Restaurateurs of the Year 2009

What do La Belle Vie, Solera, Smalley’s Caribbean Barbeque & Pirate Bar, and Barrio have in common? Their sunny cuisines and equally sunny owners. Tim McKee and Josh Thoma have brought us French Mediterranean elegance, glittering Spanish tapas, authentic jerk barbecue, and Latino street food with authentic flavors and ambiance to match. Over the past decade, McKee, forty-one, and Thoma, thirty-eight, have seduced and fed us well.

Their awards and honors from Gourmet, Food & Wine, The New York Times , and the James Beard Society have put our cities on the nation’s culinary map. They’ve breathed life into historic buildings, they employ more than 300 and support a burgeoning network of local farmers and producers. With ambitious menus and extraordinary service, they educate and entertain. And these titans of the table haven’t lost their boyish charm.

“We are not looking for that pot of gold or the home run,” says Thoma, with an earnest, open smile. “We are not about great big concepts, but small, well-executed and focused places we can get our arms around.” Blond and bearish, enthusiastic McKee adds, “Our local scene is exciting, changing all the time. The other day, I was working with a farmer and thinking, ‘This is what Alice Waters gets to do!’ I cook something I like, and pretty soon I guess I’m introducing people to salt cod or jerk chicken.”

If they could credit their success to a single source, both point to their years working with Jay Sparks in the 1990s at the much lamented and lost D’Amico & Partners restaurant Azur. (Sparks is now executive chef for the D’Amico restaurants.) “We wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for Jay,” says Thoma of his time at the legendary venture in Gaviidae Common. McKee interjects that “before Jay, we were just cooks. Jay’s passion, curiosity, and determination to get it right inspired us all. We’d go off to research cultures and cuisines, hit the library, share cookbooks, then come back and talk with each other.”

Recalls McKee, “The D’Amicos are very disciplined. They’re meticulous, organized, and efficient. Their main concerns were quality and integrity. They did an incredible job cultivating people. When Jay hired me, I had little experience, but I was lucky to be around the best cooks, working in one of the best kitchens in America. To this day, that food is the closest to my heart.”

Back then, a bright constellation lit Sparks’s kitchens: Isaac Becker (112 Eatery), Doug Flicker (Porter & Frye), Seth Bixby Daugherty (Real Food Initiatives), Jim Grell (Modern Café), and Jordan Smith (Black Sheep Pizza). “We learned from and with each other,” says McKee.

Of those times, Sparks recalls that “Tim was very serious about his work. He cared a great deal. You could tell that. We researched, and we cooked, and we’d talk about food on the line, and then when we were done with work, we’d go out for a beer and talk about food some more. When I worked with Greg Westcott at 510 Groveland, he made each chef responsible for a special, the appetizer or entrée, and I took that philosophy with me to D’Amico. It’s how you learn. I remember Josh asking me about going off to the CIA [Culinary Institute of America], and I said, ‘Why would you when there is so much going on here?’ ”