Meet Delaware's Most Influential People in food & drink in 2024

Matthew Kern: One Coastal Restaurant in Fenwick Island, chef/owner

Kern was the only Delaware chef to be named a semifinalist for the 2024 James Beard Foundation Awards, his third such nomination in four years. It's quite an achievement considering the Mid-Atlantic region category, one of the most competitive, is open to chefs in a five-state region that includes New Jersey, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Washington, D.C.

Kern previously was recognized by the Beard Foundation in 2019 and 2020 when he was the executive chef at the Lewes restaurant Heirloom. He purchased One Coastal, a 50-seat Sussex County farm-to-table restaurant off Del. 1, in 2022. A longtime champion of Delaware farmers, Kern has continued to support and showcase the East Coast's rich agricultural and fishery industries. "That’s always been my mission, to do this with grace and humility and treat my staff well and pay a living wage," he said.

Sean Corea, Tom Little and Tim Bartley: Lewes Oyster House in Lewes, owners

If you've had a hard time scoring a seat at Lewes Oyster House, you're not alone. The seafood restaurant inside the historic Walsh Building, in the heart of Lewes on Second Street, has become one of the state’s hottest new restaurants since its October 2022 opening.

Partners Corea, Little and Bartley combined dozens of years of restaurant and hospitality experience to open the restaurant that pays tribute to the 18th- and 19th-century “oyster craze,” when much of the populate regularly ate the shellfish. Corea has said the partners knew they wanted to create something that would honor the Lewes community and fill a niche. Corea said eating oysters "takes me back to being a kid. It really evokes emotion because it’s like being hit by a wave at the beach and you swallow a little bit of that water." The partners were named Restaurateurs of the Year in October 2023 by the Delaware Restaurant Association.

Gabino Trujillo Jr. and Maria Morales: Tortilleria Dos Milpas in Elsmere, owners

There are tortillas, and then there are tortillas. Most American restaurants serve factory-made tortillas, or hand-pressed tortillas made with industrial corn flour. But at Tortilleria Dos Milpas, nearly alone among Delaware restaurants, the tortillas most likely spent the morning as corn. First the organic white corn must be softened with an alkaline substance called lime, a process called nixtamalization. Then it is milled and pressed into tortillas so fresh they smell like a cornfield.

But Gabino Trujillo Jr, and his wife Maria Morales, and father Gabino Sr., don't just serve merely the freshest and tastiest tortillas we've tried in Delaware. Their ambitious restaurant and tortilleria, which opened last year, also exemplifies a new generation of Mexican chefs in northern Delaware, a region that's quickly evolving into the densest home to Mexican culture anywhere in the mid-Atlantic.

Dos Milpas' rich mole, served smothered over a torta, tastes like five generations of family history from the tiny town of Nocupetaro in Michoacan. The carnitas recipe is a rich secret from a family friend. And the tortillas are no secret at all. Taste them, and it's like the difference between fresh Italian rolls and Wonder bread. Those fresh nixtamal tortillas can already be found at Mexican stores and restaurants all over Northern Delaware.

The Caggiano family: Nicola Pizza, owners

Delaware's iconic Nicola Pizza, a family business founded by Nick and the late Joan Caggiano, has served generations of customers pizzas, sandwiches, salads, and the restaurant's famed Nic-o-bolis since 1971. There's always a family member in the restaurant, which was founded in Rehoboth Beach and recently moved to a spacious, 260-seat site in Lewes. The family has never franchised so they could have complete control.

Nick Caggiano Jr., who runs Nicola's with his now 86-year-old father, sister Camille, cousin Kelly Munyan, a staffer since 1994, who is general manager of the entire operation, along with other family members, said he wanted to consolidate the two Rehoboth restaurants on the Lewes land they owned off Del. Route 1.

A trip to the Delaware beaches is not complete without a stop at Nicola's, which for 53 years has set a high standard and has counted locals, tourists, vacationing celebrities, sports figures and at least two sitting U.S. presidents as customers. Nicola Pizza's previous awards include Family-Owned Business of the Year, Rehoboth's Chamber Business of the Year and the Delaware Restaurant Association's Cornerstone Award.

Carrie Leishman: Delaware Restaurant Association, president and CEO

Carrie Leishman, president and CEO of the Delaware Restaurant Association, was named just treasurer of the National Restaurant Association Educational Foundation board of directors. Leishman is positioned to ascend to chairman of the board in 2026.

The board's mission includes enhancing the restaurant industry’s training and education, career development, and community engagement efforts nationwide and supporting today’s and tomorrow’s restaurant and food service workforce.

Leishman has long been known as a passionate and fearless advocate for the industry and is credited with strengthening the DRA into one of the most influential organizations in the state.

Kate and Don Applebaum: Cajun Kate's in Bellefonte, owners

The hard-working husband-and-wife team has been running Cajun Kate's in Bellefonte since December 2016. They also have a stall with the same name at the Booth's Corner Farmer Market in Boothwyn, Pennsylvania, just over the Delaware state line that has been open since 2006.

The businesses, which offers very authentic Louisiana food such as gumbo, jambalaya, Po-boys and crawfish pie, are a reflection of their time cooking in New Orleans. Don worked at Emeril Lagasse’s former Cafe NOLA in the French Quarter and later at New Orleans’ Aquarium of the Americas. His wife Kate, whom the business is named after, worked with chef/owner Susan Spicer at her renowned Bayona Restaurant in New Orleans and later was the longtime chef of the former Harry’s Seafood Grill at the Wilmington Riverfront.

The couple weathered the pandemic and continued to offer high-quality food at this unique Delaware gem despite continued supply chain constraints and increased operating costs that have forced them to closely look at how they spend every penny.

Luis Peláez: Papa's Food Market, store manager

When Wilmington restaurateur Umberto Gomez bought the landmark Papa's Food Market property and business in May 2019, he brought in his stepson Luis Peláez to run the business that has been a part of the Wilmington community since 1927.

Peláez's energy and enthusiasm have breathed new life into the nearly 100-year Italian foods store and he is credited with keeping Old World traditions alive for new generations of customers. The shop at 1910 W. Sixth St. sandwiched between Union and Lincoln streets in the city's Little Italy neighborhood, is a destination for those looking for hard-to-find Italian goods like anise oil for pizzelle cookies, jars of lupini beans, imported pasta, panettone sweet breads and confections such as panforte.

Peláez has an Italian culinary background. For eight years, he worked with the Martuscelli Restaurant Group at its La Casa Pasta restaurant in Glasgow and the Chesapeake Inn Restaurant in Chesapeake City, Maryland. He was a prep cook and did catering for the restaurants.

Stewart and Carl Ramsey: Talleyville farmers

Father and son Stewart and Carl Ramsey are the fifth and sixth generation of their family to run the farm at 440 Ramsey Road near Talleyville, which has been in operation since 1860. The farm is now a part of the First State Historical Park which continues to rent land to the Ramseys where they grow sweet corn, tomatoes, peppers and cut flowers.

The family also has U-Pick produce options for customers that includes strawberries, blueberries and pumpkins. The Ramseys were honored in January with the Family Service Award by the Fruit and Vegetable Growers Association of Delaware for their contributions to Delaware’s fruit and vegetable industry. They are very active Delaware Farm Bureau. For 30 years, the family has offered significant agritourism opportunities, including several field mazes, educational programs for school children, hayrides, an annual pumpkin run event, floral arrangement classes and goat yoga. Ramsey’s Farm also works on rented farmland just over the state line in Pennsylvania where they raise grass-fed Wagyu beef cattle.

Carl Ramsey is now in charge of most of the day-to-day operations around Ramsey’s Farm in recent years has added a farm market so customers can buy fresh produce.

Laurel and Sie Saunders: Ochinili's in Middletown, owners

The oldest and most famous Delaware cheesesteak shops, like Claymont Steak Shop, are rightfully famous for sticking to their traditions.

But when they write the history of who brought the new-school cheesesteak to Delaware, the books may credit Middletown steak shop Ochinili's, established 2023. Here, you will find crusty, seeded rolls from Jersey bakery Liscio's. Enough premium ribeye you could serve it as an actual steak. Tangy, melty, full-flavored Cooper Sharp cheese invented in this region.

This is what the new cheesesteak looks like in 2024. And Philly-native Sie Saunders, alongside native Delawarean wife Laurel, used to drive an hour from Middletown to get cheesesteaks like this at spots like South Philly's famous Angelo's Pizza.

Finally, the Saunders decided to stay put and make their own cheesesteaks in Delaware, now among some of the best in the state. Other shops, including the excellent Nick's Pizza in Prices Corner, have begun to also serve modern, seeded-roll Cooper steaks. But if you ask who brought the new-school cheesesteak to Delaware? We're going to tell you it's Ochinili's.

Lindsay Naylor Jasper and Joe Jasper: Musings Fermentation Underground owners

Influential can mean lots of things. Musings Fermentation Underground is a tiny brewery, likely unknown to most Delaware beer fans. It's also between locations, as it moves from a small Glasgow space to one it's scoping out in Newark.

But in other ways, it's had influence far beyond its size. Joe and Lindsay Naylor Jasper founded Musings as the only brewery in Delaware devoted solely to wild and open-fermented beers: beers brewed with yeast from the air, so that each beer is truly the flavor of Delaware.

But to open this unconventional brewery, the Jaspers needed to change a Delaware law. Tiny Musings ferments part of their beer on other brewers' equipment — a common practice across the country that offers breweries flexibility, including beers by new Philly brands Kenwood, Two Locals and Meetinghouse.

But Delaware didn't allow this, and so the Jaspers lobbied their Newark-area legislator, Paul Baumbach, to sponsor a bill in 2021 that allowed brewers to share equipment, a law that will now help a new generation of small brewers get their start.

After opening, Musings is already making waves. One of their first beers — a hibiscus Saison called Shadow, aged in wine barrels — was named the best beer of its style in the country last year at America's largest and oldest beer festival.

This article originally appeared on Delaware News Journal: Meet Delaware's most influential people in food & drink in 2024