging out there in life.
“Can’t wait to start talking with everybody, joking with everybody, and certainly feeding everybody,” said Lou Gabriel. “Hope everybody likes what we do. They have on Main Street Market and everywhere else; I don’t see why this’ll be any different. Just looking to have fun.”
More information about Zach and Lou’s Barbecue is available on Facebook — www.facebook.com/zachlous.barbecue.