Free Don't Try This at Home by Kimberly Witherspoon, Andrew Friedman Page A

wound up as destinations for diners from across the country: the Red Cat, the Harrison, the Mermaid Inn, and (the more grand-scaled) Face. After attending the University of Rhode Island, Bradley worked in some of Philadelphia and Rhode Island's top kitchens before becoming executive chef of Savoir Fare, a progressive Martha's Vineyard bistro where he began his trademark style of straightforward, boldly flavored seasonal cooking.
    T HIS STORY WOULD never happen today. It probably could only have taken place in the 1980s, when drug and alcohol abuse
     in the restaurant industry were at their zenith. The names of the restaurant, the chef, and the owner have been changed to
     protect the innocent, the not-so-innocent, and—most importantly—myself.
    In 1986,1 was a young cook working in a seaside resort town along the coast of Rhode Island, not unlike the kind of place
     you might find along the Jersey Shore. I worked for a restaurant—we'll call it the Harbor Cove Inn—that was one of the better
     eateries in the area, one of the few places that didn't make its money on an autopilot menu of baked scrod with Ritz cracker
     crumbs, lobster Newburg, and baked stuffed shrimp.
    The Harbor Cove Inn was as close to fine dining as it got in this town, a nondescript, carpeted dining room; walls papered
     with parchment; a staff of salty locals, high school students, and college kids; and a small but serviceable kitchen in the
     back.
    Credit for our noteworthy offerings belonged to the chef—we'll call him Fernando—a Puerto Rican who had worked in New York
     City and, through some cruel twist of fate that I never really understood, wound up in this tiny hamlet. I liked Fernando.
     He was talented, both creatively and as a kitchen technician. And he liked me, enough that he promoted me from line cook to
     sous-chef in a very short time.
    The third character in this ill-fated tale is the restaurant's My lobsters took a swift pop under the salamander. I'd be proud
     of the fact that my New Year's went flawlessly, that my full dining room of customers went home happy and content, and that I,unlike the vastly-more-talented-but-less-organized Bobby,
     brought honor and profit to my masters. owner, a Rhode Island wise guy who for our purposes will go by the name of Frankie.
     You've seen men like Frankie in the movies, or on The Sopranos —connected guys who have their hands in a mix of local businesses. Frankie owned not only a restaurant but also an auto dealership
     and a liquor store, and he was on the board of just about every committee in town. Like those movie and TV characters, Frankie
     had a base of operations, an office in a huge complex, where he ran his empire, his only visible aid coming from the "girl"
     at the secretary station outside his office, a sweet, maternal figure named (not really) Delores.
    Frankie was a real local character. He might not have stood out much in New York or New Jersey, but in this little Rhode Island
     town, his three-piece suits combined with his diminutive stature and bruiser's gait made it easy to spot him from a mile away—as
     did his hair, which, though he was only in his mid- to late thirties, was prematurely gray.
    I had been working at the Harbor Cove Inn for eight or nine months when, one February day, a ray of sunshine broke upon my
     bleak New England winter. Frankie strutted into the restaurant and, apropos of nothing, pulled aside me and Fernando. "Listen,"
     he told us, "I just saw this new space that's up for grabs. I think we could do something really nice there. You guys can
     have some more creative freedom, the town'll get another good restaurant, and we'll all make some more money. Everybody's
     gonna win."
    Fernando and I couldn't have been more excited. We drove over to check out the space and discovered, to our delight, a charming
     little converted house with enough space between its white clapboard walls and the street to allow for outdoor seating in
     the spring and