The story of Matt and Kristin Gennuso’s 19-year sojourn at Chez Pascal is the tale of a daring young couple taking over an established French bistro and quickly adding to that fine dining with a hot dog cart in the park across the street. Several years later, they converted a linen truck into one of Rhode Island’s first farm-to-table food trucks, parking it at Roger Williams Memorial Park, in downtown Providence.
Yet throughout each of those enterprises, what became most important to them was building a loyal staff and clientele who have become family to the Gennusos and to one another. Matt is certain that’s what they’ll miss most as they set out on their next adventure, coming up in July: working and living in Singapore! If things go according to plan, Matt will be teaching the art of charcuterie at a culinary school in the Southeast Asia city.
Born-and-bred New Englanders, Kristin and Matt met while working at the iconic Hamersley’s Bistro in Boston: she as a host; he as a chef. Kristin’s undergrad degree in political science had been left behind for 10 years’ experience at Hamersley’s and Matt had graduated from the Culinary Institute of America (CIA), so, in 2002, they were ready to “do their own thing.” When they realized that the sale of Chez Pascal included the building and its contents, they made the leap.
“Looking back, it was the best decision we made,” says Matt, with the clang of pots and pans echoing in the background. “This space was great for us, as was the neighborhood and continuing with French cuisine.”
After his studies at CIA, Matt had done an internship at Oakland’s famed Oliveto, where locally sourced food was taken for granted. He and Kristin started making connections with local farmers right away, at the Hope Street Farmers Market, including Pat McNiff of Pat’s Pastured, Skip Paul of Wishing Stone Farm and Diana Kushner of Arcadian Fields Organic Farm.
Matt was also trained at Oliveto in how to take a whole animal and break it down so that every part of it would be used. Wanting to continue the practice, he evolved his house-made sausages and hot dogs.
The hot dog cart (homemade relishes, as well as the dogs and other sausages) lasted eight years; the food truck approximately six. The latter morphed into the Wurst Kitchen, inside the restaurant, with a takeout window. The window made it possible to serve the food-truck menu at times other than lunch ... and it became the Covid takeout window in 2020.
Another popular venture they introduced in the Covid winter of 2021, and continued in the winter of 2022, was their “Après Ski” service: simple meals served outside under heaters and twinkle lights to diners bundled up in Adirondack chairs Matt and his father built and the staff helped to paint.
In addition, Kristin and Matt began a video series, filmed and edited by employees, “keeping everyone working and encouraged during the slower time when we weren’t [serving] inside.”
Other inventive enterprises from the Gennusos have been their popular Chezpron, a chef ’s apron designed to relieve pressure around the neck and shoulders; Covid-time scavenger hunts, sending hikers to various woodland trails to seek out a special prize rock; and the annual all-tomato dinners, always sold out.
On the food front, the most consistent fan fave was the duck entrée, especially the cassoulet, the official harbinger of the winter season. Matt and Kristin had a rule: No cooking the cassoulet until all the leaves on the two trees out front had fallen.
“I was known to tape on a few leaves just to make sure that didn’t happen too early,” Matt confesses.
The big sellers in the Wurst Kitchen were the bacon-wrapped meatloaf (which Matt demonstrated on the “Today Show”) and the pork butt pastrami.
Other Chez Pascal memories for the Gennusos include Chefs Collaborative fundraisers; traveling the world with Holland America; and the blowout parties called The Ham Jam, a band made up of local chefs, with the very last one selling 450 tickets.
Matt’s favorite part is “getting to work with Kristin all the time.” With Matt in the kitchen, Kristin coordinated all the front-of-the- house management. Joint brainstorming was a given. Sharing a love of food was a bond but sharing their love of people and community was even stronger.
“Kristin is much more involved on the backend stuff than people know about,” Matt emphasizes. “Sometimes I come up with things and she works out the details. Sometimes she comes up with creative projects and sees them through, such as the newsy emails and other outreach.”
Kristin wrote Chez Pascal’s deeply personal farewell letter in an email to customers, in her breezy and intimate style, mentioning her excitement at being “out of our element, out of our comfort zone.” She has a play tucked inside her, plus “an explorer’s soul waiting to be released.”
And for both of them, what they’ll miss is the Chez Pascal family: employees who’ve worked 15 or 16 years with them; customers who’ve been there since day one, sometimes two or three nights a week.
“The people piece does not come on a recipe card; it is created by the individual ingredients that each person brings to the mixing bowl,” Kristin recently wrote to a friend. “And every bit each person adds to the mix makes the whole darn thing sing all on its own. How happy we are to have had our little bowl filled with this community.”
In Tamil, one of Singapore’s three languages (along with Chinese and English), the equivalent of “bon appetit” is “nalla pasi,” which means “have a good hunger.” Kristin and Matt Gennuso will always have that!
Matt has left us with a delicious spring recipe for Ramp Greens, Mustard & Lemon Marinated Lamb Chops with Sun-choke Purée, Carrots and Radishes. See below!
As the ground wakes up after a long New England winter, my culinary thoughts happily deviate from root...
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