Big ideas, big success (Part 1)

Chef Larry Schepici

TROY, NY -- As soon as he picks up his utensils and goes into action, Larry Schepici gets that in-the-zone expression. He’s perfecting the moment and improvising the future.

That usually happens when he’s cooking, but at this moment the acclaimed  chef and blossoming Troy business mogul is sitting behind a magnificent set of drums in the playroom of his rural Brunswick home, wielding his drumsticks on his new snare to set up a driving rhythm, then swiftly easing into a caress of the hi-hat cymbal for a soft jazz beat. Multi-tasking, as it were.

Duke Orsino, in the opening act of Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night,” says, “If music be the food of love, play on.”

Schepici, the son of a chef who also plays the upright bass, seems to have the attitude that food and music are intertwined.

“I love cooking, but I also love music and drumming,” he says, smiling broadly and showing a trio of visitors his collection of vintage musical instruments – guitars, drums, mandolins, banjos, trumpets, clarinets. “It’s a great way to work off the pressures of the day and have some fun.”

That’s why jazz nights and jam sessions are part of the culture at his Tosca Grill in downtown Troy, the flagship of an emerging foodie empire that includes the nearby Illium Café and La Marché Vert, with a few more things up his sleeve.

Earlier in the day, Schepici, 42, had been wielding knives, tongs, spatulas and sauté pans over his stove, his outdoor grill, his oven and his broiler with the dexterity with which most people associate him, creating a bravura rustic luncheon spread for five from the freshest of ingredients.

“We had this big Boston Italian family and a kitchen that went non-stop,” Schepici said. “My dad always drilled it into me that you should have something going all the time – something baking, something stewing from first thing in the morning. As a chef, if I don’t have everything going at once it doesn’t feel right. Multi-task!”

A simple roasted organic chicken with rosemary, thyme and sea salt. Baked spaghetti squash that yielded a mound of golden strings to be anointed with olive oil and honey. Vegetables seared on the grill he uses year-round, and sauteed strips of fresh fennel. A tart salad of radicchio and greens with a fresh vinaigrette, topped with sliced fruits. A hot,crispy baguette with sinfully rich French butter. A bottle of 2006 Flowers, a brilliant pinot noir from California’s Sonoma County.

“This is the way we like to eat at home,” Schepici said. “Lots of steak, chicken even fish over all types of fresh greens with nice vinaigrettes. Not just for the health aspects, but because it all tastes so good and doesn’t load you down.”

The “we” is Schepici, wife Karen, and offspring Nick, 21, Jacqueline, 18, and Julia, 7.

Schepici isn’t shy about admitting to being inspired by many people. Just as the iconic Julia Child – whose cookbook sits on a stand in Schepici’s home kitchen -- was the inspiration for the name of his younger daughter, his father was the inspiration for getting him and most of his seven siblings into the kitchen.

“My dad was a chef who cooked all around the Boston area. Plus, he had a deli for several years. We all got dragged into the kitchen at a very early age --- like around 12, washing dishes, learning the ropes. Three of my brothers and I stuck with it.”

Schepici, however, went at it with more gusto and entrepreneurial spirit. Just as he learned the drums without professional training by playing along with records, he skipped culinary school but managed to find a series of mentors who helped him build his skills – until he began purposely overshooting their mark.

“I had a habit of trying to keep taking dishes one step further,” he said. “Some of the chefs didn’t like that. They’d say ‘That’s not what we want here. We’re not a four-star kitchen.’ Well, I wanted to run one, so I kept pushing.

“I noticed that the chefs in the Boston area who got the notice and the success were the ones who really pushed back the borders, and I wanted to be like that.”

Eventually, Schepici set out for ski country, setting up the Basin Restaurant with a friend in Killington, Vt., with big plans to expand to Cape Cod.

“It turned out the weather that year in Vermont was the worst for skiing that they’d had in years.”

After limping along financially for several seasons, he was recruited in 1995 to become the executive chef at the Tavern at Sterup Square, a food complex in Rensselaer County owned by construction company owner Peter Matzen.

That worked for several years until Matzen ran into financial difficulties. In 2001, Schepici – who by now had garnered excellent critical reviews and developed a strong reputation for upscale food and service – was recruited as the charter chef of Sargo’s restaurant at the then-new Saratoga National Golf Course which he quickly took to a rare four-star Times Union rating.

“I was making probably the top salary for a chef in the Capital Region at the time and everything was going fine,” Schepici recalled. “Then I began noticing a lot of customers I’d had at Sterup Square were signing the guest book at Sargo’s. I realized I had a following and started thinking about having my own place again.”

He left Sargo’s in January 2006 to begin an exhaustive study of the region to see where his best chances lay in an industry with an excruciatingly high failure rate.

Next: Building a Troy 'empire.'