Reviews

Ridgefield Magazine
CHEF NEVINS: FROM STONECREST ROAD TO BOSTON'S NORTH END
"IN BOSTON, where good food is a passion, dining an art (slurping oysters is an art!), and top chefs are elevated to a special kind of sainthood, a young man from Ridgefield is making his mark at one of the hottest restaurants in town. Executive Chef Dave Nevins presides over the kitchen at Neptune Oyster, a small gem of a place located in Boston’s historic North End.

Nevins’ culinary efforts have won rave reviews:
“Neptune’s Nevins, a god of seafood” (Boston Sunday Herald). “Neptune oyster is a true pearl” (Bon Appetit).“Worth crowing about” (Boston Globe). Nevins’ journey to the culinary heights began in the family kitchen on Stonecrest Road,

“My dad’s an excellent barbecuer,” says Nevins. “Great on the grill. My mom’s an overall great cook. Very inspiring.”

Nevins remembers the epiphany well. His parents
Robin and Bruce were at work, and his mother phoned home, instructing 14-year-old David to “put the chicken in the oven.I spiced it up,” recalls
the 29-year-old Nevins. “It impressed my brothers.”

Chef Nevins was on his way. “I was hooked!” he
says with delight. He attended food-service classes at Ridgefield High School and gained
additional experience by working part-time in a
number of kitchens that Ridgeflelders will remem-
ber: Burgerloo’s (now the Early Bird), The Inn at
Ridgefleld (now Bernard’s), and Hay Day (now
Balducci’s). All of which led to his acceptance into
the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park,
New York.

But Boston was his dream, shaped by Beantown’s rapidly expanding restaurant scene, the city’s
youthful vigor, and his love of the Red Sox. After
a detour to the kitchen of the highly regarded Figs
Restaurant in suburban Wellesley, Nevins got his
big break when he moved to Olives, a hugely popular dining experience located near the USS Constitution in Boston Harbor.

Soon Nevins became a disciple of the city’s maestro, Chef Todd English, who ran both Figs and Olives. In Boston, to have been tutored by the legendary chef is golden, but Nevins is equally proud to tell diners that his own mother’s recipes often show up on Neptune Oyster’s menu.

“I use a lot of her dishes, tweaked for the restaurant,” he says.

Sitting at the Neptune Oyster’s long, comfortable, marble-topped bar, Nevins, who usually works between 11 and 12 hours a day, seven days a week, reflected on what it takes to make it as a become a top-notch chef

“Hard work, Patience. Knowing that you’re not going to have much of a life outside the restaurant. Never thinking you’re the best, that you know everything. You’re always learning.” He pauses,
nods his head, and sums it all up: “Dedication.”

Rubbing his handsover the swirls of his heavily tattooed arms, he smiles, reacting to a question about whether he perpetuates the reputation chefs have had for being temperamental and dictatorial.

“I don’t think I’m as bad as some of the chefs I’ve worked for, but I definitely have mymoments.” His brother Doug, who tends bar at Neptune Oyster, leaned in quickly to offer agreement and fraternal loyalty. “He can be difficult, but 95 percent of the time he’s very good.”

For Chef Nevins’ old friends back in Ridgefield who might be planning a dinner party, he offers this advice: “Be patient. Don’t rush things. Relax. Plan well. Good tools are important. Good pots. Good pans. Sharp knives are by far the most important thing.”

And for those of us who can’t boil water? “Order out,” Chef Nevins says. It’s what he does on a rare evening off.