2 weeks Ago By By Teresa Farney [email protected]
Joseph Bonavita Jr. has been named executive chef of The Homestead Collective, 9633 Prominent Point (Powers and Briargate boulevards), a 17,000-square-foot building that will house six restaurants including two new eateries (Campfire Pizza and Red Leaf Coffee), second locations for Dad’s Donuts and Garden of the Gods Café, and reboots of two former concepts, Till Kitchen and Sprig. Hailing from Long Island, N.
Y., Bonavita comes to the position well prepared as is reflected on his impressive resume. He studied culinary management at the prestigious Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts in Chicago.
At 31 he has vast culinary experience working with or staging at the nation’s top restaurants in major cities. For instance, he lists posts in iconic eateries such as Thomas Keller’s Michelin-starred New York City restaurant Per Se and Eric Ripert’s Le Benardin, as well as time with Grant Achatz at his Alinea restaurant in Chicago. After finishing his culinary studies, he worked for a few years in Chicago before returning to his childhood home of Connecticut where he held chef positions with Todd English’s flagship restaurant, Olives.
Later, he joined Graham Elliot at Primary Food & Drink dinner restaurant in Greenwich, Conn. Most recently, he was the culinary director for a large food service group in Florida. We can thank Mitch Yellen, owner of Altitude Hospitality Group, for Bonavita’s arrival to the Springs.
Over the past 20 years Yellen has opened hospitality entities including wedding venues, catering operations, multiple restaurants and recreational venues. The Homestead Collective will house several branches for some of the aforementioned eateries, plus a large commercial kitchen, which Yellen expects to reach or exceed the production of 15,000 doughnuts daily of the 15 flavors of the specialty Dad’s Donuts. To get a deeper appreciation of what we can expect from Bonavita in his role at The Homestead Collective, we sat down for a one-on-one chat to hear about his culinary journey and the influences that shaped his career.
We met the chef and his sous chef outside of The Homestead Collective kitchen back door, where they were ripping open boxes of the just delivered Italian pasta machine. Upon seeing us, Bonavita broke into a huge smile and greeted us warmly, taking us into a private dining room for our interview. Question: What brought you to Colorado Springs? Joseph Bonavita: I answered an ad in LinkedIn for an executive chef position overseeing a large restaurant hub: The Homestead Collective in Colorado Springs.
And since I’m an avid outdoors man, I love fishing and bow hunting. I knew Colorado would be a great place to live, work and enjoy my outdoor passions. When I met Mitch and his team, I liked them all on the spot.
Mitch loves Colorado Springs and is bringing something special to the city. The Homestead Collective is targeting May to June to be fully open. I’m the executive chef for all of them.
It’s going to be the place to go eat for every dining segment of the day. Tell us about your upbringing. What is your heritage? Where did you grow up? We are a big Italian family.
My dad’s great-grandfather emigrated from Sicily and my mother’s side of the family is from Naples. Both families settled in Long Island, N.Y.
As young kids my family lived in Smithtown, N.Y. Later we moved to Oxford, Conn.
Was food a big deal in your family? We’re Italian, of course food was the center of our life. Both my mom and dad are exceptionally good cooks. My dad had a small pizzeria when he was 17.
It was called Bonavita’s Pit Stop. The last time I saw the menu it was stuck on the refrigerator door at home. Did your family have regular nightly dinners? Do you think that is important and why? Yes, we did.
It’s one of the things I miss about being far from my family members. I think it’s very important to share meals with your family and close ones. It brings everyone together.
What is your first food memory? My grandfather’s secret seafood salad he makes every Christmas, which he has passed the recipe on to my dad and me. Did you cook with your mom and dad? What sort of things did you learn? I remember fishing with my dad and we caught a rainbow trout. He taught me how to cook it on the grill with lemon wrapped in foil.
Delish! How would you describe your food? My food is ingredient-driven with a global flair striving to have a flair for fun, playful twists on old favorites. I want my food to be soulful and exciting, but simplistic and memorable. When you’re creating dishes for a new menu what is your process? I just take the best ingredients possible and highlight them in a way that makes them shine best.
What are six words to describe you? Inspiring, motivating, caring, driven, passionate, supportive. I like to make people happy. You’re making an omelet.
What’s in it? Farm fresh eggs, blue crab, roasted garlic, scallions, chile oil. What ingredients do you obsess with? Anything that is fresh and of its highest quality. Kitchen equipment you can’t live without? My MadeIn brand of sauté pans.
Best recent food discovery? Recently I have been playing with Middle Eastern spices and flavor profiles more. Most underrated ingredient? A really good quality olive oil. Many cooks don’t realize how important this can be, from cooking to making sauces or dressings.
Food trends you wish would disappear? Gold leaf on food to make it “fancy.” I can’t stand it. One food you detest? Cheap farmed salmon.
It’s gross. One food you can’t live without? Shellfish, I especially love king crab. What’s never in your kitchen? Mass-produced anything, especially inhumanely raised proteins.
What’s always in your kitchen? I always have some sort of farm-raised wild game around. For instance, for the new Till Kitchen menu I will have a rabbit pappardelle dish and South Texas antelope sliders. What are your rules of conduct in the restaurant kitchen? Professionalism is No.
1 for me. I strive to make sure everyone is having fun while cooking. What might be a favorite dish on the menu for Till Kitchen? Probably between the Manila clams with chorizo and green chile mezcal broth, or the whiskey-glazed peking duck with braised mushrooms, spicy scallion salad and house-made steamed buns.
The duck is a great dish to share! As we wrapped up the interview and walked past the area with the wood-burning pizza oven, Bonavita stopped to check on his sous chef and the line cooks who were practicing their pizza-making skills. In true Italian mom style, Bonavita insisted we take a pizza home for lunch. “Which pizza do you want?” he asked.
“I know, you should have the pepperoni. You’ll never taste anything better.” Later at home, we had to agree — the pizza is a winner piled high with spicy pepperoni, with the heat of the spices toned down with the slightly acidic homemade tomato sauce.
Perfection. Bonavita has a plate full of expectations with the ambitious job of overseeing the various eateries. But that’s where all those management skills he gained from his Chicago culinary schooling will come into play.
The young chef shows confidence that he understands the task at hand, summing up our chat by saying, “I want my chefs to grow into their position to be able to replace me.”.
