Seventeen years ago Rosario Del Nero abandoned a career in geology to pursue his lifelong love of cooking. An employee of the Italian government on assignment in Massachusetts, he jumped from fields of oil to olive oil when he discovered his dream restaurant. Since then he has written, taught and consulted. Six years ago he made another career change when he joined Bertucci's Inc. As corporate chef for the Wakefield, Mass.-based company, Del Nero oversees the kitchens of the 80-unit Bertucci's Brick Oven Pizzeria chain. More important, he influences a menu he has long enjoyed for its authenticity.

Title: Corporate chef, Bertucci's Brick Oven Pizzeria.

Birth date: June 6, 1954.

Hometown: Morbegno, Italy.

Education: master's degree in geology, University of Milan.

Career highlights: Receiving favorable reviews for "Risotto, A Taste of Milan," Harper & Row, New York, 1988; cooking with Julia Child; making frequent television appearances; introducing new items to Bertucci's menu and receiving positive feedback from customers.

What did you do as a geologist?

I used to do reservoir studies for the Italian government. I would study the structure of a field, a gas field or an oil field and calculate the amount that could be obtained from it. And then I'd recommend where to do more research.

How did you make the move from geology to cooking?

It was never going from geology to cooking. To do that, you would have to leave, and I have cooked all of my life. In Europe the countries are very close, and I used to go to different countries and cook during the summers. I was also the oldest of five children, so I used to help my mother. I got used to good food, and I was determined to obtain it at any cost. In Europe restaurants are very expensive, so to obtain it, you have to cook well or have a lot of money.

I came to this country with the Italian national oil company, and I was stopping by [Boston's] North Shore for vacation when I saw a restaurant for sale. The restaurant was a bargain, and I took a chance. I decided at that moment to change my career.

What sort of restaurant was it?

I wanted to open a restaurant where I could express my love of food, so it was not a traditional Northern Italian restaurant. When I opened it in the early '80s, Italian was not what it is now. I wanted to avoid confusion with spaghetti and meatballs. I wanted to cook things that are now common, like risotto.

What was the restaurant called?

The Apple Orchard. It was in the middle of an apple orchard in Ipswich, [Mass.] My wife and I did that for five years until our first child was born; then I wanted to expand my experience. We wrote a book on risotto published by Harper & Row in New York. That was very helpful with taking my name national. I also wrote articles for Food & Wine, started to teach original Italian cooking at the Cambridge School of Culinary Arts and started to do R&D for food companies.

Where did you work?

Several restaurants, a pasta and sauce company, bakeries, supermarkets. And I would assist owners of restaurants to redo their menus. Then I got an offer to go to the Italian Alps to help with a restaurant in a city I had loved as a child. We spent eight months there, until the restaurant was launched. When I came back, somebody mentioned that Bertucci's needed someone in R&D. I wanted to be part of that experience. I interviewed, and it was love at first sight.

Do you usually speak English or Italian at work?

I am also fluent in Spanish and Portuguese. I like being able to go into a kitchen and speak with the staff and watch the bridges come down. You establish a relationship of equals. I also love to read poetry and literature in the original language. That's something I enjoy. To me Spanish is just beautiful. I learned English 15 years ago. I used to go to the movies and understand 50 percent. But the first book I understood was quite an accomplishment. To know a language, you have a better chance to understand the real cuisine of a country.

What is your biggest challenge as Bertucci's corporate chef?

The biggest challenge for a chef is to strip away personal ambitions and become what is good for the concept. Bertucci's has a vision statement and a mission statement, to have the best pizza and the best value. Bertucci's has boundaries; a chef has no boundaries. The real challenge is to understand the destination of the dishes you are cooking. It's very difficult. You are supposed to be the opposite when you own your own restaurant.

How often are you in your chefs whites?

Ninety percent of the time. I can't stay away from food. I'm not an office person. I like to be in the kitchen, training, designing new dishes, cooking. You have to be hands on. You have to design items that cooks can do in the kitchen that can't be too difficult because of the pressures of every day.

Do you ever miss owning your own restaurant?

I miss some of the good times, but it's a stage in your life. When you are a corporate chef, you have to feel ownership to be successful. There are jobs where your job and life are different. But cooking is too passionate, too involving, too much a part of your life for you to be detached.

What is the most surprising thing you have learned by taking the job at Bertucci's?

Feeling a part of a team, the support. The feeling of being part of a well-lubricated machine was fascinating. There are 5,000 people or more working, so you see how the engine works and say, "Wow!" Even if you fall down or are sick, you can relax. With your own business you worry because there is only one of you.

PHOTO (COLOR): Rosario Del Nero says the biggest challenges as a corporate chef are to "strip away personal ambitions and become what is good for the concept." And "to understand the destination of the dishes you are cooking."

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By Robin Lee Allen



CHEF'S TIPS

• For more thorough baking of breads, pizzas an other products, always keep a pizza stone in the oven.
• To enhance the flavor texture of fish, bake it on planks of cedar or other fruit woods.



CHEFS ON THE MOVE

• Scott Cohen, the former chef of The Stanhope Hotel and Tatou Supper Club in New York City, moved to San Antonio as chef of La Mansion del Rio hotel and its restaurant, Las Canarias.
• Napadol Noopie Khemkhajon was named executive chef of the Sundial Beach Resort on Sanibel Island, Fla. He has worked for South Seas Resorts, the parent company of Sundial, for the last 17 years. Most recently, he was chef of the University Club, Fort Myers, Fla.



Copyright of Nation's Restaurant News is the property of Lebhar - Friedman Inc.

BOZEMAN, Mont. -- Targeting a niche of the pizza segment that until recently was as wide open as the terrain in Montana, an aggressive young chain has introduced gourmet pie to the Big Sky country.

Despite the cynics who insisted that the region's pizza segment was saturated, MacKenzie River Pizza Co., a chain of five restaurants in Montana, is seizing a corner of the pizza market by offering nontraditional bases and toppings, including a Thai peanut-ginger sauce and boneless buffalo wings.

"We saw that the gourmet niche was wide open," said Steve Shuel, who is directing the chain's growth with the concept's founder, Don MacKenzie.

Created by MacKenzie less than five years ago, the gourmet pizza chain has restaurants around the state with two locations in Missoula and one each in Belgrade, Bozeman and Great Falls. In 1996 average unit sales for each restaurant ranged from $900,000 to $1.3 million, and the five units generated almost $6 million in sales, according to Shuel.

The chain's sixth restaurant is scheduled to open in Kalispell in December, and by early 1998 the seventh unit is expected to open in Billings. The average cost to open a new restaurant is about $500,000, Shuel said.

The core of the menu at MacKenzie River Pizza Co. features gourmet pies. Some have a Western theme, such as the Angler, which is a pesto-based pizza topped with leaf spinach, lightly smoked trout and sliced almonds. Other pies, like the Hot Hawaiian, which is topped with barbecue sauce, chicken, bacon, jalapeno peppers and pineapple, are more eclectic.

Appealing to more conventional tastes, the menu also offers traditional pizzas such as the Three Cheese Basic. "The beauty of it is that even with our most nontypical gourmet concoction, we still offer the Good Ol; Boy, which is our version of a pepperoni pizza," Shuel said.

The crusts for the 12-inch pies are available in sour-dough, light wheat and eight grain, and a deep-dish 13-inch crust is made only from light wheat. Personal-size and create-your-own pizzas are featured on the menu along with salads, soups and sandwiches. The chain's average check is about $7, Shuel said.

MacKenzie River Pizza Co.'s flagship 130-seat restaurant in downtown Bozeman features an open kitchen, floor-to-ceiling storefront windows and a rustic Western decor that emphasizes fly fishing -- a popular sport among both men and women in the region.

"We think we are on somewhat of a leading edge as far as pizza goes," Shuel said. "It opens the door for us to be creative and nontraditional, not only in our product but also in our decor. We are not interested in the red-and-white decor typical of most pizza restaurants."

Enhancing the Wild West motif are such accents as furniture made from lodgepole pine, coat hooks fashioned like the mouth of a trout, murals representing Montana's landscape -- created by MacKenzie's mother, Beth -- and longhorn skull wall sconces. Other design elements in the 3,000-square-foot restaurant include an inverted fishing boat hanging from the ceiling, a line of cowboy boots decorating the windowsill and a life-size wood grizzly bear that stands near the entrance.

The chain's restaurants vary in size, but they share a similar decor and menu. Only three locations -- Bozeman, Great Falls and one in Missoula -- offer beer and wine because liquor licenses in many regions of Montana are scarce and expensive.

The flagship restaurant, which operated with only nonalcoholic beverages for several years, began serving beer and wine in July after purchasing a license for more than $200,000, according to Shuel.

"It is not a great percentage of our sales, but it rounds out the dining experience," Shuel said. "Many people think of a beer as going hand-in-hand with pizza."

In addition to dine-in, takeout and delivery, the chain sells its pizzas through many local retail outlets, such as convenience stores and independent grocers, with a program called Pizza in the Raw. The pizzas are par-baked and shrink-wrapped before being distributed around the area. Sales from Pizza in the Raw generated about $175,000 in 1996, MacKenzie said.

The development of MacKenzie River Pizza Co. began in the early 1990s when MacKenzie -- who formerly owned a company in New Hampshire that designed and imported dinnerware -- moved to Montana to open a pizza restaurant. Although gourmet pizza was already popular in many areas of the country, MacKenzie said the segment had room for improvement.

"I thought there could be a lot more warmth and creativity put into the product," he said.

After researching various destinations, including sites in Durango and Boulder, Colo., MacKenzie chose Bozeman for his first location, which opened in April 1993. Despite Bozeman's limited population of less than 30,000, MacKenzie said the town appealed to him because it was home to Montana State University and its proximity to Yellowstone National Park attracted throngs of tourists.

In 1994 MacKenzie teamed up with current partner Shuel, a native of Indianapolis who moved to Montana in search of a lifestyle change and new business opportunities. Shuel, who had sold his advertising agency in Indianapolis the year before the partnership formed, had purchased a foodservice distribution company when he first moved to Bozeman. Through the business he met MacKenzie.

In the last few years, the duo has positioned MacKenzie River Pizza Co. for growth. While Shuel said he is overseeing future restaurant development in Montana, MacKenzie said he is focusing on expansion outside the state.

MacKenzie said he plans to open about five units in Boise, Idaho, by the end of 1998. He said the locations would range in size from 800 square feet to 2,500 square feet and are expected to generate 65 percent of sales from takeout and delivery -- similar to the Belgrade unit, which is called MacKenzie River Pizza Co./Catch It On The Fly, featuring a full menu and a Western decor package but designed mainly for takeout.

"I feel extremely grateful because in the restaurant business it is easy to fall on your face," MacKenzie said.

He added: "Before I opened the first restaurant, I wanted to create a concept that I could take nationwide. I can see it in New York City. I think it is refreshing. But the trick will be to expand on a bigger level and keep the freshness."

PHOTO (COLOR): Left: Partners Don MacKenzie, not pictured, and Steve Shuel are leading the growth of MacKenzie River Pizza Co.

PHOTO (COLOR): The chain's growth outside of Montana will be characterized by smaller units, called MacKenzie River Pizza Co./ Catch It On The Fly, designed mostly for takeout and delivery.

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By Amy Zuber

Copyright of Nation's Restaurant News is the property of Lebhar - Friedman Inc.