"Sometimes you have to cut to the center of your plan and see how it tastes."
-Chef Leia
It is reasonable to assume that everyone who inspires was once themselves inspired.
The carpenter, machinist, or sculptor who once watched a parent create something out of nothing. The lawyer who memorized the arguments of Clarence Darrow or Beverly Axelrod. The college professor whose read Zinn or Hayek with an electrified imagination.
Or the chef, who watched Julia Child and Emeril LaGasse create cuisine which, theretofore, could only exist in the realm of tasty fantasy.
In each case, the aspirants realized, “that’s what I want to do,” only to lead another generation of aspiring builders, lawyers, professors, and chefs toward their humble destinies.
Leia Gaccione is undoubtedly such a chef. (It's pronounced "LEE-uh," by the way.) When other kids were out playing dodgeball, she stayed home and watched cooking shows. Her bowls of ramen were decked out in “serving suggestions” that never appeared on the label.
Although she would originally pursue a degree in psychology, the culinary arts is where Leia was destined to flourish.
Her restaurant, South and Pine in Morristown, New Jersey, serves American seasonal cuisine and is in its ninth year.
South and Pine is the product of a decades-long slog through unbearably hot kitchens, overbearing bosses, and the chauvinism characteristic of a still-male-dominated industry.
Strange how some folks think a woman’s place is in the kitchen, and yet in the professional kitchen, she is, for some reason, often to be relegated by default to the washroom, or the laundry.
But I digress.
Leia is forty now, but looks a good ten years younger — I guess doing what you love is good for your health. She’s been doing it for twenty-three years.
After countless manicured shallots, steam burns, skinflint gratuities, perspiration-saturated chef jackets, and compulsory genuflections to lesser talents, Leia is The Boss. The Head Honcho. The Big Cheese.
Burrata is my guess.
What drives such people to face the heat, the heartbreak, the intensity of overwrought expos (we all remember that scene from The Bear, don’t we?) and the ever-present prospect of accidents with knives?
Iron discipline? Hashtag NoExcuses? Sigma-Female Grindset?
The answer may surprise you.
Seasoned Seasons
When she’s not diving into a pile of cookbooks, “My muse is whatever is in season.”
She adds, “and local.”
What vegetable is in season at any given moment? What fruits? When is this or that protein at its most marbled, or the sunlight just right to awaken the juniper, nasturtiums, and mulberries from their inedible slumber?
When we list the seasons, we usually list them as, “Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter.”
But Leia’s life starts in its winter, and—like all lives—vacillates in and out of the other seasons, out of order, upside-down, and mixed, before settling on the summer of success in which she now finds herself.
Throughout the cold, dark times, where did she draw inspiration and sustenance? What was seasonal then?
Roots and Pomegranates
Leia Gaccione grew up in a single-parent household in Passaic, New Jersey. Her mother, Maureen, worked two jobs: one at a dry cleaners and another at a doctor's office. Sometimes Shoprite as well. She had to support Leia and her brother, Gary; outside of tucking them into bed at night, Maureen was constantly working. “We had to fend for ourselves,” Leia says.
Money was a constant struggle. “We were very fortunate,” she qualifies, in that “we had a roof over our heads and food to eat, but I didn’t have a pair of jeans until I was thirteen years old.”
This environment was emotionally exhausting, yet Leia drew potent wisdom from it. Her ambitions in life stemmed at least partly out of what she knew she didn’t want. This tendency—learning by counterexample—would become a recurrent theme in her life.
“We had very humble beginnings, and I knew I wanted more than that. I started working when I was fifteen. I love my mother and she’s amazing. She was just dealt a very shitty hand.”
Leia’s compassion made her strong and motivated, perhaps more than the average youngster. She attributes some of this to “oldest-child syndrome,” in that she was “a bit of an overachiever” and fiercely competitive.
“I wanted to win the spelling bee, I wanted to be in the National Honor Society, in the AP classes. And I did achieve all these things.”
But she competed with herself more than anyone else. “I don’t really care what other people are doing. I am me. I am unique. I’m doing my own thing...”
She backs off for a moment, revises her statement. “I’m very much inspired by what other people do, but I don’t think there’s anything like me in Morristown.”
After a brief deep breath, she caps that off with a sentiment I find to be virtually universal to the creative people I interview: “But I’m very hard on myself.”
Blooms of Spring Peer Through the Stubborn Frost
Leia was accepted to Montclair State University to pursue a degree in Psychology. But due to a clerical error, she needed to wait a semester.
She filled the time, as any busybody would, working, at Walden Books in Wayne, NJ. Leia was seventeen.
One day while stocking shelves, a moment of vulnerability, of uncertainty about her future overtook her, bringing tears to her eyes. In the midst of this existential “meltdown,” as she calls it, all it took was a kind manager asking her, “What do you love doing?”
Leia thought back to Julia Child and bowls of ramen, to her mother’s extended bouts of work and the food she unceasingly fought to put on the table; to the deprivations of a single-income household and the things she knew she wanted out of life.
She answered almost instantly: “Cooking.”
The manager asked a followup question. “My wife goes to a cooking school. Do you want to try it?”
This day would prove to be, more than any other, the first day of the rest of Leia’s life. Her path became unutterably clear: to grow an extended kitchen family from the seed of a single-parent childhood, to overcome the uncertainties intrinsic to any creative field, and to translate the anxiety of economic precarity into that mortal drive to which the only alternative is unthinkable.
And she had a clerical error to thank for it.
Out of the Frying Pan...
Cooking school led to restaurant management school, whose externship brought Leia to her first restaurant gig, at The Brass Rail in Hoboken.
“I did newbie tasks: picking herbs for hours, prepping vegetables for the salad station. Plating desserts. Our freezer was in the basement, so whenever a dessert needed ice cream, I had to run down the stairs, grab a scoop, and then sprint it back up.”
Talk about “digging deep.”
Cuban Pete’s in Montclair was her next proving ground. This is where she met Chef Carl. His first pivotal impact on Leia’s life would occur that day, and continue every day since.
She had never expedited in a restaurant before—a crucial Back-of-House task with little room for error—but Chef Carl saw something in her. This young woman—twenty years old at the time—was going places.
Starting right now.
He hired Leia on the spot as a line cook. The next day, she was made a sous chef, a promotion so expeditious as to be unheard-of.
Was it entirely a blessing, though? “Cuban Pete’s was just opening; it was complete chaos. Tickets hanging from the machine, five feet down the line. Totally insane.”
But Leia thrived, as Chef Carl knew she would, “learning a lot on the fly.”
Carl was Leia’s mentor. He taught her both through instruction and by watching, “and also by disappearing on a Friday night at 7:00 and leaving me to the wolves in the restaurant.”
Did it ever get overwhelming? Leia nods rapidly, as if to say, “of course it did,” and then starts talking with her hands, framing a broad spectrum.
“There are two kinds of people: people who see 240 reservations made in three hours and say, ‘Yes! We're going to fucking crush this.’ And those who say, ‘I'm stressed out.’ I'm not that stressed-out person. Maybe I'm stressed on the inside, but when I see a busy, busy night, I thrive in the chaos. I fucking love it.”
Apparently, there are no “crash courses” in cooking. There are only courses. Pun intended.
...And into the Past
After Cuban Pete’s, when Carl was hired away to Son Cubano in New York, Leia went with him. “He wasn’t in the kitchen much. I had to learn on my own.”
One day, Chef Carl was in Chelsea, where he ran into none other than Guy Fieri. Putting aside the question of whether Son Cubano constituted a “Diner, Drive-in, or Dive,” Carl invited Guy to visit his kitchen. The latter accepted.
And wouldn’t you know it? During this visit, destiny struck.
“Guy offered us jobs in California.” Carl accepted, but Leia chose to remain on the East Coast. I ask why, gently.
"I stayed here for a boy who ended up being one of the biggest assholes I've ever dated; lesson learned. I will never do that again in my life."
But Carl did help Leia get her first Head Chef position at Gaucho Steak in Montclair.
Not long later, she took a new position that involved zigzagging both the tri-state area and the whole country. But if you had an opportunity to work alongside none other than Bobby Flay at five of his restaurants—Bar Americain in New York and Connecticut, Mesa Grill in New York and Las Vegas, and Gato in New York—wouldn't you do the same?
I would.
Flay would remain Leia's second big mentor for seven full years.
But throughout this time, she and Chef Carl stayed in touch. When it was time for Leia to open what would become South and Pine in lovely Morristown, Carl did her a solid: “He leant me two pieces of kitchen equipment—a robot coup and a beurre mixer—on the condition that I hang his picture somewhere in my new restaurant.”
And so she did, in the men’s room. But I could tell by her voice that the premature fate of so many exceptional people who touch our lives was inevitably approaching.
This framed picture—a slightly cheeky reminder of Chef Carl’s presence—was destined to become a memorial.
“He passed away in September 2019. If there was one person I wish I could have talked to during the past four years, navigating the pandemic and owning a restaurant, it’s that guy.”
“I love him and I miss him a lot.”
Life After Chef Carl, But Not Without Him
A lot of creative people, of which I include Leia, end up moving on from their discipline when they lose their teacher. Sometimes the human connection—the care and love and telepathic relatability that fulfill a primal emotional need—are what the student is holding onto, more than, perhaps, the instrument itself.
Did Leia ever think of giving up, of getting out of the industry?
“Definitely. I’m lucky to have worked with Carl. And there were also times when I was like, ‘I suck at this.’”
Throughout moments like that, of trying to overcome the loss of a dear friend—perhaps even a father figure—on top of the remnants of an uncertain upbringing—that threat of failure, ignominy, going broke, always knocking at her door, even years hence—she admits, “I have gone to some really dark places.”
What brings her back from the darkness?
“I remember that I make my own choices, and I always knew this business was going to be very hard.”
Hm. At the start of our interview, Leia declared, “I’m an open book.” I hope she doesn’t mind me flipping to the index.
“That’s what you tell yourself,” I say, “but what do you do?”
She doesn’t flinch at my invitation; she accepts it with relish. “Women get a bad rep for being emotional but I don’t think it’s a weakness. When I’m in those moments, I like to cry it out, to let my emotions out. And then some time and space helps me gain clarity.”
“I have a great support system,” she continues, gratefully. “I have great friends, great colleagues that understand the business, other business-owners that I know I can talk to when I’m ready to come out and be open about it.”
Another very dark place in Leia’s career was COVID, as it was to so many business owners.
“I thought I was going to lose my business.” South and Pine not only survived COVID but ultimately thrived as a result of it. But, “I can’t take responsibility for that. I’m beyond grateful for the Morristown community and surrounding towns that ordered from me during those times. They helped save my business. I pray to God there will never be anything as challenging as that.”
Examples and Counterexamples
Through her own hard times, Leia learned exactly what kind of chef and business-owner she did NOT want to be.
Years of no work/life balance left her dejected, and threatened to squelch her passion. “I’ve worked places with people who could give two fucks about how much I worked, like where you end up working ninety-five hours in a week. And that’s not two separate jobs; that’s one job.”
“You cannot expect people to work themselves to the bone and [still] be able to deliver a stellar experience! So I won’t do that to my staff. No one at my restaurant is working more than fifty-five, maybe fifty-eight hours, like on a week where two people are on vacation. It happens like once every six months.”
So Leia’s staff-members are able to work a second job if they want. “That’s their prerogative and good for them if they want to hustle and make that money. But I don’t want to work like that anymore and I don’t want my staff to work like that either. And I give them all two consecutive days off per week.”
So that’s what you didn’t want; what kind of workplace did you want to foster?
Leia tells a story about being a customer. Once, to return a favor, she brought a friend to a restaurant in Manhattan called Eleven Madison Park.
When they got there, a sign was on Leia’s table. They knew who she was, beforehand. She explains: "I'd recently hosted a documentary about female chefs called Her Name is Chef. I think it's on Hulu now; it's a really important documentary for women but it's really powerful stuff no matter what field you're in, no matter what gender you are."
I immediately add it to my Letterboxd Watch List.
“Anyway, they knew exactly who I was. Someone at Eleven Madison Park must Google all the reservations because they used the logo and font for that documentary to write my reservation sign. It made me feel so special. And I think that’s how you should feel in a restaurant. I tell my staff, I want people to feel as if they’re coming to my house for dinner.”
What must that be like, to have dinner at a pro chef’s house?
“If you come over, I’m taking your coat when you walk through the door, you’re sitting down, I’m bringing you a drink, I’m cooking you all the things, you’re not going to lift a finger. And you’re definitely not cleaning up!”
So at South and Pine, she continues, “if a customer wants to move a table, we’ll take care of it. If you don’t know where the restroom is, we’re going to walk you to the restroom.”
The simple things. The creature comforts. The whole thing sounds so beautiful. I’m almost tearing up listening to her; the love and concern in her voice is so straight from the heart, it’s palpable.
So what kind of boss did she want to be?
“My number-one job is to be a teacher. I keep that in the forefront of my mind. I try to be very patient with people and walk them through new things, not just explaining but showing, because that’s the way my brain works. I learn better by seeing instead of just reading a recipe.”
Also, “I’m not one of these owners who walks in and doesn’t do anything. I’m very hands-on.”
So a teacher and a doer. Sounds like an effective boss.
But Leia attributes a lot of her success to her staff. “Some of them have been working with me for eight, nine years. I’m a team player. It’s not all about me. People see my work ethic and how involved I am, and they respect that.”
“We also have fun, too. This job is way too hard to be a cranky miserable chef.”
Then she lays down the law a little. “But I’m not going to allow anyone to walk into my business and speak to me or any of my employees in a rude way.” Here’s the thing: “I’m a pitbull, and my staff are my puppies. If you fuck with one my puppies, it’s not gonna end well.”
She laughs. And I believe her even more for it.
Love is Hard Work
“Mommy and Daddy never gave me money to open a business,” she says. “Things could have gone terribly wrong. I had to figure it the fuck out because I had no choice. It was either fail or make it. That was it.”
“I’m very lucky that I’m a scrappy bitch from Passaic.”
If Leia is happy, I’m happy. So where does that scrappiness come from?
Throughout her childhood, Leia watched her mother working two jobs for her and Gary. There was no wondering about it, no questioning, no second-guessing. It had to get done.
But why? For Maureen then, as for Leia now, why did it have to get done? What drove it?
And what drove Leia to go from “humble beginnings in a single-parent household to biweekly pedicures that I pay for with my own money since I was seventeen”?
To treat her staff right and give her customers a world-class dining experience?
Maybe that’s what happens when love is what drives you. Maybe that’s the main lesson Maureen taught Leia, not through words but through actions.
Stories like this are what make me think so:
“There was a woman who had been coming in as long as we were open. She was older, maybe in her 80s. I hadn’t seen her in a while and she came in a few weeks ago. I said, ‘It’s so nice to see you’ and gave her a big hug.
“She started tearing up and told me her son died. I said ‘I’m so sorry to hear that but I’m happy you’re here.’ So she sat down with her friend and ate dinner. When it was time for the check, I took care of it. On the house.
“And let me tell you, this woman was so emotional. It was just so nice to do good for her when she was going through it. I feel like that’s what life is about, giving back and treating people with kindness and showing them love through food.”
Story: Mark Ludas @aulos.media
Photos: Peter Stog for LOKL cafe peterstog.com