Chef Jessica Taccone is, in many ways, not your typical toque. First of all, she’s pretty chill, leading her staff with collaboration and kindness instead of the Gordon Ramsey or, worse, Rene Redzepi brand of brandishing insults and threats to pump up performance. For Taccone, whose path to the kitchen was more intuitive than typical, creating a positive atmosphere is key in crafting great food.
“There is no ‘I’ in team,” she shrugs, while scooping out a luscious bowl of her homemade Orange Dreamsicle ice cream, one of the many from-scratch items that will now wholly take over the Ram’s Head breakfast, brunch, lunch and dinner menus.
A former competitive dancer and one-time veteran of the construction industry, Taccone’s early career years were spent searching for the space that ignited her. The East Islip native majored in journalism and communications in college; that didn’t feel right. She got into the construction world, her family’s stock and trade, because it was, “something I was always around.”
She landed a job at Sandpebble Project Management in East Hampton with owner Victor Diez-Canseco, who would become a mentor. Ironically, it was this job that planted the first seeds of her eventual work-life happy place.
Homemade butter, in-house butchering and lots of farm sourcing will be the order of the day at Ram’s Head Inn under new chef Jessica Taccone. (Photo credit: Amy Zavatto)
“I was moonlighting doing some catering and stuff on the side, because to live out here you need 10 jobs to pay the rent,” she laughs, “and that’s all I would talk about — the food and the people and the experience.”
One day, Canseco pulled Taccone aside and offered to take her out for lunch for a chat — and to fire her. Not because he didn’t like the work she did for his company, but because he knew she needed to be somewhere else. That afternoon, he looked Taccone in the eyes and said something she never forgot: “You’re sitting in the wrong pew.”
At first, she had no idea what he meant, but he went to explain that when she talked about her side-hustle catering work, she would light up like a 400-watt bulb.
“He really took me under his wing and taught me the industry. It was such a such a wonderful experience. But even back then, he was like, ‘You’re good at construction, but you love food. So you’re fired.’”
Taccone, who lives in Sag Harbor, has spent years honing her craft, from spending a decade helping to launch and head up the baking and staff with founder Shirley Ruch of the South Fork Bakery to catering parties for 500 to crafting beautiful dishes from the fresh food while working with David and Ashley Falkowski at Open Minded Organics in Bridgehampton. She even invented a popular vegan burger that got a lot of buzz, The Complete Burger, when she couldn’t bear to let a bumper crop of gorgeous organic shiitake mushrooms go to waste. She became fascinated by permaculture.
Taccone met Ram’s Head Inn owner Aandrea Carter when both women happened to be at Sag Harbor Beverage at the same time. Taccone jumped behind the counter to help the staffer there who was having trouble understanding how to use a new POS system, and she and Carter got to talking. They struck up a friendship and, from then on, Carter would quiz Taccone about different issues she had questions about as a new restaurateur. Then, earlier this year, opportunity presented itself when Taccone left South Fork Bakery and Carter realized: This was the chef she’d been looking for.
She’s been quietly at the helm since late March, planning and plotting, with the official start to the new menu kicking off April 10.
The thing you need to know about Taccone: It’s all about great, beautiful ingredients and letting them shine. The menu will change monthly. Taccone, who not only used to go hunting with her father but would help him do the post-hunt butchering, knows how to break down entire sides of beef, filet her own fish and basically takes a waste-not, want-not whole-product approach to food and her cooking.
“Ram’s Head Inn is special — we are surrounded by nature’s bounty!” says Carter. “I am excited Chef Jess will use and create unique and fresh farm-to-table and sea-to-table delights. This is going to be so much fun.”
This week found Taccone putting the final touches on spring dishes for weekend, like her cloud-like popovers served with housemade herb butter (she actually is making the butter base on premise); an earthy ramp-based potage with Yukon gold potatoes, celery, garlic and whisper of nutmeg stirred into the velvety soup, topped with charred fiddlehead ferns and a sprinkle of fresh spring chives; a butter-poached potato-based mille-feuille will serve as an elegant partner to plush Niman Ranch sliced sirloin.
And then there’s her ice cream program, with at least two rotating flavors changing weekly, like the crumbled-toffee topped Orange Dreamsicle or Crème Brulee (which sold out fast last week).
She’s planning an on-site vegetable garden as well as a special herb garden to surround the inn’s beehives to further encourage flavorful pollination for Ram’s Head’s own honey source. And maybe, just maybe, there might be chickens for fresh eggs, too.
“I have a calendar of everything in season locally for every month. And then the next thing is to attach where we’re going to get it from, where we’re sourcing it from,” says Taccone. “And that’s a goal. I don’t want to be buying produce shipped from California if I don’t have to.”
But from the relationships she already has with farmers and fishermen, to the general surroundings of where she calls her place of work these days, to her commitment to sourcing as close to home as possible, her inspiration is fueled from what’s right outside the door.
“it’s magical here. I mean, the sunsets and just the feel of the property and the history — that’s what got me,” Taccone says. “This place has boatloads of potential that’s just untapped.”
