James Beard Award winner Chef Paul Smith’s latest culinary venture is Paulie’s Fine Italian, located on Bridge Road in Charleston, West Virginia. An Italian restaurant with Appalachian fusion, the menu features classics like pasta and pizza, as well as steak, seafood, and salads. Taste WV writer Amanda Larch Hinchman caught up with Chef Paul to learn more about his inspirations, motivations, and how he’s looking back in order to look ahead. He discusses the importance of local partnerships and connections and how West Virginia’s rich history and vibrant people move the restaurant industry forward. Along with Paulie’s, Smith also continues to manage his other popular and influential enterprises: 1010 Bridge Restaurant & Catering and The Pitch Sports Bar & Grill. This is Part One of a Two-Part series.
Taste WV: How has your family and background inspired you in the process of opening Paulie’s Fine Italian?
Chef Paul Smith: One of my pillars, and one of our pillars in our Chef Paul Hospitality ethos, is community and supporting our community. Growing up in a large Italian family, my great-grandfather came over from Italy to work for the promise of a better life and to work in the coal mines—that was what I think a lot of Italian immigrants did. My grandfather also worked in the coal industry later, but on the weekends he would do Italian nights at the Glen Ferris Inn up in Gauley Bridge, West Virginia, which is where my family’s from—Boomer, Montgomery, Gauley Bridge, up in that area.
So, the inspiration really came from these large Italian weekend family nights that were filled with people coming over to my great grandparents’ house, everybody cooking, the smell of fresh baked bread, the smell of meatballs and gravy. For me, that’s happiness! And from the time I could basically walk, I would stand on the milk crate and stir the sauce for my grandfather while he poured himself another (feins air quotes), “coffee.”
TasteWV: So is this something you have always thought about? Or did the opportunity just present itself out of the blue?
Chef Paul Smith: I love cooking, but I never thought that I would open an Italian restaurant. I don’t know why. When the space became available, it was right across the street from 1010, and I thought that I really wanted to carry on my grandfather and my family’s tradition. When I moved back home a few years ago, my grandfather was in the throes of Alzheimer’s, but there were still times when we would get together and cook. Cooking gave him moments of clarity. You could just see the spark and the eyes light up. And he would start talking about growing up and the Glenn Ferris Inn, and his dream was always to buy the Glen Ferris Inn and have me cook in it, kind of following in his tradition.
And that didn’t happen, but here in Charleston I’ve been fortunate enough to really be supported by our community. So, I think I’m honoring him, and really honoring the Italian American heritage that is so ingrained in Appalachia. West Virginia and Appalachia is this melting pot of people that came here to settle, and every culture kind of revolves around food. You get together around the table for a meal; it doesn’t matter if you’re South American, European, African, Asian, Indian or whatever, it’s about food. It’s about bringing people together. I really think that food brings people together, and we can kind of forget about all the stuff that’s going on in the world and all the stressors in our life and just sit around and enjoy each other’s company and enjoy a little bit of peace, a little bit of food. That’s what we want Paulie’s to embody, this gathering space as part of this social hub.
TasteWV: With the popularity of Italian food and restaurants in Appalachia, why do you think that resonates so much here?
Chef Paul: I think that if you look back at the history, West Virginia had probably one of the largest populations of Italians, and we had the largest Italian consulate, if you will, outside of Italy. Italian heritage is very, very prevalent and very ingrained in Appalachia. This is where I got my work ethic—from my grandfather and great-grandfather. Those folks worked hard to support their families.
I also think that here in West Virginia, being basically the only Appalachian-locked state, we have so much at our fingertips as far as the biodiverse growing area. So, we have tomatoes and peppers and corn and ramps and beans, and all of that really reflects the traditional Italian hillside. I think a lot of things that we’re doing now as chefs are kind of the cool things, like fermentation and curing and the lacto ferment and these types of things that are really, really cool that these wonderful chefs like Rene Redzepi are doing.
In Appalachia, our ancestors have done this for years out of necessity. So you had to can your tomatoes, you had to ferment your corn, you had to do these things that made sure that you had food for the entire year. We call it being “sustainable” or “farm-to-table” or “farm-to-fork,” but growing up, it was out of necessity. I mean, we didn’t grow up with much, and we had to use what we had growing in the backyard and make that work for the whole year.
TasteWV: The OG farm-to-tablers?
Chef Paul: Yeah right! My grandfather, his father, lots of chefs in Appalachia, that is what we do. We use what we have at our fingertips. As a chef, that’s certainly what I do. We support local farms, we support local businesses. We support our community and we keep it as local as possible.
TasteWV: Speaking of community, you mentioned that’s a huge part of the company’s ethos. How do your restaurants try to grow that sensibility in the area’s food culture?
Chef Paul: The great thing about all we have been able to accomplish as the Chef Paul Hospitality Group is we support our community, we support our local farmers, we support our local businesses. We support other restaurants too. I don’t look at other restaurants as competition. I look at them as peers, and we all have to work together, not just in the hospitality industry, but as a state, to each be a part of this rising tide. And I’m just trying to be some water in the rising tide, to lift all of our boats together. West Virginia is absolutely fantastic about this.
With Secretary (Chelsea) Ruby, with all these other restaurateurs, with our commerce, and our economic development here in West Virginia, I think we are finally really leaning into this heritage of hospitality. We have this innate sense of hospitality, and I don’t think I ever realized just how collective our community is until we won the James Beard Award. I got so many messages from so many people, so many West Virginians and even just people with a connection to West Virginia. I mean, it was this outpouring of support, the outpouring of people reaching out, saying congratulations and we got your back, and we are so proud to be West Virginians or so proud to be from West Virginia because of how you and your restaurants are representing us.
TasteWV: That was a pretty amazing moment for you and the state as a whole. How do you feel knowing this may have changed West Virginians’ perceptions of our state in a positive way, in the culinary scene or otherwise? And since it’s always been your mission to represent West Virginia and the best we have to offer, how did you further this mission after?
Chef Paul: To say it was a humbling experience sounds kind of passe, and very like, “that’s what you’re supposed to say.” But when we accepted the award, and I got off of the stage after saying the two words that had never been said before, which was “West Virginia,” by the time I got off the stage, went in the back, answered a few media questions and got back out to my seat or walking over to the after party, I had received just under 1,000 text messages. People that were just proud—proud of us, proud of West Virginia, proud of what we did, proud of what we have accomplished, proud to feel that’s the cool thing.
That’s the thing about restaurants. People feel this ownership of restaurants because of the deeply personal experience of food. And the way that I look at it is this—you’re coming into my home. You’re coming into our house. We want to greet you warmly at the door. We want to offer more than we have to offer. We want to talk about where you’ve been and how things are with you. And then have a great meal, get to know each other as people. And then wish you the best and welcome you back the next time.
