(Jan. 28, 2016) Chef Toby Gilbert is the latest area resident to open a new business in downtown Berlin.
The 27-year-old will set up “Gilbert’s Provisions” inside the back room of Bruder Hill, on 25 Commerce Street, selling various culinary treasures.
Gilbert, currently the sous chef at a(muse.) in Rehoboth, started cooking “as a little kid, growing up” at a number of restaurants in the Ocean City area. After graduating from Stephen Decatur High School, he earned a liberal arts degree from Flagler College in Florida, then moved to Puerto Rico, where he met a chef who would affect his future.
“After a few drunken nights talking about food, he invited me up to New York, on Fire Island, and I trained under him for seven months. It was basic stuff – I didn’t know how to make a Béchamel sauce, (a white sauce,)” he said.
“I like to think of it as the Thomas Keller way,” Gilbert continued. “Thomas Keller worked in yacht clubs and stuff. His defining moment was making a good hollandaise. When I started to make crème anglaise and good sauces like that, I thought, ‘this is pretty cool how all this works.’”
During that time, in New York, Gilbert also learned how to make kimchee and sauerkraut, spurring an interest in fermentation that will inform several of the items at the new shop.
He later returned to the Worcester County area, working at the Grove Market in Bishopville and helping to open Blacksmith in Berlin. He also worked at Liquid Assets in Ocean City.
Eventually, he said, the fast-paced, long-hours grind of the restaurant industry became too much of a burden, and he said the birth of his nephew made him consider a career change.
“Seeing my sister and her new kid … if I keep being a chef, that’s never going to happen,” he said. “This is just a different avenue to do food.”
Gilbert said he started envisioning many of the ambitious items he hoped to sell at the shop during his tenure at Blacksmith. At the time, he envisioned a homemade charcuterie program, among other things, that would take more than a year to produce a single slice of prosciutto.
“I got really excited about making certain individual things without thinking about what we would do with it afterwards,” he said. “This is an avenue to be able to do these individual projects and then tell people what they can do with it. For me, that’s pretty cool because it makes people cook, and it makes people branch out a little bit. We’ll have a bunch of ingredients that I’m going to be making that aren’t [featured in] many other places.”
He said that could include everything from a fermentation program with sauerkraut, kimchee, pickles and miso, to pâté, cured bacon, duck breast prosciutto and homemade ricotta and burrata cheeses. Probiotic drinks and soft-serve ice cream are also possibilities.
Because of the limitations of the space, Gilbert said he planned use a chamber vapor oven to cook some things “sous-vide” – essentially using a controlled-temperate water circulator to heat objects inside vacuum-sealed plastic bags.
Berlin Economic and Community Development Director Ivy Wells is helping Gilbert with a façade grant for exterior improvements at the space. If all goes well, the shop could open by March or April.
“In my head, my timeline says we can get it done,” Gilbert said. “I’m going to be helping with construction as much as possible, but there’s always hiccups.
“I definitely want to open before summer,” he added. “I don’t want to do another summer in a restaurant.”
For Gilbert, the shop also marks a homecoming of sorts in Berlin. His parents owned the video store, less than 50 yards away on Main Street, when he was growing up. As a youth, he remembers skateboarding in the nearby parking lot behind Bruder Hill.
His mother, Dee Gilbert, owns and operates NEST on Main Street.
“It’s kind of a nice little side note to this location being where it is,” he said.
The chef has set up a GoFundMe page to help with initial costs, and has raised nearly $2,000 of his $10,000 during the first month. To donate, visit www.gofundme.com/gilbertsprovisions.
The 27-year-old will set up “Gilbert’s Provisions” inside the back room of Bruder Hill, on 25 Commerce Street, selling various culinary treasures.
Gilbert, currently the sous chef at a(muse.) in Rehoboth, started cooking “as a little kid, growing up” at a number of restaurants in the Ocean City area. After graduating from Stephen Decatur High School, he earned a liberal arts degree from Flagler College in Florida, then moved to Puerto Rico, where he met a chef who would affect his future.
“After a few drunken nights talking about food, he invited me up to New York, on Fire Island, and I trained under him for seven months. It was basic stuff – I didn’t know how to make a Béchamel sauce, (a white sauce,)” he said.
“I like to think of it as the Thomas Keller way,” Gilbert continued. “Thomas Keller worked in yacht clubs and stuff. His defining moment was making a good hollandaise. When I started to make crème anglaise and good sauces like that, I thought, ‘this is pretty cool how all this works.’”
During that time, in New York, Gilbert also learned how to make kimchee and sauerkraut, spurring an interest in fermentation that will inform several of the items at the new shop.
He later returned to the Worcester County area, working at the Grove Market in Bishopville and helping to open Blacksmith in Berlin. He also worked at Liquid Assets in Ocean City.
Eventually, he said, the fast-paced, long-hours grind of the restaurant industry became too much of a burden, and he said the birth of his nephew made him consider a career change.
“Seeing my sister and her new kid … if I keep being a chef, that’s never going to happen,” he said. “This is just a different avenue to do food.”
Gilbert said he started envisioning many of the ambitious items he hoped to sell at the shop during his tenure at Blacksmith. At the time, he envisioned a homemade charcuterie program, among other things, that would take more than a year to produce a single slice of prosciutto.
“I got really excited about making certain individual things without thinking about what we would do with it afterwards,” he said. “This is an avenue to be able to do these individual projects and then tell people what they can do with it. For me, that’s pretty cool because it makes people cook, and it makes people branch out a little bit. We’ll have a bunch of ingredients that I’m going to be making that aren’t [featured in] many other places.”
He said that could include everything from a fermentation program with sauerkraut, kimchee, pickles and miso, to pâté, cured bacon, duck breast prosciutto and homemade ricotta and burrata cheeses. Probiotic drinks and soft-serve ice cream are also possibilities.
Because of the limitations of the space, Gilbert said he planned use a chamber vapor oven to cook some things “sous-vide” – essentially using a controlled-temperate water circulator to heat objects inside vacuum-sealed plastic bags.
Berlin Economic and Community Development Director Ivy Wells is helping Gilbert with a façade grant for exterior improvements at the space. If all goes well, the shop could open by March or April.
“In my head, my timeline says we can get it done,” Gilbert said. “I’m going to be helping with construction as much as possible, but there’s always hiccups.
“I definitely want to open before summer,” he added. “I don’t want to do another summer in a restaurant.”
For Gilbert, the shop also marks a homecoming of sorts in Berlin. His parents owned the video store, less than 50 yards away on Main Street, when he was growing up. As a youth, he remembers skateboarding in the nearby parking lot behind Bruder Hill.
His mother, Dee Gilbert, owns and operates NEST on Main Street.
“It’s kind of a nice little side note to this location being where it is,” he said.
The chef has set up a GoFundMe page to help with initial costs, and has raised nearly $2,000 of his $10,000 during the first month. To donate, visit www.gofundme.com/gilbertsprovisions.