When a chef tells you he “still loves to cook,” you might think he is saying it as part of a nostalgic account of a career gone by. Steve Champagne is doing anything but retiring.
What Steve means when he says he still loves to cook is that he no longer mans the stoves or leads a team in one restaurant anymore; he’s just thriving in a completely different way as the executive chef of and a partner in Niche Hospitality Group (owner of eight beloved restaurants including three Bocado Tapas Bars and two Mezcals).
Steve used to be the other kind of chef. He’s been cooking in Worcester for more than two decades – ever since he decided to shift his vocation from engineering to cooking. He worked for years at The Sole Proprietor and 111 Chop House before taking over his first kitchen as executive chef at the dearly departed Struck Café. After The Struck, he came over to Niche and headed up the kitchen at another dearly departed friend, Block 5, before turning his talents to Bocado, Mezcal, and the ever-expanding Niche horizons.
Foodies like me wax rhapsodic at the current state of our culinary affairs in Wormtown, but Bocado and Mezcal remain pretty much singular in expanding beyond Worcester – to Providence, Wellesley, and Leominster. What that means is Steve is constantly on the move, tending to teams, menus, and operations for locations tens of miles apart.
These days time to cook usually comes in waves, creating a wine dinner or a new menu of seasonal dishes at Bocado or the Burger Bar at The Fix. But no new menu has been bigger than the one that launched at Mezcal.
But fig and lemon salsa? Boldly flavored purees? Will loyal Mezcal customers feel lost?
That said Steve is always willing to try something unexpected and play with color palates, bold flavors, and different textures to create unexpected dishes – some mash ups, some just because he can. Tuna poke, a quintessential Hawaiian dish, turns up at Bocado Worcester because Steve was just there this summer, but Moroccan lamb is there as a reflection of the country’s influence on Spain. In the Wellesley location, New England brown bread is grilled in a wood-burning oven and topped with seared foie gras, mustard reduction, and cranberries – a cool fall dish that takes a little from Spanish and New England traditions. For a recent Mass Foodies event, Steve took creamy rich burrata and served it for dessert with an olive oil cake – something different for an audience that craves it.
Yet when I asked Steve to cook something for this profile that represented him on a plate, he turned to nothing from his Niche repertoire but to something he would cook for himself and his wife. “A little throw together lunch,” he says.
Chef Champagne’s Pan-Roasted Bacon-Wrapped Short Rib: Charcoal charred celery root purée, mushroom conserve, rioja glaze—served during Chef’s Best Dinner (Photo by Erb Photography for Mass Foodies).
Yet the dish he makes – a seared salmon with aleppo pepper and smoked paprika served on a bed of mesclun greens warmed by a sauté of black beans, cauliflower, peppers, onions, tomatoes, and rosemary topped with a sauce of white wine and grain mustard and a bit of Manchego cheese – is easily good enough to end up on a menu. (Note to self: Steve Champagne’s “little throw together” lunches are not the same as mine.) The spicy earthiness of the aleppo and the brightness of the vegetables wilting the greens were both comforting and unexpected. In fact, if a dish like this works at home and Steve likes the way the flavors come together he may translate it to a restaurant.
Which is probably the biggest opportunity the current Worcester scene offers. When Bocado opened ten years ago, few understood tapas. Few understood sharing. Few explored beyond meat and potatoes. Now Steve can push the boundaries – both on the plate and behind the scenes.
Judging from our conversation, Steve will probably figure that out at the stove, on a Sunday at Bocado when it’s quiet and no one is around.
Chef Steve Champagne introducing the first course at the Chef’s Best dinner at Bocado in Wellesley, MA.