Photos by Frank Couch.
Bellini's
Bellini’s new executive chef, Bryan Cates, said he plans for the restaurant menu to focus on fresh, local ingredients.
Most chefs focus on the main course when preparing an entrée, but Bryan Cates enjoys cooking the vegetables that complement a dish. The new executive chef of Bellini’s has a “huge green thumb” and prefers to grow and carefully prepare the greens that land on a customer’s plate.
“After going through school and seeing all these different perspectives of food, there has to be a balance of flavors. You can only taste sweet, sour, salty and bitter. If you have all those flavors, and if there’s balance, things usually taste good,” Cates said.
Cooking was an instrumental part of Cates’ childhood. By the time he was 8 years old, he was learning his way around the kitchen and cooking Southern recipes with his grandmother. Cates earned the executive chef position at Bellini’s Ristorante on Cahaba Valley Road at only 25 years old.
A North Carolina native, Cates attended college at the International Culinary School at The Art Institute of Charleston and gained experience cooking many different types of food.
“While going to school, I worked in a bunch of different kitchens and cooked Italian, Mediterranean, Southeast Indian street food, French Southern, Mexican, Latin, then back to Italian.”
Shortly after finishing college, he and his wife and their 2-year-old daughter moved to Birmingham. Cates worked alongside chef Chris Hastings at Hot and Hot Fish Club. He started off making salads, then moved his way up the ranks to the wood-burning oven and mastered the art of live fire cooking.
Cates also worked at Basico in Charleston, South Carolina, and the James Beard Foundation at Chelsea Market in New York City. He returned to Birmingham in October. Cates said that in all of his culinary experience, everything is based on the same principles.
Bellini’s original owners, Doug and Niki Hovanec, were looking for a chef to train under former executive chef Matthew Lagace, and then take over at the new restaurant they’re opening at Lee Branch. When Lagace left to pursue another opportunity, they knew that Cates was exactly what they were looking for.
“As soon as I talked to him on the phone, we clicked,” Hovanec said of Cates. “We share the same ideas within the restaurant. During his time here for his interview, we were sold. Bryan had all the components we needed in one person.”
Hovanec recalled some particularly flavorful tomatoes and beets that showed Cates’ talent with vegetables.
Cates’ daughters are ages 4 and 1, and he and his wife were happy to be moving back close to family. He said returning to Birmingham was a natural choice, and they will be living in Pelham.
“Here we have help with the kids, the best cost of living and family here, so it was natural to come back here to lay down roots and stay,” he said.
Knowing Bellini’s reputation, Cates said their standard is in line with the top restaurants in town. While he isn’t here to overhaul the menu, he plans to make improvements to current dishes and introduce new ones over time.
“Everyone was a little fearful of me coming in that I was here to change everything,” he said. “New chefs get in a new restaurant and clean house and start over. This place has an established client base. People come here and know what they want to get. We are always going to stick to Italian here.”
Cates plans to focus on fresh local ingredients and says Alabama has so much to offer in produce and seafood coming out of the Gulf. Bellini’s is also home to one of only three wood-burning grills in the city, and he is looking forward to using it.
“I feel like having components of dishes that have something crossed over fire or through smoke gives it that extra elevated nature to a dish,” he said. “When you have ingredients that are naturally good, you don’t have to manipulate them too much. That’s my philosophy behind food: Don’t fix something that’s not broken.”
Hovanec is looking forward to seeing what Cates brings to Bellini’s.
“He has way too much talent to come in and replicate the same old menu. We are on the same page. Next year we will start to infuse his features. We will work to educate our guests to explain what was changed and why. All the pieces will be working together.”
