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[title]Will Gilson was a teenager when he realized he wanted to open his own restaurant. He’d grown up on a farm but never really took to farming (“I hated being dirty,” he admits), though he did develop an interest in herbs and cooking from a young age. He parlayed his experience into a pop-up dinner series and then eventually a full-fledged career as one of New England’s most notable chefs. Now, the chef/owner of Puritan & Co and four other thriving concepts is focused on collaboration. “For me, the most enjoyable thing is watching a team of people work together to solve problems, create a great service and find more ways to offer what we do,” he says. Here, the father of two talks about his other children—his restaurants—and shares how he juggles multiple hospitality businesses, his favorite time of year in New England (hint: it’s right now) and the go-to dish he loves to cook for his family.
What are some of the benefits of being a chef/owner?
There’s no greater feeling than knowing you’ve been able to achieve total hospitality when you’ve created an environment that’s successful and people want to be there. Someone is attracted to your idea, someone comes in, experiences it, leaves happy and wants to come back. I think that’s probably the most fulfilling for the restaurant and culinary industries writ large. It does best when people feel that immediate gratification—making something, serving it and being told it’s good.
You’ve spent your career working in kitchens throughout the northeast. How has that particular region influenced your cooking?
I would say New England is the driver of almost all of what we do. Even in an Italian restaurant, we still try to pepper in as much local seafood and meat seasonality as we can. But I like that we live in an environment with changing seasons. Every season is seemingly short and you know you have to be able to make the most out of it that you can and let people eat according to what is in season and what is tasty right then.
How would you define New England cuisine?
New England cuisine is defined by its regionality and seasonality. We have access to some of the greatest seafood in the world off of our shores as well as great produce but not at great lengths, so we have to take advantage of it when we can. We have a melting pot of clientele—people who live here and have brought lots of different parts of their cultures to create the cuisine of New England.
As a chef, what’s your favorite season?
Mid-September to mid-October is probably my favorite time to cook in New England. The product that we’re growing is still vibrant and beautiful. You still have tomatoes, all the different nightshades from eggplants to peppers, and you’re also starting to get the first of the mushrooms that are coming into some of the cooler and wetter weather. You may still find some corn, and so a perfect example of a dish is a chowder with corn, really great bacon and chanterelle mushrooms. I think if you can put together a seafood-based chowder with all of those ingredients, the nexus of them coming together creates really great cuisine.
What dishes do you refuse to take shortcuts on as a chef?
We like to cure and smoke our own fish and meat whenever possible. I’d say that there’s an advantage to being able to control that process from start to finish. Curing it with the right amount of salt and sugar, and applying the right amount of smoke makes it so that it tastes like fish and not like smoke.
What's it like being involved with different concepts?
Until recently, I had one child and the thing I was most nervous about having two is how to make sure you care for two children more equally and when u have more time with one than the other I think the same goes for restaurants. Some are needier and some resent you for not being around as much or not paying attention to them. Ironically, just at this moment, I'm realizing how similar my restaurants are to my children. I'm not going to have more kids but we are going to continue to open more restaurants. It’s not about me; it’s about creating something and giving it the tools to thrive and learn, including from its mistakes. The thing we try to impart to our staff is that you're not going to be perfect—you're going to make mistakes and have to learn how to make them right or learn from them.
Who’s home cooking do you miss the most, and is there a specific dish you wish you could have right now?
When I was studying abroad in college, I worked in London and lived with a family that my dad had gone to school with. They used to make a proper English Sunday roast, which is a tradition we don't really have in America. It was kind of like, hey, it’s Sunday and we’re going to spend all day around the house doing stuff and cooking. We’ll take the fat drippings from that roast and put it into this Yorkshire pudding and roast vegetables. If you can set a table with a meal like that, it makes people put their phones down and actually enjoy it.
What is your favorite thing to cook for a family dinner?
Roast chicken, full stop. I've got little kids and it's something that everyone in the house can agree on. You can make a lot out of one good chicken! You roast it, eat whatever part you want to eat first, save the rest for sandwiches and salads, and then take the carcass and put it in a pot with vegetables and make soup.
What’s always in your freezer?
I would say the only thing that’s currently in my freezer is ice cream sandwiches and waffles for the kids, everything else I try to keep fresh.
Name one pantry staple that you can’t live without.
My secret ingredient to almost everything is soy sauce or tamari, gluten-free soy sauce. I just think that it adds a savory aspect to things without just being salt. It adds depth that I don't have time to develop and I think the same can be said for adding into foods lemon juice or lime juice and I think an appropriately balanced dish needs to have all the taste buds but I think brightness and a city the way to wake up a lot of the other flavors.
What would you choose as your last meal?
Pizza. We have a very regionally specific kind in Massachusetts called South Shore Bar Pizza and it’s from probably about a dozen good places that are south of Boston. The pizza is kind of like if deep-dish pizza were thinner and wasn’t full of stuff, and the cheese, sauce and toppings went all the way to the edge. It’s usually made in a cast iron pan like a Detroit pizza and the cheese gets very crispy around the edges. They’re about 12 bucks and sold as a single serving, and you can’t get better than that.
What's the worst thing a diner could do to alter a dish?
I don't think there’s anything that grinds my gears more than when I try to run the food to the table and people ask for salt without tasting the food. I've yet to get to a point where I tell someone not to taste it first. It basically means you don't trust there's going to be enough salt and watching them taste it and say, it’s too salty
What’s the greatest food/drink combo?
I would say it’s got to be seared foie gras and Sauterne wine—the foie gras is salty and fatty and the wine is sweet and rich.