Jeff Saser has spent most of his career in fine dining, but the first chefs he admired were the chefs at the Brooklyn pizza shops he frequented as a child.
“They were the coolest guys in the world,” Saser recalled. “It had this old-fashioned Italian vibe. All the guys at the pizza place knew each other. They had cool cars, and I looked up to them growing up.”
It's only fitting that Saser now helms the pizza kitchen at Ponysaurus Brewing Co.'s third location, the recently opened Raleigh Iron Works location, which he says is the culmination of a 22-year dream.
Saser has worked in kitchens his entire career, since enrolling in culinary school at age 18. His first kitchen job was at Montrachet, a famed French restaurant in New York City that closed in the early 2000s. He was part of a class of six interns and was the only one to stay for the summer.
“All I did for six months in that job was make blinis with caviar. I just stood there with a little hot plate and flipped the blinis,” Seyser recalls with a laugh.
From there, Saser moved to Union Square Café, where he started as a line cook and then rose to the role of sous chef. Union Square Café brought him full time into legendary restaurateur and chef Danny Meyer's hospitality enterprise. Saser then joined the opening team at Maialino and eventually served as executive chef at the Gramercy Park Hotel restaurant. During his time leading the kitchen there, he cooked for the likes of Keith Richards, Mick Jagger, and Questlove.
“I'm a kid from Brooklyn,” Sather says of her experience in fine dining, “and I'm making nothing, and I'm working hard, and I'm doing dinner for Questlove.”
Saser cites Carmen Quagliata of Union Square Café as one of his most important mentors. He points to Quagliata's vision of presenting beautiful ingredients on a plate without overcomplicating them as a key lesson in his own evolution as a chef, describing it as cooking with an “Italian sensibility” in the belief that olive oil, garlic, roasting and caramelization drive beautiful food forward.
“You give it time and heat,” he says, “and it develops natural flavors.”
I He first met Saser while he was leading the kitchen at the now-closed Royal in downtown Raleigh. Saser and his then-wife had moved to the Triangle to be closer to their families. Royal served a fusion of French and American cuisine, including a popular burger with Gruyere cheese and Royal sauce on a locally-sourced English muffin, orange-flavored fried duck wings, and other dishes. Fried mussels.
My fondest memories of Royal's cuisine were when Jeff offered us a one-night-only tasting menu. On several occasions, the menu was centered around “red sauce Italian” dishes, exuding his love for his grandmother's cooking. Even then, he hinted that he might one day run an Italian restaurant.
Like many restaurants, Royale was hit hard by COVID-19, which led Sather to the Counting House restaurant at Durham's 21c Museum Hotel, where he has breathed new life into the menu's often-high-profile dishes, including the Royale Burger and pasta dishes.
Shortly after moving to Durham, Saser became friends with Nick Hawthorne Johnson, one of the owners of Ponysaurus Brewing. The two stayed in touch over the years, until one day Hawthorne Johnson texted Saser and invited him to talk. When Saser learned that Hawthorne Johnson's next project would be based in Raleigh and run under the Ponysaurus brand, that the job would see Saser working with Anthony Guerra of Oakwood Pizza Box, and that Roxie Garcia, Saser's partner (both in his personal life and in the kitchen), would be working with him in the kitchen, Saser quickly accepted.
Ponysaurus started out as a Durham pop-up for a few years before becoming a full-fledged brewery in 2015. The brand has had a creative feel from the beginning, from its pony-meets-dinosaur logo to its slogan (“If beer drinks beer, beer drinks beer”), the brand has displayed its creativity as if it was made to please and reflect the community in which it was founded and brewed.
I recently spoke with Hawthorne Johnson about Ponysaurus' expansion from Durham to Wilmington to Raleigh. Ultimately, Hawthorne Johnson said it's all about making Ponysaurus do what it does best in more locations. “We do two things: brew beer and create spaces for people to come together and build community. It's really exciting to be able to open up more places where people can gather and have a place where people can enjoy our beer and have fellowship together.”
Over the past two years, the Ponysaurus team evaluated markets throughout North Carolina, ultimately settling on Wilmington and Raleigh, with both of Ponysaurus' new locations opening within the past four months.
“With Raleigh, we settled on the fact that we have some great friends who are doing really great things in the food and beverage industry,” Hawthorne-Johnson says. “We wanted to come here and contribute to the scene and be a part of everything that's going on.”
The location's proximity to the original brewery in Durham will allow Ponysaurus' production team to stay close to the main brewing facility while also working on crafting sour beers and barrel-aging them in the Raleigh facility.
The proximity also means that many of Raleigh's customers have already visited the Durham brewery. This comes with a certain amount of pressure, Hawthorn-Johnson adds. “It's scary opening something so close to our original location. Most people here know who we are and what we do in Durham. We have certain expectations.”
Over the past few months, Saser, Garcia and their team have been working to bring the Raleigh location's menu to life. The pizzas are based on sauces and doughs perfected by Guerra and Oakwood Pizza Box. Saser and his team wanted to stick to “simple, delicious food” that reflects both the flavors Saser loved growing up and the seasonal bounty of the nearby farmers market.
Current menu items include a clam pizza inspired by Saser's love of Frank Pepe Pizzeria in New Haven, Connecticut. Made with a base of white sauce, the chopped clams taste fresh and are spiced with garlic, lemon and parsley. You'll notice a slight tang in the crust, and you'll definitely want more than one slice.
They also have blistered tomato pizza (which has become one of my favorites after many visits), wings that Saser says are “prepared with a minimal amount of ingredients” and a little brown butter and sugar, a burger made with LaFrieda beef and aged cheddar cheese, and a few salads. And, of course, there's pepperoni pizza. Saser says, “Pepperoni and pilsner are a great pairing.”
Ultimately, pizza will remain the mainstay of the menu, even though the team is working on developing different options to go with it.
“Pizza and beer are natural friends,” Saser says.
Please send comments about this story to food@indyweek.com.
