These North Jersey chefs have mom to thank for their culinary success
These North Jersey chefs have mom to thank for their culinary success
Matt Cortina, NorthJersey.comWed, May 6, 2026 at 8:24 AM UTC
0
AJ Capella graduated Walkill Valley High School in the mid-aughts in a wheelchair. He’d undergone a “crazy” surgery on both his ankles after a snowboarding accident and was confined to sitting for nine months. He was hoping to begin a career in the culinary arts, but his guidance counselor wasn’t optimistic.
“The guidance counselor was basically like, ‘Don’t waste your money going to culinary school — it’s not going to work," he said. "Your grades aren’t very good and your feet are f–ed up. It’s a very hard industry.”
It’s a good thing Capella, who helms the Summit House kitchen and is now one of North Jersey’s best chefs, listened to his supportive mom instead.
AJ Capella, executive chef of Summit House.
“I went to culinary school,” he said. “When I graduated, my mom mailed my diploma to my high school to my guidance counselor.”
For chefs, moms are multi-hyphenate agents of empowerment. They’re inspirations, colleagues, chauffeurs, champions and, yes, personal chefs. In the hundreds of interviews I’ve had with chefs over the years, it’s more common than not that culinary professionals bring up the influence their moms had on them and their approach to food.
Whether it’s the memories of a family meal, or afternoons spent in the kitchen together, or the recognition of the sacrifices made to help their careers or one of a million other things, many chefs credit their moms for their journeys, and try to pass on the feelings of meals gone by into their cooking today.
“Those early food memories stay with you forever,” said Chris Siversen, executive chef/owner of The Feathered Fox in Jersey City, “and in many ways, you spend your life trying to recreate something that special.
‘Simple food but always delicious’
Capella’s parents divorced when he was 12; his father drove long-haul trucks and so his mother took care of him and his two siblings. His mother had a progressive disability that affected her back and made it difficult to stand for long periods of time, so as soon as Capella was old enough, he was helping his mom in the kitchen.
“I would come home from school and watch cooking shows on the Food Network, and then I would start helping my mom cook,” he said. “Once I was able to learn how to cook and I was cooking with her, that’s when I started cooking to kind of just help her out.”
At 15, Capella got a job at Granny’s Pancake House in Hamburg and then Restaurant Latour at Crystal Springs. Unable to drive himself, his mom took him to and from work for every shift, a sacrifice that continued through college.
“My mom basically drove me to any restaurant that I could get a job at and picked me up and drove me to work every day because I didn’t have a license yet.,” he said. “When I came home from college, I didn’t have a car, so she was driving me again to work, which was like an hour one way. And then I eventually got a car like a month after that because she said, ‘I can’t do this every day.’”
Capella’s mom died our years ago from lung cancer, but as she was growing ill, he drove five-plus hours from Lake Placid on the weekends, where he was living at the time, to spend time with her — a requisite thanksgiving, maybe, for all the years she’d driven him.
Capella remembers his mom’s cooking as “simple food but always delicious.” A lot of pasta, always a pot of red sauce on Sundays and a huge fried fish feast on Christmas Eve. He’s tweaked some of her recipes like her Bolognese sauce, fried artichokes and meatballs for his menus today.
Her impact is evident not only in the food he makes, but in what he eats.
“I cook things she used to cook in very similar ways that she used to make them,” he said. “And I also find myself seeking restaurants that are very comfortable, homey, Italian-American places where I know the spaghetti with garlic and oil is going to be separated. It’s not going to be an emulsified pasta, and once in a while I need that."
'She’s like my number one fan'
Leia Gaccione grew up in a two-family home in Passaic — her grandfather and uncle lived upstairs; she, her mom and her brother lived downstairs.
From the time she was 4 years old, Gaccione was raised by a single mom who helped instill in her a taste for fresh, real food from the beginning.
“She always had multiple jobs and so that kind of made us fend for ourselves a little bit, but my mom always gave us vegetables,” Gaccione said. “I can remember being really young, loving asparagus, loving broccoli.”
The diverse community in which Gaccione lived also helped engender a love of food. Italian neighbors up the street picked tomatoes and cucumbers from their garden; the mother of the Dominican family nearby cooked yellow rice; the Polish community at her school introduced her to kielbasa and sauerkraut, her Jewish neighbors made potato pancakes and knishes she and her brother loved.
“It was not only mom but also the community who were my parents when my mom was working and who helped us learn about food,” she said. “My view of food is very global and that’s probably because I’ve been so open to different types of cuisines for my whole life.”
Gaccione, now chef/partner of The Saint Clair in Montclair, can trace her culinary journey back to hours spent after school in front of the Food Network or at night watching the original Japanese version of ‘Iron Chef’ with her grandpa and then translating those skills to the kitchen with her mom.
“Definitely watching her and helping her in the kitchen helped, and the Food Network is one of my culinary parents for sure,” she said.
She was as young as 8 when she started sprucing up ramen with scallions and soy sauce and remembers the thrifty ways her mom elevated pantry classics with fresh food, like adding broccoli to box mac and cheese. Gaccione remembers these simple dishes fondly.
“One of my favorite meals that she used to make is she would take chicken and cook it with marinated artichokes and serve it over rice. It’s so simple but to this day I’m obsessed with marinated artichokes in a jar. I could just eat a jar of them with nothing,” she said.
Advertisement
Nowadays, Mother’s Day is spent at a restaurant, sometimes hers. Fittingly, Gaccione is devising a globally inspired dish (shakshuka with lobster and coconut) for this year’s service at The Saint Clair; fusion inspired by her roots and celebrated by her biggest supporter.
“[My mom] is like my number one fan,” Gaccione said. “She’s funny. She loves it, she’s so proud of me, and it’s really beautiful.”
'I’m not just saying that because you’re my son'
Chef Adam Weiss and his mom, Hedy, at F1RST Restaurant in Hawthorne
People notice when Adam Weiss’s mom, Hedy, is not at his restaurant, F1RST Restaurant in Hawthorne.
“When my mom happens to miss a day or two and somebody comes in, they all ask, ‘How is Hedy doing?’ And, ‘We miss her.’ And, ‘Your mom is so charming,’ It’s also in our reviews as well,” he said.
Weiss said his mom is the “ambassador” of the restaurant (in addition to being, separately, a realtor), serving mostly as the hostess, but also filling in wherever it’s needed.
“She’s the person who’s doing what she can and helping in all these different ways and contributions; the first lady, without getting presidential,” Weiss said. “She’s the person to make people feel happy and special like they’re welcome; that this isn’t just a restaurant, but this is kind of like a family outing, a dining room or a home.”
Weiss grew up in Ridgewood and, as a kid, took note of his mom and grandmother’s special occasion cooking like brisket and matzo ball soup. Plenty of “unconventional” family culinary traditions became familiar too, Weiss said.
“For the first day of school, it would be roast beef and mom’s famous mashed potatoes, which basically what made them interesting is the meshed potatoes would be cooked with an onion and my mom would finish it with all the luxury things of sour cream, heavy cream and, secretly, one egg,” he said.
(Weiss notes while he might adapt ideas for recipes from his child as with a brisket, he’s careful not to add in any homespun secret ingredients nowadays due to allergy concerns.)
Weiss said he took note of his mom and grandmother’s affinity for seasoning: “My mom could have an abundant hand and so did my grandmother with kosher salt in the kitchen.” While he carried on their predilection for kosher salt, he’ll once in a while overhear his mom asking patrons if they need a salt shaker on the table, to which he might tell her, “Sometimes you have to cool it a bit.”
It’s a fruitful arrangement though, Weiss said, this mother-son combo running a restaurant. Patrons tell him that Hedy is his “number-one fan”... and so will she.
“She says it like it is,” he said. “She’ll say things like, ‘This is great,’ or, ‘This is delicious, and OIm I'm not just saying that because you’re my son.’”
‘Priceless’ times in the kitchen with mom
Chris Siversen recalls how food was the great unifier in his family growing up in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn.
“I remember the joy of being in the kitchen with both my mom and my grandmother,” he said. “They were both Italian [...] so the kitchen and the food were really the heart of the day. That’s where everyone came together.”
Though his current restaurant, The Feathered Fox, is an eclectic, upscale steakhouse and seafood spot, Siversen said he carries with him an emphasis on the feeling of dining with loved ones that translates from a home kitchen to a top restaurant.
“What stayed with me is that a meal is something meant to be shared,” he said. “It’s not just about the food — it’s about the mood, the setting, and the feeling people take away with them. That’s true at home, and it’s true in a restaurant.”
He did take some practical lessons from the matriarchs in his family. They made everything from scratch — pasta, sauces, dressing, dessert. His job every week as a kid was to grate the big block of Pecorino Romano: “I always hoped there would be a few chunks left over to snack on.”
He also tasted everything and, in a way, those days with mom and grandma were his first foray into the culinary industry.
“Rolling fresh manicotti and stuffing pasta shells were some of my favorite parts,” he said. “That was probably my first real understanding of prep work.”
Siversen decided while in college that he wanted to pursue a culinary career. His mom supported him, saying, “she knew it was the right path for me.” Among other things, I’m sure, Siversen paid homage to his mom by donning the dressing on his Caesar salad at The Feathered Fox, “Mom’s dressing.”
But for as much as Siversen, or any of these chefs accomplish, the general feeling is that little compares to the memories of home-cooked meals, and the process of making them, with mom.
“At the end of the day, nothing compares to the memories you have as a child sitting around the table with your family,” he said. “The time I had with my mom and grandmother is priceless.”
Matt Cortina is a food reporter for NorthJersey.com/The Record. Reach him at mcortina@usatodayco.com.
This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: North Jersey chefs share stories of moms for Mother's Day 2026
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
