Chef Glaister Knight’s portfolio of restaurant experience reads like a who’s who of Newport hospitality. From The Mooring to The Clarke Cooke House, the former Bistro 162 to 41º North, Knight has designed menus and prepared meals at some of the City by the Sea’s finest establishments during his 28-year career. Now executive chef at the Brenton Hotel, Knight, 46, directs all food and beverage services for the 57-room boutique waterfront destination and its casual dining space, The Living Room.
This may seem like a leap for a country kid who grew up on a farm in rural Jamaica helping his dad handle livestock at Bodles Agricultural Research Station, a government-run farm that fosters genetic diversity in the island’s cattle. But in that natural environment, he also helped his mom grow vegetables and cook family dinners. It was there that he began loving fresh food, and his lifelong devotion to it began. He took over Sunday supper prep when he was just 8, serving roast beef and steamed veggies. That led to preparing his country’s national dish—the traditional ackee fruit and saltfish cod—for friends before soccer practice, which helped them run for hours, he says with a chuckle.
From his new vantage overlooking Newport Harbor, Knight remembers fondly those days of carefree cuisine—and recalls from that point onward, he didn’t want to do anything else. So, he attended HEART College of Hospitality Services in Runaway Bay, earning an associate degree in culinary arts; he worked at Sandals Dunn’s River resort, and then got a visa to work in the U.S. when he was 20. Thus began his nearly three decades in Newport’s culinary scene, interrupted only by six years as a culinary consultant for restaurants in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, including Bahrs Landing Restaurant and Marina.
Despite the family legacy and culinary pedigree, the easygoing food tinkerer prefers to remain under the radar, where attention focuses on the plate rather than his reputation. Luckily for diners, that means he takes inspiration from his global roots, spotlighting flavors of his homeland mixed with local ingredients, so that Jamaica and Rhode Island manifest on nearly every plate.
“It’s hard to specify if it’s the Jamaican influence or that he grew up on a farm, but what he’s able to do with fresh produce is extraordinary. A puréed carrot is added to a dish as a sweetener. He dials back his Jamaican jerk shrimp with produce,” says Brenton General Manager Andy Ross. “It’s amazing to watch him work.”
Knight’s jerk shrimp still delivers. It’s a traditional Jamaican preparation, including habanero pepper, allspice and thyme, garlic and onion powder and smoked paprika, just like his mother made. But he adds sweet potato butter on the side to balance the spice and tame the heat. She would approve, he says.
“Being from Jamaica, I love representing my country whenever I can. I love spicy and well-balanced food, and this is one of my favorite dishes to make,” he says of the jerk shrimp. “Most of the ingredients for this dish are locally grown except the shrimp and habanero peppers.”
Elsewhere on Knight’s menu of small plates, he blends microgreens from Warren’s Long Lane Farm with the Middle Eastern za’atar-spiced roasted carrots. (He orders weekly farm deliveries through Farm Fresh RI’s Market Mobile). He nestles mushrooms from RI Mushroom Co. and homemade kimchi atop pork belly steamed buns for Korean color, and mixes Japan’s native shishito peppers with Korean barbecue sauce and sesame seeds for a taste of Tokyo. Meanwhile, Narragansett Bay littlenecks and Point Judith oysters represent some of Li’l Rhody’s favored fare. From the Caribbean to Asia and Europe, Knight blends Old World flavors with modern presentation.
He loves it when a dish comes from the kitchen and guests don’t want to touch it because it’s too beautiful, he says. So, to inspire that delight, he designed the Scotch Egg with crabcake instead of the traditional sausage, as well as the grilled Spanish octopus with eggplant and walnut caviar, to surprise eyes as well as palates, he says. He has made a variation of this dish at every restaurant he’s ever worked in, he says, because its 18 ingredients are just so good together. He couldn’t be without his favorite pork and veggies, either, which surface in the braised short ribs crêpes with carrot butter, mushrooms and herb oil.
He dreams of retiring on a farm in Maine to grow vegetables, but until then he’s content preparing meals, managing ingredients, mentoring staff and engaging with customers. “I love mom-and-pop restaurants, and I’m always in the kitchen trying new stuff. So, whenever I go out, I like to try new things and keep up with the trends … being here [in Rhode Island], it’s mostly seafood ... So I just implement flavors from all over the world,” he says. “I crave Indian food, so I’ll put some Indian flavors in it like the curry coconut mussels. It’s like a passageway to India, Asia and Caribbean all in one.”
Annie Sherman is a freelance journalist in Newport, writing about everything from food and business to interior design and the environment in the Ocean State.
Brenton Hotel
31 America’s Cup Ave., Newport
401.849.3100; BrentonHotel.com
Join Chef Glaister Knight at our spring cooking class on May 8, co-hosted with Gil’s Appliances at their demo kitchen in Bristol. He’ll share some of his favorite recipes and help you elevate your cooking skills. See page 25 for more info!
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