Next-Gen Leadership

As the new Executive Chef of The Polo Club of Boca Raton, Samantha Cavaciuti is charting a way forward by responding to needed changes within the industry.

By Scott Craig, CEC, CCA, WCMC, Director of Culinary Operations, Myers Park Country Club (Charlotte, N.C.)

BEING NAMED EXECUTIVE CHEF

of The Polo Club of Boca Raton (Fla.) is an important and well-earned next step for Samantha Cavaciuti. She’s been at the club since 2015, when she joined as Chef de Cuisine. Over the past six years, she has diligently worked her way up the ranks, serving fi rst as Banquet Chef and most recently as Executive Sous Chef, before taking over earlier this summer.

As Executive Chef, Cavaciuti has defi ned important goals for herself and her team. She plans to refi ne the culture, work toward achieving a better work/life balance for her team, and pursue growth opportunities that will further enrich the member experience and the professional development of all of her culinarians.

C2C: What have been your greatest challenges in assuming the top position, and what advantages came along with having been a member of the team you are now leading?

SC: The sta has been incredibly supportive and excited about my new leadership role. Prior to this promotion, I was in the trenches with them. They know I always have their backs. I have been a constant presence during a critical transition period. I have worked to o er reassurance and stability when the team needed it most.

I believe that this team knows I wouldn’t ask them to do something that I wouldn’t do. That includes working the line, knocking out dishes or cleaning the kitchen.

C2C: I have a 12-year-old daughter who keeps a chef’s coat in my o ce. She loves to help out in the kitchen when she visits. What advice would you o er that might be specifi c to young women like her, who have a desire to pursue a career as professional chefs in the club industry?

SC: Kitchens have changed over the past 30 years. They are still changing. They have become more of a meritocracy. You must not set limits. You must work hard. Read everything you can get your hands on. And make sure this is what you want.

C2C: Having grown up in a food mecca like Chicago, what foods are “must haves” when you return home?

SC: Chicago is defi nitely a 24-hour food city, but the food I miss the most are the dishes my mother and grandmother cook. I fell in love with cooking by helping them and by eating all the amazing things they created.

C2C: How do you see our craft and industry evolving over the next twenty years? What role do you see yourself playing in that transition?

SC: I hope we can continue to work toward a better work/life balance within our industry. We need to stop glamorizing not eating and working around the clock. We need to try to make days o consecutive, so that employees have time to relax and decompress.

Our previous model just isn’t sustainable. People who are well-rested are more productive and don’t get sick as often. It’s my job as executive chef to appropriately sta and to create a productive model for our team to thrive.

C2C: At my club, we navigated the COVID-19 pandemic, only to emerge into a vacuous wasteland of applicants for kitchen positions. What does the labor market look like in Palm Beach County? How are you attracting talent?

SC: Palm Beach is facing many of the same challenges as everyone else in terms of sta ng. We try to o er our cooks an environment where they can learn and grow. All the chefs within our brigade were promoted from within— myself included. So we walk the talk.

We try to create a more even work/ life balance and we o er good benefi ts, too. We love to develop young cooks by encouraging them to move progressively through stations and restaurants. We’ve also started a gardening program that we look forward to expanding.

C2C: What are the “sacred rules” of your kitchens?

SC: If you wouldn’t serve it to your grandma, don’t put it in the pass. Also, waste nothing. Excess product can be utilized for employee meals, as well as in our pickling and preservation program.

C2C: If you could go back in time to the hardest day of your career and tell yourself only one thing, what would it be?

SC: Keep going. No matter how hard today is, it will end, and you will get another chance tomorrow. C+RC

Executive Chef Samantha Cavaciuti and the team at the Polo Club of Boca Raton are pursuing growth opportunities that will further enrich the member experience and the professional development of all of the club’s culinarians.

Kni es

Culinary teams from Fiddlesticks CC and Sycamore Hills GC faced o in a cutting-edge competition that embodied the depth of skill and connection within the club industry.

By Joe Barks, Editor, Club + Resort Business

PHOTOS BY JORDAN WINKERT PHOTOGRAPHY

THE BEST EVENTS in the club business are built around connections that can make them stand out for both members and sta . And as Chris Hampton, General Manager/Chief Operating O cer of Sycamore Hills Golf Club in Fort Wayne, Ind., began to think about new culinary events to put on his club’s schedule for 2021, he remembered some special connections that got his mind racing about how to go beyond the usual formats for dinners that feature guest chefs or regional/international cuisine.

Pictured left to right: Alfredo Hildebrandt, Clubhouse Manager, Sycamore Hills GC; Brian Block, former Banquet Chef, Fiddlesticks CC; Vincent Capua, Executive Sous Chef, Fiddlesticks CC; Ryan Daniels, Executive Chef, Fiddlesticks CC; Christopher Hampton, GM/COO, Sycamore Hills GC; Anthony Capua, Executive Chef, Sycamore Hills GC; Mike Trabel, Executive Sous Chef, Sycamore Hills GC; Aaron Ruble, Sous Chef, Sycamore Hills GC; Maria Santel, Assistant Clubhouse Manager, Sycamore Hills GC

“We had hired Anthony Capua as our new Executive Chef the year before, and the impact he has made has been tremendous,” Hampton explains. “Anthony had previously been Executive Sous Chef at Fiddlesticks Country Club in Fort Myers, Fla., working for Executive Chef Ryan Daniels. And while he was at Fiddlesticks, his brother Vincent worked for him as a sous chef, and then took his position as Executive Sous after Anthony left to come here.”

“Hmmm,” Hampton thought as he mulled over all of those connections, which had actually occurred to him during his fi rst interview with Capua a year earlier. “What if we brought the team from Fiddlesticks here for a wine-dinner showdown? We could build it up as mentor vs. mentee, brother vs. brother—even ‘Fort vs. Fort.’ “

It took some time to work out the logistics and details, but on August 4th, 40 members of Sycamore Hills gathered excitedly to not only partake, but be key participants, in the inaugural “Battle of the Chefs,” where they would be served dishes made by each team for fi ve courses, from an amuse bouche through dessert.

The menus for the $150/person event, which sold out almost as soon as it was announced, included full descriptions of each dish (along with wines that were served to complement each course). But the menus, which did not reveal which club’s team had made which dish, also served as a “ballot” that the guests were asked to use, to vote for their favorite choice for each stage of the meal (see photo, pg 61).

And while what was involved with “considering” those votes was enjoyable from start to fi nish, making the fi nal choices was something that really put every diner to the test—or actually to the taste.

The parameters for what each team prepared were kept simple, with no restrictions on the creativity that could be employed for both the amuse bouche and dessert stages, and only stipulations that the three courses in between should use shellfi sh, duck and red meat as their proteins.

The Fiddlesticks team arrived three days in advance of the event and was housed in Sycamore Hills’ on-site cottages. But they didn’t spend much time there, as they immediately began intensive planning and preparation in the Sycamore Hills kitchen, using designated space that was hidden from view of how the Sycamore Hills team was also gearing up simultaneously for the Battle.

“To have that much culinary fi repower in one kitchen was truly an abundance of riches,” Hampton says. “And what was most impressive was that both teams worked in a shared

space as if they had been working together for years.”

After the results of all that work were served for each course during the Battle by the Sycamore Hills sta (through equally impressive synchronized service), the completed ballots were collected and everyone eagerly awaited the announcement of the results. (Another impressive achievement that should be noted is that the Sycamore Hills food-and-beverage sta also prepared and served 70 a la carte meals from the club’s single kitchen on the same night the Battle was being waged.)

Not surprisingly, the Battle didn’t result in a runaway for either team, with the winners for each course all being decided by razor-thin vote margins. Fiddlesticks took the overall crown by taking Courses 3 and 4 along with the amuse bouche, while Sycamore Hills won Course 2 and dessert.

But in the end, all were winners among the diners, culinarians and sta who were part of the initial Battle. “It came down to the wire, and sure, I would have liked to not have Fiddlesticks edge us out, but doing this event was so much more than a win or loss,” says Anthony Capua. “A chance to cook once again with my mentor, brother, other great chefs and my co-workers was nothing short of spectacular.

“It was a chance for two great teams to work together to put on what was a culinary show all night,” Capua adds. “It’s hard to explain how special this event was, not only for our team, but also for me personally. To put on a groundbreaking event and to have some fantastic feedback from our membership just put it over the top.”

And unlike what Apollo Creed said to Rocky after their fi rst battle, Ryan Daniels, as the head of the winning team, would be happy to entertain a rematch.

“I enjoyed this much more than the usual culinary competition or guest-chef event,” he said after the results had been announced. “It was fun and not ego-driven, and it was the perfect setting in terms of the number of people and courses, although maybe in the future the portion sizes could be reduced a bit.” (A sentiment that many of the attendees who felt the need to taste and re-taste, before being able to fi nally decide how to cast their votes, might agree with.)

“I’m a super-proud ‘parent’ when I see how far Anthony has come,” Daniels added about his former Executive Sous. “Sycamore Hills is very lucky to have him, and I would welcome having a ‘Round Two.’ “

Talk of making that happen, according to Hampton, is already underway. “This may be the fi rst time an event like this may have happened at a club, but I can promise you it won’t be the last,” he says. “And who knows— Sycamore Hills might become a trendsetter, and you will see events like this pop up at private clubs around the country.” C+RC