As one family business expands its restaurant and refines it fare, the reins are in the hands of someone outside the family for the first time.
Perreca’s has deep roots in Schenectady, is known for its freshly baked Italian bread and in 2009, the family business expanded to an adjacent storefront to open a luncheonette style restaurant. After a fellow city staple closed its doors, More Perreca’s owner Maria Perreca Papa said she sought to fill in the gap. The restaurant has grown beyond the original vision of offering breakfast and lunch, with dinner added to menu.
“We grew into something quite different than a luncheonette,” Papa said.
After dinner started becoming more successful, More Perreca’s was looking to refine and grow its Italian dishes. This, though, brought the family to venture outside of its roots.
“Then we said, ‘we really need somebody who knows what they are doing here,’” Papa said. “I am a very good cook — I am no chef.”
After conducting an extensive search, Papa didn’t have to look too far to find a new leader for the kitchen.
“We are in the heart of an area that has all these wonderful graduates of Schenectady County Community College’s culinary arts program,” she said. “The whole area is poised to be a culinary hot spot because of Schenectady County Community College.”
Former SCCC culinary arts graduate Kelly Donnelly, 29, was selected to don the cap as More Perreca’s new executive chef. Donnelly, a Clifton Park resident and area native, formerly severed as executive chef of Wheat Fields and also has experience working at Creo and My Linh.
Part of what attracted Donnelly to More Perreca’s was the smaller setting and it being a family owned businesses. Since it is smaller, she said she’d be able to do “more complex” specials.
For the family owned restaurant, letting someone outside of the lineage in wasn’t taken lightly.
“It is a big step for us. It is putting someone else in charge of the quality that we have built up for three generations,” Papa said. “With our choice that we made with Kelly it makes us much more at ease and confident with our choice.”
Donnelly said the family has made her feel at home and is excited to shape the restaurant’s menu.
“They have been great and they have been more than welcoming,” Donnelly said. “I think that Maria is just ready to take this place to a different level and she is willing to do that any way.”
Her vision for the menu is to keep “old world tradition” and “old school” dishes, while modernizing offerings. She isn’t setting out to fix something that is broken, but rather enhance what is already offered.
“The special appetizers and entrees of the day will get a bit more creative and daring, but the traditional choices will always be there too,” Donnelly said. “My aim is to respect the Perreca tradition and at the same time offer our guests a variety of choices that may be more creative than what More Perreca’s would normally offer.”
She is also excited to be a part of a revitalized downtown area, where some of her fellow young chefs have been migrating. The move was a “no-brainer” for her.
“A lot of people have kind of come into this area and I think it is going to boom again like it did years ago,” she said.
Angelo Mazzone lured chef Courtney Withey to head the kitchen at Aperitivo Bistro on State Street. Also, longtime restaurateurs Chris and Dee Marotta recently invested $600,000 in their second location, Marotta’s Bar-Risto, located around the corner from More Perreca’s on Union Street.
“I think things are coming together for Schenectady,” Papa said.
Papa credits the recent downtown growth to a younger crowd moving back into the Electric City.
“I think it stems back to people and especially young people moving back into the cities and thinking about the inner cities as an option for them,” she said. “I own real estate properties and more than ever before I am getting young professional couples that want to live in Schenectady — more so than in the past 15 years.”
Donnelly started her culinary career at 16 years old as dishwasher in a taco shop and eventually attended culinary school at SCCC. After seeing the passion and energy of the owner of Taco Pronto, she wanted to follow in his footsteps and become entrenched in the culinary world.
She doesn’t come from a long line of chefs either, because her family has a history serving in law enforcement and medical professions.
“I just always loved to cook since I was little,” she said. “It was one of those things where I wasn’t very good at school and I found something I really like to do and stuck with it.”