3 minute read
CHEF SPOTLIGHT: EDWARD HIGGINS
PHOTO COURTESY OF THE LIVELY
The Lively
By Kyley Jolna
Chef Higgins has worked and lived all over the world, including Japan, Oregon, California, Texas, Hawaii, and now Idaho. “When I was growing up [in Boston] as a child, there were large dinners with my Sicilian & Irish family…food was always central and it plays out on the plates here,” he said.
In 2019, he received a call from Marc Taylor, a recruiter friend from Portland, about an opportunity consulting for a start-up. Over the holidays, Chef Higgins traveled to Boise to cook for Greg & Kari Strimple, who own The Lively. Before leaving, they asked, “Why not you [as head chef]?” Which made him stop to think…and the rest is history.
According to Chef Higgins, a dish should go on a restaurant’s menu only if it relates to the chef or one of his team members in some way. Everything on The Lively’s menu reflects a story or relationship with the community. Each dish has at least one personal layer to it, whether that’s a familial experience or a relationship with local purveyors. It is the lens they are attempting to build for their customers.
Chef Higgins defines his cooking as “regional cuisine,” which means that wherever he is, first there is a focus on the location and cooking with the local ingredients, and only then is a dish put through a lens.
“Take Kevin [Posada] who grew up in El Salvador and moved to Los Angeles as a child where he was raised by his grandmother. He cooked at Red Bird and all of these other great restaurants in that city and then we met in Hawaii. His story is going to play out in a different, unique way, but the framework is going to be the same [as mine],” Higgins said.
The new Hamachi crudo currently on the menu at The Lively is a favorite and a reflection of Chef Higgins’s time shopping at the Tsukiji Fish Market while living in Tokyo, Japan working for The Four Seasons.
Nonna’s Meatballs are another. The recipe is a combination of his mentor at Hearth Restaurant in New York City, Marco Canora’s, and his grandmother Nonna Anna’s with some interpretations, although he notes that “she would never put that much cheese because [she thinks] it is too fatty.”
Chef Higgins explains that occasionally, it isn’t about being pretty. “Sometimes [a dish] isn’t aesthetically pleasing, but that's the charm.” Take, for example, the “Thanksgiving dinner” from The Lively’s current menu.
“We make a perfectly roasted whole chicken–half of it actually, but we roast them whole, then we debone and roast them. It is served with mashed potatoes, and a pan gravy with local mushrooms from Groves County in a sherry jus,” he said.
Higgins is also embarking on another adventure with the Strimples. A sushi restaurant called House of the Little Pig, named after the famous (and possibly the first) Italian fresco in Naples, will open in late Summer 2024 near Barber Station. Kevin Posada, from The Lively, will be head chef there.
