Three is a Magic Number: Winning James Beard #298

Mike Wiley:

Easy.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

With summer now upon us, I invite you to join us at the kennebunkport Festival, five days of celebrations centered around food, wine, art, music and of course, community. This year's festival is June 5th through 10th and we're especially excited to note that Love Maine Radio's producer Spencer Albee and his band are headlining the Maine Craft music festival with special guests the Ghosts of Paul Revere. For tickets to the Maine Craft music festival and details about all the good times waiting for you at the festival, go to kennebunkportfestival.com all of us at Maine Media Collective look forward to seeing you there. This is Dr. Lisa, I'm Isabel Lyle and you are listening to Love Maine radio show number 298. Three is a magic number winning James Beard airing for the first time on Sunday, June 4, 2017 with the restaurants Hugo's Eventide and Honeypaw, the partners of Big Tree Hospitality have achieved remarkable success. This week we speak with Arlen Smith, Mike Wylie and Andrew Taylor about their own stories winning the 2017 James Beard Award and what life is like as expand their business outside of Portland. Thank you for joining us.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

it's my great pleasure to have with me today Arlyn Smith, who is one of the partners of Big Tree Hospitality and someone I've had on the show before. It's good to have you back again.

Arlin Smith:

It's great to be here.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

You've been a very busy guy since the last time you were in.

Arlin Smith:

Yes, very much so. It's been a whirlwind for sure.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So for people who haven't had a chance to listen to our very early interview, that was right around the time that you had purchased Hugo's along with your partners, Andrew Taylor and Mike Wiley, and then you also were opening Eventide. Yeah, so it was pretty early.

Arlin Smith:

It was. We were able to turn key Hugo's because we were all working there, but had the idea of opening up a little oyster bar next to it. And that took us about four months and our little oyster bar, which turned into something much bigger than we ever expected, so.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So I want to go back a little bit to the Arlen Smith that grew up in Buffalo, New York. I don't think this is an Ireland that a lot of people know very well.

Arlin Smith:

No, I mean, my close friends do, but I grew up in Buffalo, and pretty early on, I knew I wanted to be in the culinary world. So I started working in kitchens when I was like, 15, 16. And then I had some chefs who looked at me and saw that I could do this more, I could really dive into it. And I wasn't just trying to be a cook. So they encouraged me to go to culinary school. So after I graduated high school, I moved out to the Hudson Valley, Hyde park, where I went to the CIA Culinary Institute of America. And they, you know, had a couple recommendation letters that helped get me in. It was definitely a different school back then. Now that makes me feel old. But, yeah, that time in my life was pretty awesome. A lot of changes happening. I was the first one for my family to go to college. So exciting for them as well. Yeah, that was my New York life was mostly Buffalo, and then about eight years in Hudson Valley, where I loved it. It was beautiful there. A lot of people compare it to Maine just because of its agriculture and its restaurants and things like that, but it was great.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

You were the first one in your family to go to college. Tell me about your family. Brothers, sisters?

Arlin Smith:

Yeah, I have an older brother who went off to the Navy, and he was my father's from the Navy. And my brother wasn't sure what he wanted to do, but he was. That was appealing to him. Definitely not appealing to me. And so he went off and did that. And I had my dreams of going to culinary school. And I have a younger sister who is incredible. And she moved out here right after we opened up Eventide so she's now one of our bar managers there. So I actually have some family here, which is really awesome. I'm close with both of them. My brother still lives back in Buffalo who has two kids now and. Yeah.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

When you were in high school, what did you like to do for classes? What was your main area of interest?

Arlin Smith:

Academically, high school. I did everything I could to get

Mike Wiley:

by

Arlin Smith:

as a, I guess an honor student, as close as possible. But really I did not like academics that much. I was more hands on, more vocational. I loved sports. I was into. I was a swimmer, wrestler, football. But then something changed. Was probably mostly, you know, girls. I like.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

It's always the girls, isn't it?

Arlin Smith:

I didn't want sports taking up all my time, so. But I did like working. I worked with my father as a. As a plumber and I. I got to learn a lot through him and I was very hands on. But once I got into the kitchen, it was like the social environment was really fun. It was very appealing to me and to feel like it's easy to have like instant gratification when you're. When you're making things with your hands. And I was always a creative person, so that type of outlet for me was very appealing. And I'm still into arts. I wish I could express it more, but life is changing so quickly right now. One day I'll get back to it.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

If you had some chunk of time that you would actually be able to do exactly what you wanted in the arts, what would you be working on?

Arlin Smith:

I would definitely be into sculpting. I do a lot of carving, stuff like that, like medians of pumpkins and squashes, ice things that are perishable, I guess. But I'd want to explore more of the clay realm and. And I've talked to a few friends of mine who are in that world, and it's just something my brain enjoys it and can understand it.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So it seems like even with the art, you still like the food.

Arlin Smith:

Yeah. Yeah.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Why food versus why pumpkins versus.

Arlin Smith:

I don't know if I can explain that. I just know that I guess once you can understand something, it's a lot easier to play with it. Does that make sense? You know, if you're. If I knew marble really well and I knew how the tools worked with it, then I guess I would be carving marble using those types of mediums. But by understanding the way something behaves, it's more fun to play with.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So it sounds like getting into the culinary world made sense on a lot of different levels because it had the social aspect, it had the hands on aspect and the artistic, the creative aspect to some extent.

Arlin Smith:

Yeah, absolutely. And I think the odd part about me is that I went through all that. I went through school and. And I made the switch to being front of the house management. I pursued that for my bachelor's degree. So I'm the out of our partnership. I'm the only certified chef, which they always get a laugh out of because they're absolutely incredible and self taught. But that understanding of the back of the house, the kitchen, gave me, I think, an advantage, but in managing front of the house, because you understand what the kitchen needs from you and you're able to provide that, you know, in a way that's appealing to a kitchen. You know, having that connection in front of the house is how it all works. And I don't think all kitchens have that, but they should. And I think it's a huge benefit. So that was my sort of weird changeover. So now I'm not playing with food, but I'm around it all the time and.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Yeah, sounds like maybe you miss it a little bit.

Arlin Smith:

Yeah, well, I get. I always say I don't do it professionally because I'm meant for hunting polar bears. I don't like the heat. And being out front allows me to take care of guests, which is something I really enjoy. But cooking at home is really my passion. You know, being able to cook for friends is a lot more fun for me than being on the line.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So if you're at home, what are you cooking?

Arlin Smith:

With my time now, I typically stick to comfort foods like it's grilling season, so I'm always doing steaks and pork chops, Things that are not too labor intensive but have an awesome. A quick satisfaction, put it that way. I'm not doing like long stews and roasts and things like that. And I also don't like having leftovers in my fridge, so I try to keep my meals to one. One or two.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

You first came to Maine because of your exposure to Hugo's, before you owned it yourself.

Arlin Smith:

Yeah, yeah. My girlfriend at the time, we were living in Rhinebeck and we wanted to make a move. I was thinking about New York City. You know, it was close to where I was. I knew that I had a lot of job opportunities there. You know, David Chang's Sombar had been looking for front of the house management and a friend of mine connected me to them and I was seriously considering it. You know, they made me an offer. Wasn't Great. But it was definitely going to be my first big move. And some other close friends of mine who live in Kingston, New York, used to live in Portland. And when they heard that I was looking to go to New York, they. They sort of like, grabbed me by the neck and said, please go to Portland. This, that's your city. Just everything about it. You're gonna love it. Just go visit. So two weeks later, we visited up here, and my girlfriend did all the research. She had the time, and she, like, quickly plugged into, like, what was happening at the time. And this is 2009, so there was still some amazing things happening then. I mean, just looking at what it is now, it's incredible. But we. We ended up going to, like, local 188, seeing the scene. There was an awesome cocktail scene. Even the people, the diners, I mean, this group of young girls come in, probably early college, and they all sit around this couch and you're hearing them order, and they're ordering like, mead and these, like, craft cocktails stuff that you just wouldn't expect that demographic to be enjoying. And the kicker was she found Hugo's had been nominated for a James Beard Award, then hadn't won it yet. And it was up for one that year. It was like his Rob Evans third year, I think. And on the website, it had a Chef's tasting for $120. Chef's tasting. We're like, wow, that's really cheap. I mean, looking at, like, New York price and like, 12 courses. Yeah, let's sign it up. And we didn't realize, like, how big of a deal it was for them to be doing it. They were doing tasting menus. They had a la carte. It was like. It was a very mom and pop joint. So we sit down. It's middle of February. When we're there too, there's like four feet of snow on the ground. But I'm from Buffalo, so I'm in heaven. I'm like, this. This is still working great. We were staying at the Regency, which is still one of my favorite hotels here. We walk down and we sit in this dining room that, you know, had a couple people in. It wasn't crazy, and had still. One of the best meals of my life ended up being 17 courses. I was eating things that I had never experienced before. And I could not believe that this city was supporting something like that. So we went back home to Rhinebeck, and two weeks later came back, looked at apartments. Two weeks after that, we moved here. And I think it's a Testament that we fell in love with Portland in the middle of winter and with not as much going on that it is now. I mean, it was really just. It was very charming and appealing. So my goal was to come here and not manage. My goal was to take a break, serve a little bit, make some money, make my own schedule, because I was working a lot. And I walked through the door after three days of living here, of Local 188, and Jay Vellani was in the. In the back kitchen. And all I heard was a voice, like, saying, you hear about the job. And they just posted it, like it was basically like a cattle call. And I remember it was raining that day. It was gross out, but I was like, you know, I dressed up and I had my, you know, my bag and just printed out my resumes that were cleaned up and. Yeah, you know, would love to talk to you. And he came out and I handed my resume, and he looked at me and he's like, you know, this is all. This is all management. We're looking for serving. And I was like, yeah, yeah, that's kind of what I want to do. And he's like. He sort of rolled his head, like, seriously, like. And I noticed he had a little bit of an accent. And I called it out from Staten island, which. That's where my family's from. So we hit it off. And then the next day I had a job. And it was one of the best things that happened to me, I think, because it. It plugged me into some of my best friends now, friends that are doing awesome things in the community still. And it was just this. It was very serendipitous for me that. That time. But quickly being a server there, it wasn't going to be enough for me. I wanted it to be. But Rob won the James Beard Award. So this is April of 2009. He wins, and he doesn't have any management. They never had a front of the house manager. It was always his wife, Nancy, and she's a rock star, and she has all of her things in place, the way that she likes to work. But that award sort of blew up Portland. You know, the James Beard Award is not just for a chef or a restaurant. It is incredible for the area, and they just. They had to handle it. And my girlfriend was working there. She actually got a job at Hugo's and told them what my background was. They quickly had me come in. They already knew me, we were already friends, but they didn't really know who I was and what I was looking to do, and they offered me a job. And I liked it. I really liked what I was going to get out of it, because it wasn't corporate. It was very mom and pop, and they had all of their policies and procedures, and that was something I hadn't experienced like that. So I got to learn it and fall in love with it. And that's where I met my partners. Now, Andrew. Andrew Taylor was. He became the chef de cuisine a month after I started. We were basically there from the beginning together. And as time went on, you know, we became really close. Mike Wiley came on board, I think, a year after Andrew and I were there. And Rob and Nancy were trying to sell it. They were trying to sell Hugo's. And, you know, for me, I didn't have any money, and all I had was my experiences and sort of my dreams were to just keep working for awesome people. So I kept encouraging Andrew to buy it because you have, like. David Chang came up with Ryan Miller, who was his chef at Sambar, which is funny how it all comes back around. He was going to buy it. They were seriously considering coming up here, and he was gonna do his New York restaurant or his dream of a restaurant, and David Chang was gonna back him. And we started thinking about it, like, wow, we can't. One realized that I didn't want to see Hugo's go. It was something really special for us, and to see it continue on would be awesome. So I kept encouraging Andrew to do that, and he came back to me and said, I think we. I think we should buy it. And I said, do you have a mouse in your pocket? Because you're saying we. That's something my father used to always say. And I just was like, seriously? And he laid out really quickly what he thinks or what he thought would. Would work well as far as, like, bringing Mike in as a third partner and having Rabelais, which was. Well, that's a whole other part of the story. But one of the pushes for us to buy it and to do our own thing was our good friends Sam and Don Lindgren, who own Rabelais. That was the bookstore right next to Hugo's. It was just an incredible bookstore. I mean, it's still just one of those special things when you look back, like, how awesome that was to have in Portland. They were really close friends of ours, but they weren't renewing their lease. So same time Rob and Nancy are trying to sell, he goes, they're gonna get rid of their lease, so all these changes are gonna happen. In the building. And personally I'm like, wow, these are big changes. What's gonna happen? But they nudged us and told us like, we're not gonna renew our lease because they became an Amazon Books window shop. You know, everyone would just buy. They'd look at the book in their store and then buy it online, which is very unfortunate. So they moved down to Biddeford. We bought Hugo's knowing that we were going to be able to take over their space and do an oyster bar, which we didn't really know what the restaurant was going to be. We just, we knew it was going to be something. And the, the appealing part of that was like, Hugo's would not sustain three owners. It just wouldn't. It's not a cash cow, if you will. It's, it's a very special restaurant, but it's not built to make money. It makes money, but it's the, it's appealing to us to be able to have something that's a little more of like Robin Nancy's Duck Fat. You know, they, they had their like casual spot that, you know, helps sustain life in the wintertime because this is still a very seasonal town. And so we chose to, to do that knowing that we would be able to keep that casual and push it forward as like our. I hate using the term cash cow, but really that's what. For a business you need something that's sustainable and that's, that's where the partnership came together. And then it blew up from there. It was sort of out of our control when the popularity of Eventide just took off so well.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I appreciate your taking time out of your very busy schedule. It's really been a pleasure to watch your, I want to say meteoric rise, but I know so much effort has put into this and I know that it's really been just an ongoing continual process for you and done very well. So for me to be able to see this is very gratifying and I appreciate your taking the time to come in here today.

Arlin Smith:

Thanks, Lisa. That means a lot.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I've been speaking with Arlen Smith. He is one of the partners in Big Tree hospitality. I hope we'll see you again.

Arlin Smith:

Me too, love.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

it's my pleasure to have with me Mike Wiley, who is one of the partners in. In big tree hospitality. It's good to have you here today.

Mike Wiley:

Thank you. It's good to be here.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

You've had some really fun stuff happening in your life lately, not the least of which is. James Beard Award.

Mike Wiley:

Yeah.

Andrew Taylor:

Yeah.

Mike Wiley:

Thank you. It's pretty wild. Definitely never thought I'd be here doing this and. Yeah. Just won the James Beard Award.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, tell me a little bit about growing up in Hanover, New Hampshire. What was your life like back then?

Andrew Taylor:

I don't know.

Mike Wiley:

It was simple. Hanover is a really wonderful place to grow up. Dartmouth College sort of dominates the landscape there, so everything's pretty safe. You don't need to worry about crime too much. It's right on the banks of the mighty Connecticut river, and there are amazing rope swings. You could, you know, swing out into the river, swim to Vermont, go to the next rope swing. It's a great spot to mountain bike. And skiing culture was really big there, so I skied a lot as a kid and, I don't know, hung out. Hung out with my little brother and, you know, played capture the flag and enjoyed school and was, I don't know, kind of. I don't know, I guess a bit of a dork. Didn't play a lot of sports, but, yeah, being a dork's cool now. So I guess I was just ahead of my time.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Yeah, I've noticed that. I feel like I missed that by few years myself, but. But, yes, it's good that you can, like, intellectual pursuits now and.

Andrew Taylor:

Yeah.

Mike Wiley:

No, not feel like a pariah. Yeah, it's amazing.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Yeah. You went on to Colby College and you have a degree in creative writing.

Mike Wiley:

Creative writing and religious Studies.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And religious studies, yep. Why those?

Mike Wiley:

I don't know. I mean, I always loved words, and English was much easier. It came easier to me. My folks were really good about. At dinner, you know, what book are you reading? If you don't have a book, then a book is assigned to you. And so it's just like, reading is big in our family. We're readers. That's what we do. And my brother's a really strong reader, and he kind of got the math brain. I was put in advanced math because, I don't know, there was some wave of pedagogical theory that said, oh, if kids are good with Legos, then they're going to be excellent mathematicians or whatever. And I was really good at Legos. But then when math got hard enough, they were like, okay, it turns out the Lego thing doesn't really apply. We're gonna have to put you in the regular track. Math. But school always came easy to me and I liked, I was, I always liked reading. Reading was really the big thing. And then my father was. Went to med school out in California in the 70s and got really into Transcendental meditation and ruined lots of cocktail parties. And you know, he had me reading Zen in the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance when I was a kid and Bhagwan Shriraj Nish's essays on a Mustard Seed and all this like hippie 70s nonsense. And I really thought it was fascinating. And so I took a bunch of classes in it when I was at Colby. And I was really always interested in Eastern religion primarily. And I read about it in my free time and I actually just sort of one day was at the registrar's office and I realized, wow, I'm just two credits away from being a double major. I might as well take a Biblical Studies two or whatever the heck the class was. So I just sort of kind of stumbled backwards into the religious studies. But English was always kind of, you know, my mother's an English professor and I always sort of thought, ultimately I'm going to become a professor. I like talking, I like words, I like the life of the mind. And I just sort of thought, yeah, sure, English, that's easier. When I got to Colby, I thought, I'm going to be a paleontologist. Because I was also absolutely in love with dinosaurs when I was in high school. Not when I was a kid, it was trucks when I was a kid. But I took the Intro to bio course and was like, this is a lot of hard work. I am not going to do this. I'm going to go to English where I can pontificate and I can skim some of the readings and I'll be fine.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

What type of a doctor did your father become?

Mike Wiley:

Anesthesiologist. He's since retired, but he worked at Dartmouth Hitchcock medical center for 25 years or so.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And was your mother also a professor at Dartmouth?

Mike Wiley:

No, she wasn't. She taught at. She was an ICU nurse. But she went back to school when I was in elementary school and got her doctorate and she taught at Colby Sawyer College, which is in New London, New Hampshire, about 20 minutes from Hanover.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

That's interesting that you're father had this kind of hippie transcendental meditation thing and then went into a pretty mind oriented subspecialty as a physician.

Mike Wiley:

Yeah, he's. My mother's fond of saying he's anal retentive. He's very particular about everything. And I think that anesthesia, I mean, obviously all of medicine does, but I think anesthesia lends itself well to that. He is always. He's very, very organized. He's since gotten really into cooking. And that attention to detail definitely comes through in Chris Wylie's cuisine as well. It's funny.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

What did you like to read when you were younger?

Mike Wiley:

Geez, really? Anything and everything. I mean, what did I love? I loved Jurassic Park. I think I read Jurassic park eight times. I crushed all of Michael Crichton's books. I read a bunch of sci fi. I love this book called Ender's Game. I got into Stephen King a little bit and then my father was like, oh, you should read it. And honest to God, for like three or four years thereafter, maybe even five years, I would like run past storm grates and sewer drains and flush the toilet and sprint out of the bathroom. It just absolutely ruined me for Stephen King. And so now with the remake coming out, I have like, I'm gonna be confronting some of my demons. It's gonna be interesting. But really I liked reading just about, just about anything. I mean, fiction primarily. Some of the eastern religion stuff, the Ram Dass and Timothy Leary. I got into poetry when I was a little bit older, but yeah, I would say fiction. I was never a big non fiction guy. I've sort of been exploring that a little more recently, but it was always fiction. Novels primarily, and short stories I loved. J.D. salinger was like my guy. Not Catcher in the Rye, but Franny and Zooey. Franny and Zooey and all this. The Glass family stories were the ones that really, really hooked me.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So I'm guessing that if you have a degree in creative writing, then you must have explored your writing side as well.

Mike Wiley:

Yeah, yeah, I did. To no great avail. Yeah, I wrote. I sort of made like a practice and a discipline of it. When I was living in Crested Butte, Colorado, where I'd get up in the morning, I'd get myself out of bed at 8, and then I would sit and type for two hours. And this was part of one of my mom's favorite teaching exercises to her English 101 or Intro to English classes. Is the secret to writing is writing. You just need to sit there and do it. So every morning or every class, they would start with 20 minutes of sustained writing where you could just write on your keyboard. I'm writing, I'm writing, I'm writing, I'm writing. But as long as you were generating words, then you were okay. It's just like this exercise in logaria, just constantly producing words and putting them on a page. And so I did that for a while, and I would write for two hours every morning, and I enjoyed it. And I think it was just sort of a nice way to organize my brain. I wasn't, like, working on a novel or anything like that. It was more just kind of,

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I

Mike Wiley:

don't know, just reacting to my day and what I was thinking about and things like that. So I haven't really. It's almost funny that I studied creative writing. I think the literary theory stuff appealed to me more. All those classes in theory, I thought were. Were much cooler and sort of trying to decipher crazy, nonsensical contemporary American poetry that appealed to me more like code breaking or something like that.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So it was really the understanding of the writing and the writer.

Mike Wiley:

Yeah, the writer a little less so I was always just sort of interested. I love the idea that, you know, like, structuralism, that, like, whatever's on the page, that's what matters. Like, you can expand that to be like, oh, well, you know, they were abused as a kid. And so maybe this, you know, the psychoanalytical critique. But I never thought. I don't know that. That never drew me that much. I like much more of the, you know, what does this symbol signify? And da da, da, da, da. And are there recurring themes? And I really liked writing essays in college. I really enjoyed the fact that every single or almost every single English department assignment was read this and then write about it, and that was it. It wasn't like, pick five themes and discuss why these themes are. Even if that was the assignment, you could always turn it into whatever the hell you wanted. That's what appealed to me about English.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

You spent five months in Nepal.

Mike Wiley:

Yeah.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

What were you doing out there?

Mike Wiley:

So I was an idiot. I did a really good job in my foreign language classes. I was in advanced Spanish and advanced French when I graduated high school. And if I wasn't a moron, I could have just taken whatever the test is to prove that you're competent or capable, and I could have proed out of taking any foreign language classes. But of course, I only figured that out until, like, my sophomore. I didn't figure it out until halfway through my sophomore year, and I realized, like, oh, man, I don't think I could take that class and. Or take that test and do as well. So how can I avoid taking classes in a foreign language? And Colby offered a program that was run by Pitzer College out in California, which was an amazing program. It was a foreign language program, and it's total immersion. And they sort of take this idea that, you know, some people are fond of saying, like, me, like, oh, I'm not good at math, or, oh, I'm not good at foreign languages. And they were just like, no, that's not something we believe. Everybody is good at foreign languages. You just need to be in the right situation, in the right setting with the right people. And so it was this fully immersive. You're gonna live with an Upali family who doesn't speak any English for four months, and you're gonna attend six hours of language classes every day where it's gonna be you and two other American students and one Nepali instructor who won't speak any English to you or very little English to you. And it was just sort of a trial by fire. They'd send us out into markets and be like, you need to go and buy two bunches of bananas. And we would just barely know how to say bananas. And it was just an exercise in, like, you know, feeling social pressure and humiliation, you know, like, you. I don't know how many times I deeply offended people by my behavior before I realized, oh, that is not done. You don't aim the soles of your feet at people. That. That's incredibly rude. But it was amazing. I mean, they had all of us, every single one of us in the program were chattering away in Nepali, arguing with cab drivers. And then the last month of the program was our independent study, and we could pretty much decide to do, you know, whatever study, whatever aspect of Nepali culture, society that we wanted to. And I studied, or I decided to study yak herding culture in the Solokumbu Valley, which is kind of a valley over from Mount Everest. And it was amazing. I just had my rock climbing shoes with me, and I just climbed. I just bouldered, climbing like smallish boulders in huge glacial moraines at like, 13,000ft and ate rice and lentils and got up really early and went to bed really early. And, yeah, it was amazing. When I came back to America, I could, like, sprint for miles. And of course, you know, you lose that in a week or four days or something like that. But I felt like a superhero there for a little while. But it was an amazing experience. Nepal is an incredibly beautiful country. It's so simple, and almost without exception, everybody I met was just very warm, and I got a great sweater out of it. And Andrew Taylor is fond of making fun of it's Like a Cosby sweater. It's all these hideous colors and patterns, but it's made of yak fur and it cost $2.50.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

What about this rhetoric degree that you got, this graduate degree? I'm kind of interested in this because first of all, I don't, I don't really know what that means. I'm not really sure. Like, where does this fit in your schema?

Mike Wiley:

So I was a ski bum and kind of a climbing bum for like almost five years. I lived in Salt Lake City. I lived in, I spent most of my time in Crested Butte, Colorado, which is like the most beautiful place in the world. And I always sort of in the back of my mind thought that I was going to be a professor and living in ski town, usa. You know, you can have your weird daily two hour writing discipline, but, you know, most of the conversation tends towards what's snowpack? Like, what mountain bike trails have just opened, are they too muddy? Yada yada yada, what's the camber on the new Volkl Gotama ski like this year? And I sort of, I was missing school and I was missing having some more kind of academic style discussions. So I applied to this program at the University of Colorado at Boulder and I was accepted. And I was sort of trying to think a little strategically about finding a job because, you know, you get your PhD in English and it's like, hey, congratulations, now what are you gonna do? There are not a lot of jobs for English professors, and there are a whole lot of English, English PhDs and there are a lot of English PhDs out there. So I sort of started doing some research about how I could differentiate myself. And, you know, English is sort of this broader rubric that you could filter down into a handful of different disciplines. And as I was saying earlier, I really love the kind of literary theory and almost philosophical aspects of, of language and composition. And I knew that, you know, I wasn't about to be doing, you know, any kind of hardcore semantics, which is almost like mathematics or logic problems, and rhetoric, which is basically the study of argumentation and the appearance of truth, not truth itself, but its appearance. I sort of thought, oh, well, the skills that I, you know, I honed as maybe an aggressive word here, but the skills that I tried to, I sought to cultivate in college, they could apply well to this. And at the time when I was reading about rhetoric and I started reading some academic papers, you know, people were applying rhetorical theory to things like Ridley Scott's Aliens. I got this idea to write A paper on the Ghostbusters films. I never actually did it, but people were looking at the rhetoric of architecture and of public spaces and how that big, reflective bean sculpture in. I can't remember the name of the park in downtown Chicago. It's. It's enormous. It's like. I don't know if you've seen it, but it's like 100ft tall or something like that. And people just walk up to it and they want to touch it, and it's this amazing communal thing. And, you know, there were people talking, writing about, you know, the rhetorical affect of that object. And what it does is how it forces us all to kind of come together and kind of confront each other. And, I don't know, some of it, like with all academia, some of it kind of spirals out of control or disappears up its own rear end pretty quickly. But I thought that. I thought that rhetoric would be kind of an interesting thing. Interesting thing to study. And I really enjoyed a lot of. A lot of my doctoral program or a lot of my master's program. And it was great because I was offered a teaching assistantship. So I taught some classes, and as a result, I didn't have to pay for my master's, which was huge. And at the end of it, though, I sort of. I didn't love the culture of academics. And I had such a different experience as a student at Colby College than plenty of my students were having at the University of Colorado at Boulder that I sort of. I don't know, maybe I was kind of a little Pollyanna ish about it, but I. It just sort of felt like, you know, I had been ski bumming and I had been cooking to finance that, and I just found myself missing the kitchen and missing doing, like, physical things with my hands. And the writing and reading was great, but I found myself kind of antsy and doing a lot of, like, braising and baking all the way through grad school. And I had a meal at a restaurant that I ultimately ended up working at with my parents halfway through my program. And I just thought, like, I was looking at the cooks and I just thought, like, that's. I miss doing that. Those guys are really lucky. I miss being in a kitchen. And so I was offered a spot on the PhD track, but I ultimately. Or I was encouraged to apply, but I ultimately decided not to because I just didn't like the life that much. I didn't want to be having that conversation for the rest of my life.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, I know that you've been incredibly busy. And I know that taking the time to come in here today really is. It's been a commitment for you, but I appreciate it.

Mike Wiley:

Oh yeah, absolutely. It's my pleasure.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I've been speaking with Mike Wiley, who is one of the partners with Big Tree Hospitality and as we've been saying, 2017 James Beard Award winner. Keep up the good work and I hope we see you back in here again at some point.

Mike Wiley:

Thank you.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

to have in the studio with me Andrew Taylor, who is one of the partners of Big Tree Hospitality. Thanks for coming in today.

Andrew Taylor:

Thanks for having me.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And the reason that you were nice enough to come in is that we're very excited that you were named a James Beard Award winner just recently.

Andrew Taylor:

Yep, we, yeah, we took home the award for Best Chef Northeast, myself and Mike Wylie, the co chef and one of the other owners of Eventide Hugo's and the Honeypaw Victory Hospitality. So we're thrilled.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So I know a lot of people know about you as that, as that guy who's part of the big three with Big Tree, but I guess I'm kind of interested in about you as the guy before that or sort of in the middle of that.

Arlin Smith:

You,

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

you were raised in Cape Cod.

Andrew Taylor:

I spent a lot of time on Cape Cod, but raised in the Boston area, Newton, Massachusetts. But yeah, I spent a lot of time on the summers at my sort of my grandparents house on the Cape. I would say if there was a genesis of my culinary career would probably be there and doing a lot of, you know, spent most of the time fishing and digging clams and catching crabs and stuff like that. So.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So growing up in Newton, your father, from what I understand is an attorney.

Andrew Taylor:

Yep.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Who once said to you something like you should do something with your hands and you thought maybe he actually meant like orthopedic surgery.

Andrew Taylor:

Well, so that was. I went to Bates College in Lewiston, Maine and sort of graduated with not the most distinguished record there and sort of academics was not necessarily my thing. I hadn't really found a path, didn't know exactly what I wanted to do. And I specifically recall being on an airplane with him. I think it might have even been after my grandfather's passing, on the way back. And he asked me what he thought I would do or what I thought I would do. And I said, I don't know, I'll think about taking the LSATs and applying to law school. And he said, sort of shook his head and said, don't do that. You know, like, I don't think you'll, you'll like that career. And sort of pushed me to do something with my hands. And while I think he probably had in mind, yeah, orthopedic surgery or, you know, sports medicine or something like that, I, I took it as sort of what I needed to hear to pursue my passion and do what I wanted to do. And so being an attorney sort of runs in the family. So I was, you know, after that I like, okay, I can sort of break that trend.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So what was it that he thought about the profession? Profession he actually chose that you didn't think would match well with you?

Andrew Taylor:

Well, he, I mean, and yeah, that's not necessarily to speak, speak poorly of being an attorney because I think he really enjoyed it and he really enjoys aspects of it. And yeah, I think, you know, the law is quite fascinating even to me now still, and I would have enjoyed aspects of it myself, but I think he just, he knew that I was restless in nature and wouldn't enjoy sitting behind a desk and pawing through, you know, 80, 80 page legal documents and writing up legal agreements and so on and so forth. And I think that's part of the job that he probably wasn't his favorite part either. And he knew, he saw in me that I had more of that side of him than any other. So I think. And he was right on. And I've thanked him many times for steering me away from it. Even if he partially denies it. Still,

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

it is, it is really important sometimes to get that kind of permission if you have in your family a bunch of attorneys for somebody to say, you know, you don't have to do this, you can do something else.

Andrew Taylor:

Yeah, absolutely. No, I think there's, you know, a certain familial expectation to, to pursue sort of more traditional career. I think I sort of felt that. And not, not only familial from my peers, I went to sort of a well heeled high school in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and then to Bates College. And while all my friends were getting jobs in, you know, financial companies or, you know, law school or business school, I, you know, certainly felt an expectation or a bit of A pressure to do so myself. And it was reassuring to hear that that wasn't entirely important or that I could do something that I enjoyed. Why economics ran in the family, Just, just like being an attorney, being an economics major in college was, you know, my brother, my grandfather, my father, my uncle. Yeah, sort of ran in the family. It was, it was easy for me, honestly. Mathematics was one of the few things in school that I did well in. So

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I read a piece that someone had written about foraging and you talked about it. You talked about kind of wandering around as a child on the shores of Cape Cod and digging up clams and. Talk to me about some of your early memories of, I don't know, getting your hands dirty that way.

Andrew Taylor:

Yeah, tide pools were always fascinating for me. Picking periwinkles and, you know, seaweeds and starfish and sea anemones and just being fascinated by that. And I think that probably was perhaps the genesis of it. And then, yeah, fishing. I grew up near a lake and me and my sort of four elementary school, kindergarten through sixth grade friends, best friends, we used to just disappear from our houses and meet at the lake and fish virtually every day. Oftentimes before sunrise, my parents would wake up and be like, where the hell did he go? So, you know, those, those types of activities outdoors having to do with. Yeah. Catching or finding food sources was always fascinating to me.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

How did you end up over on the West Coast?

Andrew Taylor:

Well, my graduated from Bates and after this is having gotten this advice from my father, I sort of kind of kicked around for a summer in the Boston area. And then my future wife Rachel and I basically got in a car, packed it up and drove around the country for two months, ostensibly to find out where we would live next. And you know, we hit up all sort of the major cities in the south almost. New Orleans was number two on the list. We almost moved there instead. But Seattle was the place we felt like would be the spot for us. I really sort of knowing at that point that I wanted to get into cooking. I really wanted to like, work with seafood and a different type of seafood. So that was, that was probably one of the reasons we picked Seattle. And we wanted to be on the west coast, so. So yeah, we came back, you know, worked for another few months, made up enough money to just move out there, got in the car again and drove across country and we had no jobs, no place to stay, no friends out there, but made it work pretty quickly, so.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And somehow you ended up working in a pretty well regarded establishment.

Andrew Taylor:

Yeah, within a Couple days of being there, I was. I had enrolled myself in a couple culinary classes and I think that got me into, at least into a kitchen. Got a job as a prep cook at a sort of a fancy steakhouse. And then with the rest of my time, I just walked in the back door of the best French restaurant in town and said, I'm gonna spend whatever free hours I have here and I will work for free, whatever, you don't have to pay me. And so I did everything there from peeling shallots and garlic to breaking down Dungeness crab and just did that all on my own time, showed up whenever I could. And it was a small kitchen, one where the personnel didn't change very frequently. But finally job did come up and, you know, my persistence and hard work paid off and I got a job there. And that was really sort of what, just an incredible place to learn because they did everything from scratch. They processed, you know, everything under the sun and you just learned the right way to do everything and at least in the French style. So Terry Rottereau was the chef there and he was just an incredible mentor for me at that time.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

You also spent time working with Ken Orringer.

Andrew Taylor:

Yep. Cleo, which was then. So coming from a very like traditional French place to this sort of like, sort of high minded, conceptual French, Asian sort of fusiony place was just an. It was quite a shock to me, but it was, it was unbelievable. I was just being exposed to all sorts of ingredients and techniques that I had no idea what I was getting into, I think, at first, but really, really love my time there. And Ken, you know, Kenta still is just again, such an incredible example for me on how to, how to expand, how to, how to run restaurants, how to expand responsibly. And you know, we keep in touch to this day and he's just been, he's been amazing example.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

You got to know Arlen pretty early on in this whole process. You've really been together with him from the very beginning.

Andrew Taylor:

Yeah, from the day I started Hugo's in 2009, I think, and he started like a month before me. I started as the sous chef under, under Rob Evans and, and yeah, we, we sort of, you know, effectively ran Hugo's for several years prior to, prior to owning it. And you know, we just developed a really great relationship, really great working relationship in particular. And it's just been, you know, it's been a great, it's been a great pairing. So, you know, and I knew that he, you know, when it sort of came up to potentially buy Hugo's. I knew I needed his skills, and I think he knew he needed my skills. And. And we both needed Mike's skill. So that was sort of the whole. The genesis of it. But I knew I couldn't open. Couldn't run a restaurant or open a restaurant by myself, and needed somebody to. Particularly with his skills, the front of the house taken care of. So

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

in the midst of all this, you have gotten married and had three children in rapid succession. At least I consider them relatively rapid succession. You now have three boys under the age of five.

Andrew Taylor:

This is true. This is true.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

You've really been doing this yourself, this. This whole restaurant ownership thing for about five years.

Andrew Taylor:

Yeah. So, yeah, Lincoln, our first. Our first born, was born two weeks before we opened Eventide. So, yeah, like a month and a half, two months before, after we bought Hugo's. And it has been. There's been several times when I've sort of tried to persuade Mike and Arlen to open another restaurant or expand or do something, and they're like, I don't know. Not right now. And I'm like, rachel's pregnant. We're having another kid. We need another restaurant. So it's been. They constantly make fun of me. We're opening a fourth restaurant, and they're like, don't do it. Don't have another kid. Which won't be a problem, I hope. No, it's been. It's been a great. It's been amazing. It's been a lot, obviously, but, you know, I've always been one to sort of pile it on and just take on as much as I possibly can. And the three boys are all healthy and wonderful, and I've got the most supportive wife. And Rachel's just been unbelievable in understanding what it takes to, you know, run a growing and expanding business and the responsibilities that that entails. And, yeah, it's. It's been. It's been a wild ride.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Do your boys also share your interest in things like fishing and being outside?

Andrew Taylor:

Getting there. Getting there. I did come home yesterday, and they. They both had aprons on, and we're making cookies with the two older ones. Anyways, we're making cookies with Rachel, and it was a pretty charming little moment to walk into. I surprised them a little early, but, yeah, I'm gonna get. I'm working on the fishing thing, so

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

you've got the cooking piece.

Andrew Taylor:

Yeah.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

You're gonna worry.

Andrew Taylor:

Yeah.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

What do you like to do when you're not in the kitchen? Which. Or in the business? I guess I should say.

Andrew Taylor:

I would say I go back to those activities that I really enjoy. I mean, foraging, fishing, just being outdoors, hiking, camping, just, you know, stuff that I moved to Maine for. I love being in Maine for. I don't get to do nearly as much of it as I would like, but. But that day will come, I'm sure,

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

in the early summer. What are you forging for?

Andrew Taylor:

Ramps. I'm trying to find a time to take a trip real soon here so I can go forge some ramps. But there's also morels right now, but they're pretty spotty. And then chanterelle and black trumpet season kicks off in sort of July and August.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

What about sea vegetables?

Andrew Taylor:

Sea vegetables? We did quite a bit of that in previous years. Not as much anymore. We actually had a little snow skiff that I used to run around to the islands of, of Casco Bay and sort of pick, you know, sea lettuce and kelp and labor and so. But yeah, I haven't done as much of that as I'd like to.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And that's mostly just a time thing at this point.

Andrew Taylor:

Mostly just a time thing. Yeah, exactly.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So I've been speaking with Andrew Taylor, who is one of the partners in Big Tree hospitality and and recent James Beard Award winner. I really appreciate your taking the time out of your day to do this. Absolutely give you a lot of credit for doing all the work that you're doing, not only as a restaurateur but also as a father of three. Good job.

Andrew Taylor:

I appreciate it. It's been a grind, but it's been amazing. I love it. Wouldn't do anything else.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

You've been listening to Love Maine radio show number 298. Three is a magic number Winning James Beard. Our guests have included Arlen Smith, Mike Wiley and Andrew Taylor. Follow me on Twitter as drlisa and see our Love Maine Radio Instagram photos on Instagram. We love to hear from you, so please let us know what you think of Love Maine Radio. We welcome your suggestions for future shows. Also let our sponsors know that you have heard about them here. We are privileged that they enable us to bring Love Maine Radio to you each week. This is Dr. Lisa Belisle. I hope that you have enjoyed enjoyed our three Is a Magic Number Winning James Beard Show. Thank you for allowing me to be a part of your day. May you have a bountiful life.

Mike Wiley:

All is quiet on the Western prom

Arlin Smith:

I hear the ground beneath my feet scraping crackle as I move along There ain't nobody here but me but enough couple days that'll open up the gates and the streets of love With a thousand waves of people victories Some helpless

Mike Wiley:

on their needs some wander aimlessly throughout their days.