If you’re lucky in life to find your creative and professional passions intersect, it’s a pretty surreal feeling. On top of that, if your romantic passion finds its way to the center of said intersection, you start to pinch yourself and ask, "is this really all happening to me?" That’s how I feel when I think about finding my way to Blue Hill at Stone Barns, a restaurant that changed my life and helped me discover not only who I was professionally, but my husband and partner in life, too.
After pursuing a culinary degree at the International Culinary Center in New York City—and trying my hand at just about every job in the industry—the opportunity to start an apprenticeship at Blue Hill sparked something inside of me, one of those “you just have to do this and worry about how you’ll do it later” type of feelings. I had the opportunity to work directly on the farm that surrounds the restaurant, received what was akin to a Master’s Degree in sustainable agriculture, worked with and learned from chef Dan Barber, and most surprisingly, learned that service was my true calling this whole time.
Three years at Stone Barns flew by, and I gave every single ounce of myself to my various positions there, from host to service captain. Along the way, I met Michael Gallina, the chef de cuisine and chef Barber’s right hand. I’ll spare you the restaurant romance clichés, but let’s just say that after a drink at a local late-night bar we hit it off, fell hard, and have spent only a few days apart ever since.
From the beginning, Michael and I discovered we had the same drive and passion for perfection mixed with a real love for food and how it’s grown. Throughout our relationship, working side-by-side is really all we’ve ever known, and that’s why it works for us. Working with your spouse isn’t always easy—in fact, sometimes it’s downright insane—but there is also something magical about working hand-in-hand with someone you love, knowing you’re both doing whatever you can to make each other successful.
After we got married and really started to think about our future, going out on our own and creating something special felt like the logical next step. Stone Barns was home for us, but it was time to spread our wings and take everything we’d learned and share it with a new community.
I’ll be completely honest—St. Louis was never someplace I dreamt where I’d build my life and my family, but life is funny that way. I’m an East Coast girl from Florida that fell in love with New York City and all its romance, but spending time in Michael’s hometown during quick weekend trips always had me asking questions about life in the Midwest. Why was everyone so nice? Why are all the beautiful parks and museums free? How was everything so inexpensive? What are all these great restaurants? Michael never thought he’d move back home, but I started to see a really wonderful city emerge during those visits, one that had grown and changed so much in the 15 years he’d been away, and it was really exciting to think about exploring and rediscovering the city together. Michael likes to say moving here was my idea, but I can see now how happy he is being back near family again—it was reason enough to give it a shot.
Planting your flag in a new city, particularly a Midwestern city, requires very thoughtful consideration. While Michael had been all over the world building an incredible career, he was a new face to the current culinary landscape in St. Louis. Not to mention, I didn’t know a soul but his immediate family. The thing that makes this city great is that the industry is very inclusive and supportive, in an almost too-good-to-be-true kind of way. We really wanted to take our time to get to know everyone, build trust, and find the best way to share what we’ve learned in a positive way.
The current chapter of my life has been the hardest yet, but also the most rewarding. We knew we wanted to open a place together, but the long list of questions that follows that statement felt like a never-ending game of what-if and how?
We thought hosting a pop-up dinner would be a good start, a chance to showcase who we are and take the temperature of how far we could push the limits. Being unemployed, you just hope and pray that people show up. Thankfully, we were able to sell out our first dinner, and the subsequent 20-plus dinners that followed. But those pop-ups were literally the hardest thing we’d ever done. We were like gypsies, trying to find kitchens to work in, equipment to borrow, staff to hire, farmers to source from, shlepping everything all over town in the back of our car. We were living off our savings and hoping we would beat the clock. The fact that our marriage survived those dinners was proof that we were really in this for the long haul!
The pop-ups were part investment into growing our brand in St. Louis, and also a way to keep our creative minds busy as we worked to build our first restaurant. We had found a new space in a really exciting neighborhood in the city that gave us the opportunity to build something from the ground up. The challenges and opportunities that came with that were exponential. When everyone tells you it takes three times as long and three times as much, believe them. We thought we’d be open in the fall of 2016; we opened Vicia just in time to host a James Beard Foundation dinner on March 21 the following spring that we planned months before. (Talk about an opening night!)
Everything that has happened since Vicia’s opening has been a blur, but in the best way. We just celebrated our six month anniversary and I can hardly believe what we’ve been able to accomplish in such a short time. We have an incredible team of people working with us to help make it all possible. We were awarded four stars from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reviewer—making us the only four-star restaurant in the city—along with recognition as a Best New Restaurant from both Eater and Bon Appétit. The accolades are great—don’t get me wrong—but you have to push even harder when all eyes are on you, and both Michael and I wake up every day and ask ourselves how we can do better. And then we go for it.
I know it’s not supposed to be easy, and some days are so hard that it makes you question why you got into this business in the first place. But the fact that every single day I get to create special experiences for our guests, provide them with thoughtful and warm service, make them think about what they're eating and where it’s coming form, that makes it worth it. I never dreamed I’d be running a restaurant in St. Louis, but saying yes to so many great opportunities over the last ten years of my life has brought me here, and there is no place else I'd rather be.
The op-ed Industry Insider series was created by Tan Pin Yen.
Hero image by Kevin Roberts.
