16 minute read
City Living
TABLE HOPPIN’ Myles Barber takes helm at Flying Rhino kitchen
Barbara M. Houle
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Special to Worcester Magazine USA TODAY NETWORK
A love of cooking came early to executive chef Myles Barber, son of Paul Barber and Melina (Capsalis) Barber, owners of the Flying Rhino Café & Watering Hole in Worcester.
Barber started in the Rhino’s kitchen as a teen washing dishes. “I knew I really wanted to be a chef when I moved to helping on the line,” said Barber. After graduating from St. John’s High School in Shrewsbury, Barber entered the International Culinary Institute in New York and later became kitchen manager at Mighty Quinn’s BBQ in Manhattan. The restaurant’s franchise locations outside of New York include Florida, Maryland, New Jersey and Dubai.
One important thing Barber learned in his early years working with his parents is how dedicated they are to the business. They both have a creative work ethic, he said, crediting his father as a person who loves the business and has kept it running successfully for 21 years. His mother is a fantastic cook and also the artist responsible for the Rhino’s décor, which she designed and hand-painted, he said. The day of this interview, Melina Barber was at the restaurant food prepping. One former Rhino chef described the couple as “owners who think outside the box.”
For his part as new executive chef, Barber several months ago “tweaked” the lunch and dinner menus and made dinner selections for participation in Worcester Restaurant Week 2021, which runs through Aug. 14. Visit www.worcesterrestaurantweek.com for restaurants offering three-course meals for $25.21. The chef said Worcester Restaurant Week is “going very well” and that he looks forward to the return of Taste of Shrewsbury Street Aug. 24 after it was canceled last year due to COVID-19. The event, 5 to 9 p.m., will feature food tastings from participating eateries, in addition to live entertainment. More info about tickets, $25 each, at http://tasteshrewsburystreet.com.
The Rhino is among city restaurants that recently reported a rebound in business. Barber is hopeful the fall season will bring in more diners with the anticipated return of football games, college students and other local activities. The Rhino’s outdoor tent provides additional seating, he said, and is a safe and comfortable dining area. The restaurant has plans to extend outdoor dining through October or early November. Expect chef-driven barbecue from Barber, who has a smoker on premise.
Visit www. yingrhinocafe.com for lunch and dinner hours Wednesday through Saturday. The business is closed Monday and Tuesday. Sunday Brunch (a la carte menu) is from 11 a.m. to last seating at 7:30 p.m. The restaurant o ers valet service on Friday and Saturday. Additional parking in nearby lots. Connect on social media; telephone: (508) 7571450.
This family-run business is where Myles Barber met his wife, Shannon, a bartender at the restaurant. The couple have a 3year-old daughter, Mila Barber. Paul and Melina Barber’s daughter, Victoria Barber, is the restaurant’s bookkeeper, having been mentored by her late grandmother Katherine Capsalis. The couple’s other daughter, Madeline Blumberg, manages a boutique winery in Napa Valley. “We’re extremely proud of all our children,” said Paul Barber.
The Flying Rhino Café & Watering Hole has won its fair share of local awards. Before COVID-19, Barber was sous chef at the Rhino, working with executive chef Drew Day, winner of the 2020 Iron Chef award at Worcester’s Best Chef competition. Chris O’Harra, a former executive chef at the restaurant, won a rst place WBC Judges’ Award. He’s now a chef/instructor at Worcester Technical High School.
Paul Barber has served as president of the Shrewsbury Street Area Merchants Association and continues to be an active member of the nonpro t volunteer-sta ed SSAMA, working with other owners to help promote businesses on Worcester’s Restaurant Row.
Before the pandemic, I wrote a Q&A column, Meet the Chef, for the Worcester Sunday Telegram. I asked Barber a few questions from the column.
Q. What’s your favorite cheap eat?
A. Vincent’s (Su olk Street, Worcester) for meatball and sausage sandwich. I may have raised a glass or two there with my dad.
Q. Who were your biggest in-
Myles Barber, the new executive chef at Flying Rhino & Watering Hole, with his father, Paul Barber, who started the business with his wife more than 20 years ago.
CHRISTINE PETERSON/TELEGRAM & GAZETTE
Myles Barber says his mom has been a big influence on his
cooking. CHRISTINE PETERSON/TELEGRAM & GAZETTE
uences?
A. Mom, for food; Dad, business. Also, Alex Smith, an executive chef and consultant in New York who taught me good barbecue, and Mark Hawley, a former executive chef at the Rhino. I was young when Mark worked at the restaurant, but I remember watching him on the job. I guess you could say I was in awe of what he did. Note: Mark Hawley is Director of Culinary Operations and Corporate Executive Chef with Worcester Restaurant Group.
Q. What would you be doing if you weren’t a chef?
A. I’ve always been interested in sea animals. Marine biology or something like it? I haven’t given it much thought since I’ve been in the food service industry most of my life.
Q. What’s your favorite meal to make at home?
A. Simple stu , really. Like a marinara sauce. I made shrimp fried rice the other night. I’ve become sort of the designated cook for family holiday get-togethers. Beef Wellington was the last thing I made. Dad’s the bartender at the parties.
According to Barber, the Rhino joins other city restaurants in the struggle to nd workers. “The challenge for us is to nd people to help in the kitchen,” said Barber. “For chefs and cooks, the work is both hard and rewarding. It’s a team thing, both in back and front of the house. Looking back, I’m glad I was groomed as a teenager to work in the family business. I sometimes joke about how ‘Dad’s the one who made me do this.’”
Evviva Trattoria offers 4-course special evening
Evviva Trattoria Marlboro will host a “4-course Regional Italian Food and Wine Tasting” beginning at 6 p.m. Aug. 17 at 142 Apex Drive, Marlboro.
Tickets, $54.99 per person, can be reserved with a $25 deposit at www.evvivatrattoria.com/marlborough.
On the menu: Pioggio Di Antipasti (Emilia-Romagna region); Tagliatelle Al Fruitti di Mare Fra Diavolo (Campania region); Porchetta Alla Romana (Lazio region); Tiramisu (Veneto region). Check it out!
Whiskey tasting at Julio’s
Julio’s Liquors in Westboro has scheduled an in-store tasting at Whisk(e)y Wednesday scheduled for 7 p.m. Aug. 18.
Purchase a “3x200ml kit,” $39.99 ($50 value), to reserve a spot. Kits will be available the night of the event. Kobie Ali of Heaven’s Door will lead the tasting. Visit www.juliosliquors.com or call (508) 366-1942 for more information. The tasting will be on Facebook Live (Julio’s Liquors page) for folks at home.
If you have a tidbit for the column, call (508) 868-5282. Send email to bhoulefood@gmail.com.
NEXT DRAFT Wormtown Brewery names its new president, general manager
Matthew Tota
Special to Worcester Magazine USA TODAY NETWORK
WORCESTER – If not for craft beer, Kimberly Golinski may have had a long, ful lling career in car sales.
Six years ago, Golinski was well on her way to climbing the ladder at Patrick Subaru, a car dealership in Shrewsbury. Then she saw an opening at a brewery in Monson. Selling beer would be her calling, not Subarus.
Things worked out, though: She is an indispensable piece of one of the most popular breweries in the world.
And now, after ve years as Tree House Brewing Co.’s o ce manager, Golinski will become Wormtown Brewery’s next president and general manager.
“I’m going from one great brewery to another great brewery,” Golinski said in a recent phone interview. “I couldn’t get here without Tree House. They’ve given me the opportunity to expand my wings in the beer world and allowed me to take their dreams, run with them and build with them. Now it’s time to take that and apply it elsewhere.”
Golinski starts on Shrewsbury Street Aug. 16, replacing former GM Scott Metzger, who will become Maui Brewing Co.’s chief operating o cer.
Let’s get this out of the way early: Golinski was not hired because Wormtown needs a woman in a leadership position to burnish its image while dealing with allegations of misogyny and a “boy’s club” culture. That line of thinking, awed as it is, overlooks her impressive rise in the brewing industry, highlighted by her time with Tree House, where she had a hand in just about every part of the brewery.
“It’s nice to be a female in a leadership position and maybe inspire other women; I want my daughter to say, ‘That’s my mom and I can do that too.’ It’s a great feeling,” she said. “But I got the job because I’m the right candidate. I’m proud to represent the female work force in the beer world. I started at the bottom. Did I think I would be here at some point? No. But here I am, and I’m going to embrace it.”
Golinski said she had no reservations seeking the job at Wormtown, because she trusts its core. The brewery reacted swiftly to the outcry against sexism in the beer industry even before learning of the allegations against it, she said.
“They made changes immediately. They didn’t wait,” she said. “If there are more changes that need to be made, I’m the right person to do it. I’m going to get in there with a fresh view. I can see other issues if they exist. It doesn’t scare me.”
The general manager at Wormtown acts as the brewery’s quarterback, planning and executing new marketing and expansion projects and overseeing employees in Worcester and Foxborough. In the week before she starts, Golinski will meet with Metzger to learn about his 23 months in the job.
“My management style is to sit back, listen and learn, then troubleshoot and go from there,” she said. “I have to spend some time with Scott and pick his brain. Right now, I’m an outsider looking in. I can’t make and changes without knowing what’s happening internally. I did that with Tree House, as well.”
She’s eager to experience a side of the beer business she rarely dealt with at Tree House: distribution.
“I want to learn how to grow a brand in a di erent footprint. I’m excited to learn that side of it. I’m coming from a place where 100% of our customers bought beer by walking through the door,” she said.
Wormtown’s newly named CEO, David Fields, said it was Metzger who suggested Golinski as his replacement. After Metzger informed Fields in May about the Maui opportunity, they began drafting a transition plan.
“I remember Scott telling me, ‘You do know you already have my replacement, right?’” Fields said.
Fields and Golinski have met before several times at di erent beer festivals, and Golinski previously interviewed for a di erent position at Wormtown. There are many reasons why Wormtown chose Golinski as its GM, Fields said, but, surprisingly, her time with Tree House is not at the top of the list.
“It’s more my understanding of Kim as a person, more so than what she may or may not have done at another brewery,” he said. “When you meet her, she brings integrity. She brings passion, knowledge and experience. She could have worked at a car dealership, and she still would have been a great t for us. The fact she has experience at an amazing brewery is just a plus.”
Golinski entered the brewing industry in 2007 as a beer ambassador for Berkshire Brewing Co.
She worked for a few other breweries after Berkshire before joining Patrick Subaru, a job she thought would lead her out of the beer business.
Tree House posted an opening for an o ce manager in 2015. Golinski’s friends in the beer industry urged her to apply. Patrick Subaru tried to keep her. She recalls one of the dealership owners saying, “Unless we open a brewery, she’s not staying.”
Tree House hired Golinski in 2016, selecting her out of some 1,000 applicants. She spent her rst day working on plans for Tree House’s brewery in Charlton.
Over the years, Golinski has worn many hats at Tree House — everything from construction planning to bookkeeping to parking cars to pouring beers. Most recently she has focused on Tree House’s search for and acquisition of new property, including its expansions in Cape Cod, Connecticut and Deer eld. When Tree House needs to go before a town board for licensing or permitting, it’s often Golinski representing it.
Employee 15 at Tree House, Golinski leaves the brewery on the best of terms. She tried to tell as many of her fellow coworkers of her plans face-toface, including Tree House’s three founders. Their well wishes and goodbyes have brought her to tears.
“I was overwhelmed,” she said. “Everyone is proud of me. And so many people told me how I impacted their careers at Tree House. I didn’t understand how many until they started telling me what I did for them. I have some text messages that I couldn’t get through; I just started crying. It’s been a roller coaster. I’m happy one moment, then sad. But you cannot take the emotion out of it. Beer is an intimate thing. The beer world is tight-knit and humungous at the same time.”
Kimberly Golinski, Wormtown Brewery’s new president and general manager, at the Worcester brewery Friday. She will assume full control of operations Aug. 16.
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LISTEN UP Sapling eyes end of the world in new ‘Apocalypse Musical’
Victor D. Infante
Worcester Magazine USA TODAY NETWORK
Perhaps it’s odd, but it feels like Sapling’s new album, “The Apocalypse Musical,” really unveils its soul in the penultimate song, the instrumental, “Detuning an Orchestra in an Aviary at Night.” It’s an unearthly, discordant piece of music, Amber Tortorelli’s Theremin prominent in a sound that can only be construed as “string section set to alien abduction.” There is a buzz in the background, and it’s hard to say exactly what’s making it, but it does indeed sound like bees swarming while everything else falls apart.
Everything falling apart is pretty much the center of this album, and as W.B. Yeats once said, the center cannot hold. “The Apocalypse Musical,” then, is in some ways an exercise in sur ng the apocalypse, Francis Ford Coppola-style. It’s an exercise in over-the-top absurdity, until it suddenly very much isn’t. Perhaps it’s the garage-rock style surf guitar that underscores the opening track, “Antisemantic,” that puts “Apocalypse Now” in mind. On its own, the song itself is a blistering blast of punk rock and exhaustion, one that rides forward driven by Tortorelli’s guitar, Jonathan Cordaro’s drums and, most prominently, Rainy Stanford’s vocals and bass. “I’m tired of your social lost causes,” sings Stanford, “I’m tired of your pregnant pauses/I’m tired ... oh I’m so (expletive) tired.” The world is exhausting, and as the song rises to a bon re pitch, that exhaustion turns into kindling. When Tortorelli takes the lead vocals in “Hatchet Dutiful,” the e ect is almost a manic identity crisis – “When I grow up I want to be a steam shovel,” then “a preach farmer,” then a drug dealer” and so on – with the last line, “I want a job that makes me happy” lost beneath a caterwaul and grungy bass.
Things decelerate to a simmer with “Age of Icarus,” where Stanford sings, “You y too close to the sun/You wage a war can’t be won/Should I hate what I’ve become?/The end’s already begun.” The whole tone of the song is a slow burn that’s so tightly restrained it almost feels dangerous, and why shouldn’t it? The identity crisis is still here, and the apocalypse is looming in the distance. The apocalypse is always looming in the distance. The song refrains the word “perihelion,” which is the point in an elliptical orbit where a planet is closest to the sun. The refrain feels like melting wax. Perhaps it’s that sense of dissolution that lends a sense of o ness to the subsequent song, “Jackson Pollock, Cartographer,” a tiny explosion of pop rock, with a sense of some dissolution lurking underneath. The wax hasn’t turned to bubble gum, it’s still wax, and now we’re trying to make maps of splotches of random paint.
The album moves on into an instrumental that’s equal parts warm and foreboding, “The Lion, The Witch, and The Kabbalist,” it’s a great title, evoking thoughts of childhood fantasy laden with Christian symbolism on one hand, and esoteric Jewish mysticism on the other. An album that began in a fairly concrete place has, by this point, oated somewhere else entirely, embracing a sort of surreal abandon of the snippet of music, “Modern Man Intro” and then the frenetic machine gun bullet vocals of “A Sound of Victory”: “I hear a sound of abundance of rain/I hear a sound of victory.” The song is discordant, really more spoken word set to noise than anything, but it captures a sort of absurdity of violence and war, like sur ng to “The Flight of the Valkyrie” while explosions crash. Fittingly, the song is followed by the blistering “Cacti Galacti,” a thrash of punk rock, sex and fear. The song ies by quickly, but thankfully, we have some time to linger with the next one, “De ne the Duel.”
“I’m stirring my instant coffee with a chopstick,” sings Stanford. “I’m thinking about the apocalypse more than usual today/You’re carefree and smiling cuz you don’t know better (you’re breaking all the rules)/ My patience is fading but still I am waiting for you to de ne the duel.”
The song has a touch of whimsy in it, and a ash of danger. Its tone grows grows darker as it goes, its sound more enveloping. It’s easy to believe that the end of the world is actually nigh, especially as the cacophony gives way to the complete dissolution of “I Know You Are Blues,” with Tortorelli refraining the playground taunt, “I know you are but what am I?” It’s here that we come to the aforementioned “Detuning an Orchestra in an Aviary at Night.” It’s a space where everything is broken, out of tune. But still there’s an insistent, almost-menacing buzz of life that tells us we’re not quite done yet, that the listener isn’t going to be left in that formless void.
Of course, the album also is quick to remind the listener that the real world’s dangers and hypocrisy are what brought us to the apocalypse in the rst place, concluding the album with the straight-up rocker, “Wake Up America,” with its jump-rope rhyme chorus, “Complicit, complacent, the body’s in your basement.” The apocalypse is not someone else’s problem, nor is someone else to blame for it: It’s right beneath your feet, waiting to consume everything.
From left, Amber Tortorelli, Rainy Stanford, and Jonathan Cordaro comprise Sapling.
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