× Increase Photograph by Erin Nelson Rob McDaniel, government chef and proprietor of Helen restaurant in Birmingham, grills a ribeye steak on the McDaniels’ residence June 1, 2023.
Rob McDaniel, proprietor and chef at Birmingham’s Helen restaurant, has at all times cherished to prepare dinner.
Whereas he doesn’t prepare dinner as a lot on the restaurant as he has beforehand in his profession, he nonetheless enjoys the thrills of making the proper dish.
There’s something particular in regards to the “instantaneous gratification of giving any individual a plate of meals,” McDaniel mentioned.
He has come to understand the method from begin to end. Assembly farmers, attending to know them and seeing their product in individual, at the same time as distant as Bear Creek Farms in Tennessee, is satisfying, he mentioned. He additionally meets suppliers by way of different cooks, like Adam Evans of Automated Seafood and Oysters, who launched him to a mushroom provider.
“The act of cooking itself is enjoyable,” McDaniel mentioned. “It’s enjoyable to see science in motion.”
Since he and his spouse, Emily, opened Helen in the course of the COVID-19 pandemic in August 2020, he has fallen in love not simply with cooking, however with being a enterprise proprietor.
“You don’t know what it’s prefer to run a enterprise you personal till you do it,” McDaniel mentioned.
On the couple’s Vestavia Hills residence, the household likes to eat good meals. Going out isn’t widespread. If the restaurant has freshly-acquired steak or seafood, it finds its begin on the McDaniels’ grill, Rob mentioned. His mind is at all times considering of the right way to enhance the restaurant and his personal culinary expertise.
“It by no means turns off,” McDaniel mentioned.
He’ll go to the grocery retailer and odor totally different meals and consider totally different choices for cooking them, discovering inspiration within the odor of tomato vines in his fingers, for instance.
He’ll check varied dishes at residence, and a few Helen favorites, like a ragu that features butternut squash and shiitake mushrooms, received their begin at his residence.
On Sundays, McDaniel mentioned he’ll typically put a “little extra” into it and can prepare dinner a bigger meal. The remainder of the week, it is dependent upon what time he will get residence and what temper his ladies are in, he mentioned.
The couple opened the restaurant within the midst of a lethal pandemic, and whereas it was not excellent, to say the least, their religion was rewarded, they beforehand mentioned in 2021.
“Birmingham was very welcoming, and we simply took it at some point at a time,” McDaniel mentioned.
The menu at Helen makes use of recent, seasonal elements from space farmers and different distributors.
It gives a big collection of greens in addition to meats, seafood and non-traditional sides.
After a long time within the restaurant enterprise, McDaniel deliberately arrange the restaurant the place he didn’t need to essentially be at Helen at night time, so he may spend time along with his household.
McDaniel made his first foray into the culinary world at Sizzling and Sizzling Fish Membership, Jim N’ Nick’s Bar-B-Que and different eating places after attending culinary college in Vermont. In 2009, he opened SpringHouse on Lake Logan Martin and stayed there till the top of 2019.
Round that point, McDaniel started to really feel sad. Regardless of the success of the restaurant, he knew a change was wanted. He opened his Bible at some point to Deuteronomy 1:6, which remembers God telling the individuals of Israel they’ve “stayed on this mountain lengthy sufficient.”
Whereas the McDaniels might not have been on a mountain, Rob mentioned he knew it was time to maneuver on.
His mom informed him that God would check his religion throughout this subsequent transfer, which ultimately changed into opening Helen. Just a few months later, the world shut down with COVID-19.
The couple held onto their religion and adopted by way of with development, which started in February 2020. They ultimately opened in August 2020.
As a lot as he likes to prepare dinner, McDaniel is aware of he isn’t alone on the restaurant, releasing him up for household time.
“We have now a tremendous, superb workers,” McDaniel mentioned. “We attempt to over-communicate and talk typically.”
Rising as a enterprise proprietor, McDaniel mentioned he has discovered to not get snug and to push himself.
“Don’t be scared to make errors,” McDaniel mentioned. “I need to hold myself out of that consolation zone.”
The purpose is for Helen to run sustainably and to permit workers to have time to “experiment,” McDaniel mentioned. “I like to be concerned in that course of.”
One in all his favourite dishes is the vegetable plate, which is “the whole lot in summer time you need on a plate.” So far as hottest, the tomato pie at Helen, which is “like a deep-dish pizza,” stays a favourite. Tomatoes are cooked after which crusted with pimento cheese. It’s a dish that’s “good for all three meals,” McDaniel mentioned.
It’s not unusual for McDaniel to revisit his outdated Moleskine notebooks and ask, “What was I considering?” when he comes upon a not-so-great thought. However, it’s a chance to retool and tweak these concepts, and to bolster the concept sooner or later, you simply “have to begin cooking issues,” he mentioned.
The Vestavia neighborhood has been welcoming as effectively, he mentioned. The couple typically joked that “no person was taking functions for brand spanking new pals” whenthey moved in the course of the pandemic, however that has definitely modified now. With household within the space as effectively, the dinner desk is usually full.
And the world is definitely turning into a preferred place to eat, he mentioned.
“I believe Birmingham, so far as a meals metropolis, is on the verge of blowing up,” McDaniel mentioned. “Not simply town itself, however Homewood, Vestavia Hills, the suburbs.”