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Legal Sea Foods leader fosters collaboration in menu development
by Elissa Elan
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Title: president and chief executive, Legal Sea Foods, Boston
Birth date: May 26, 1952
Hometown: Waltham, Mass.
Education: bachelor’s degree, Syracuse University, Syracuse, N.Y.
Career highlights: opening first downtown restaurant in 1980 in Boston’s Park Square; developing a new style of management using associate advisory councils and getting
hourly employees to participate in strategy sessions; being president of the Massachusetts Restaurant Association in the early 1990s; member for the last five years of the interviewing
committee for White House fellowships, which pair high-caliber candidates from industry, the public arena or the military with cabinet members or governmental agencies; being one of the
first operators to ban trans fats about six years ago; receiving an IFMA Silver Plate Award in 1999 and a Golden Chain Award from Nation’s Restaurant News in 1998.
Personal: married, three children
Favorite junk food or snack: "There are lots of them, but I really love a hot dog with lots of mustard and relish." |
Chefs or restaurateurs often say that their foodie inclinations were first inspired in their mothers’ kitchens. But when asked, Roger Berkowitz, president and chief executive
of the Boston-based,
33-unit Legal Sea Foods chain, will flat out explain that he didn’t get his prowess from his mom. No, it was another important female family member, his maternal grandmother,
who passed on the culinary gene. “It’s interesting, I think, that any culinary talent I have I got from my mother’s mother,” he says.
“She was a great cook, just off the charts. Unfortunately, my mother did not inherit those same skill sets.” He notes, however, that his culinary
facility does not come from formal training. It’s more about an inherent instinct for tastes. “What I’m good at is pairing flavors,” he
says. “I understand flavors and the synergy between them. I know when it’s close and when it’s not there. For example, once, back in the 1980s, I was sitting down
and thought I wanted some shrimp and a little rice and some broccoli. I thought we could put a little herb marinade on it and some cheese. And today it remains one of the most popular
items on the menu.” |
