Cherished, quirky Albany diner dies
Jim Ullom, the city ’s best restaurant customer, has died.
Ullom looked like Ben Franklin. He ate and drank like John Falstaff. He wanted. Things. Done. Certain. Ways. He could be abrupt, awkward or even rude in conversation. He’d mutter under his breath if rowdy young people crowded around where he was seated at a bar, their loud pursuit of shots and sweet cocktails fouling his communion with good food and wine. More than one jazz musician who botched a solo saw Ullom, from his front-row seat, with his hands clapped over his ears.
At some bars with glassware Ullom judged inadequate, he brought in vessels deemed suitable for his preferred beverages, on permanent loan but strictly for his own use. He even left personal pairs of quality chopsticks at multiple locations, in a dedicated bag, to be delivered when appropriate to his order, then washed and stored in that same bag. At least one such place kept Ullom’s chopsticks in its office safe. A favorite dessert, to be eaten with chopsticks, was a bowl of blackberries with a shaving of cheese over the top, the blackberries brought in just for him.
Despite his eccentricities, or perhaps in part because of them, the biblically sideburned Ullom was cherished at many Albany restaurants. (As Ullom didn’t drive, he mostly patronized places within the city, preferably on a bus line.) While large parties and splurgers on pricey wines and spirits are welcome by the hospitality industry, they are usually just occasional visitors. In contrast, a customer like Ullom — who came in at least weekly for decades, spent more per night than most parties of two and tipped 30 percent or higher — is vastly preferred. Friends and industry members said they could think of no individual over the past several decades
who devoted a greater percentage of income or nights per week to supporting local restaurants and musicians. He was so dedicated to dining out, and so opposed to eating at home, that his unplugged refrigerator was used for storage.
Ullom, who lived alone in the Delaware South neighborhood, stopped responding to calls and text messages earlier this week, said Mike Hill, a University at Albany English professor and jazz and restaurant aficionado who became one of Ullom’s closest friends a few years after their initial meeting, around the turn of millennium. Although Ullom tested positive for COVID -19 about a month ago, he had been feeling better recently, said Hill, who believes Ullom died from a sudden-onset health crisis, perhaps cardiac in nature.
Police making a wellness check at Hill’s request found Ullom’s body Thursday, Hill said. A native of Ohio whose family moved to rural Albany County when he was a child, Ullom had a long career with the state as a computer expert. He was 68 or 69, Hill said.
“He was so unique and idiosyncratic that people responded one of two ways to him: You either got it and wanted to be around him, or you didn’t, and you tried to avoid him,” said Victoria Cippolari, who met Ullom in the mid-1990s, when she started as a server at the former Justin’s on Lark Street, where he frequented the jazz scene. They became close enough that they attended concerts together, and he later patronized the former Ginger Man, in Pine Hills, when she was hired there and began booking live music.
Cippolari said Thursday, “I know I was one of many who found his quirks to be very endearing.”
Hill, among others, appreciated Ullom’s humor. Hill’s phone has a file named “Jimisms” that collected Ullom’s deadpan remarks like, “I consider too much perfume a form of public rudeness.”
The staff at Café Capriccio dubbed Ullom “Jimmy Brunello” for his habit of ordering from among the best wines on the list, usually a Brunello di Montalcino.
“For the first 10 years of our existence, he came in every night,” said Capriccio owner Jim Rua, who founded the Grand Street restaurant in 1982. (Ullom lived on Grand Street for decades before moving to Delso.)
“He would arrive 2 minutes before closing, figuratively speaking, and settle in” for a multicourse meal, said Rua. As at many places, his typical order started with good beer, followed by a bottle of red wine, then multiple single-malt Scotches, with at least three courses of food. Ullom was even happier if jazz pianist Walter Donnaruma was set up in the corner.
Table B1 at Capriccio, a booth in the bar area, will soon have a photo of Ullom posted with an inscription saying something like this, according to Rua: “This table belongs to the memory of our friend Jim Ullom (‘Jimmy Brunello’), whose spirit will not depart and will forevermore be seated at the finest banquet in Paradise.”
In addition to Café Capriccio, Ullom was a valued regular at multiple restaurants. A select few include The Ginger Man, Speakeasy 518, Yono’s/dp: An American Brasserie, New World Bistro Bar, Caffe Italia and Justin’s.
Three decades ago, when a thriving bar crowd, vibrant food by chef Ric Orlando and jazz many nights a week made Justin’s the most exciting scene in Albany, Ullom would dismayedly navigate the bar scrum and head into the dining room for a table — his table — right in front of the night’s musicians. Because he had a standing reservation, almost always for one, Ullom’s favorite wine was usually on the table waiting for him.
Orlando first heard Ullom’s name a few years before starting at Justin’s, when he was cooking at an upscale 1980s Albany restaurant called Yates Street. Orlando said Thursday that the owner told him, referring to Ullom, “He’s our best customer, our biggest pain in the ass and the most sophisticated diner in the restaurant.” After Orlando had been at Justin’s for a while and his international fusion was fully in effect on the menu, he said, Ullom tartly told him that an ingredient Orlando had used in a Japanese dish was “painfully incorrect.”
“He was right,” Orlando said. “That was a very good lesson.”
“He made me a better chef,” said Ian O’leary, who fed Ullom up to four nights a week for the eight years when O’leary was head chef at The Ginger Man. “He had very particular tastes and could detect very subtle differences in flavor — ‘Is the wine in this sauce overreduced?’ It helps you grow as a chef when you have somebody like that who’s coming in for your food all the time, when he has so many other choices,” said O’leary, who welcomed Ullom to his home for multiple Thanksgiving and Christmas meals.
“We spent probably 15 years’ worth of Monday nights at The Ginger Man,” said Mark Tallman, who was a cardiologist in Albany for two decades and now practices at the University of Rochester Medical Center but still visits the Capital Region often. Another stalwart of many of Albany ’s best restaurants, Tallman said he cherished those nights of conversation with Ullom, during which they ranged across subjects including literature, independent and foreign films and, of course, food and drink.
“He was very refined and knew what he liked,” Tallman said.
Ullom, in his distinctive way, celebrated what he enjoyed consuming. Though he cut back on restaurant visits after retiring, for financial reasons, and further curtailed them during the coronavirus pandemic, he still occasionally ventured out. A few months ago, in late summer, he sat at the bar at dp/yono’s, one of the places that kept chopsticks for him and where O’leary is now executive sous chef. That night, Ullom explained to the bartender what he liked about the fermented beverage he’d just ordered.
“That French cider, with its rotten apple and barnyard: Sometimes I’ve seen people return it, thinking it’s bad. Heh heh heh,” Ullom said, continuing, “To me, it’s ambrosial. I think you can use that with drink, not just food, right? Ambrosial barnyard. Heh heh heh.”
Multiple online reminiscences posted starting on Thursday, as news of Ullom’s death spread, noted with sadness that the last nine months of his life were spent being largely unable to enjoy patronizing favorite dining spots and musicians.
Building on the theme, Tallman said, “At a time when everyone is talking about trying to help restaurants, it’s cruel (of fate) to take away someone who would’ve tried to be their biggest savior.”
Hill said Ullom’s only known family is a brother in Ohio, from whom he is long estranged. A celebration of his life will be held at some point next year, friends said, after conditions are suitable for people to gather to remember him, eat, drink and listen to live jazz.