Surfing with the remote through back channels of food-rich programming or perusing the great magnitudes of cookbook selections

offered up each season, one can hardly imagine how there is anything new about food that has not been said or reported. That very challenge that tantalizes hundreds of thousands of culinary-program graduates each year, many with a dream of restaurant ownership, to over-think food with designer that require too many steps, too many sauces, too many arty details, orjust Too Much Everything. Thus when we find a chef who can prepare a recipe so that the essence of the food shines throughwith little embellishmentcausing us to melt into puddles of gastronomic appreciation, we sing holy praises to the culinary gods. Take that one step further and let it be the kitchen philosophy of an entire restaurant...and we have found paradise. Such is the case at The Stone House Restaurant in Guilford. This kitchen survives, and in fact, flourishes, without pretense, largely in part to its owners, the chef team of Peter Hamme and Jim Quinlivan. I mean, think about it, food has been around for how many civilizations? There really isnt anything anyone can do that hasnt been done already, says Quinlivan. Our philosophy is simplewe serve the best quality that we can get our hands on in a simple preparation, Quinlivan summarizes. His culinary background took a classic path: first as a graduate of the prestigious Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park and then as an apprentice to chefs Paul Prudhomme and David Boulet. Quinlivan put in his hours of service both behind the line and as a front-of-the-house manager when he served as Executive Chef for the Doral family of hotels in New York. I managed, and was responsible for, the preparation and presentation of all of the cuisine served in the restaurant as well as all of the food and beverage services in the three hotels in the complex, says Quinlivan. I was twenty years in New York, he says, and that twenty years included an executive chefs position at the West 63rd Street Steakhouse, the exclusive restaurant owned by billionaire John Kluge. The culinary world took notice and Quinlivan was praised by major food publicationsamong them Bon Appetit and Gourmet magazinesfor his skills in preparation and presentation.

But that was then and this is now. After leaving the gastronomic grandeur of the Big Apple, Quinlivan settled comfortably into his own dockside location in the quaint and relatively quiet town of Guilford.

I was looking at properties from Greenwich to Old Saybrook, he recalls. As a kid, I had been to Guilford many times on the way to Cape Cod, and at one point I was here for a cocktail party and someone mentioned that the Stone House might be for sale. Quinlivan knew the restaurant, and was interested in a more thorough look. After a few unsuccessful attempts at seeing the property, he was granted access. At that point, Quinlivan knew that it was meant to be, that the pieces were in place. I had the financial backing of my family and my culinary school roommate and I entered into a lease agreement with the owner, he says. Running your own business has its demandsespecially the restaurant businessand a few months into the endeavor, Quinlivans first partner wanted out. But he acted quickly: I put an ad in the New York Times for a chef and Peter answered it. That would be Peter Hamme, now the other half of the team. Hamme is a star in his own right with a degree in Food Services Management from Syracuse University and the American Culinary Institutes Award of Culinary Excellence. He began his career under the tutelage of Marcel Brossete at the celebrated La Camargue Restaurant in Philadelphia and later earned the Marriott Golf Digests highest rating for a resort while managing the kitchen and five restaurants at the Sawgrass Resort in Florida. Hamme served as part of a hotel-restaurant task force, where he was responsible for reorganizing (which sometimes had to translate into role of hatchet man) a restaurant or food-service department. I had moved nine times in ten years and I was getting tired, remembers Hamme. He made the decision to leave the less-personal hotel business and turn back to running individually owned properties. I bounced around Connecticut a bit in different restaurants, looking for possible investment opportunities, says Hamme, landing at Bennetts Steak House in Stamford. But as luck would have it he picked up the New York Times one day and read the chef wanted ad for the Stone House Restaurant, and feeling the winds of change sweep through him once more, he contacted Quinlivan. In a sentence: Hamme accepted the chefs position; the partner sold his shares to Hamme and with the addition of Quinlivans wife, Dolores, as the restaurants front-of-the-house manager, the new team set about to run one of the most popular restaurants on the shoreline.

Some might insist that business and friendship dont mixbut in this case it is exactly that combination that ensures success.

We work well with one anotherits total trust because its both of our futures. Its my kids college tuitions and Peters kids future, too. Were family. But I think that above all, honesty is the most important aspect of our relationshipbefore cooking skills, management skills. It is something that cant be taught, says Quinlivan.

Agreed, says Hamme before adding, it is also really important to communicate. We spend hours every day just talking about stuff herean idea, business hours, employee relations. Or, well go to food shows separately and come back to compare notes. We do a lot of talking.

The two men admit that there are miscommunications at times; however, they both agree on how to handle those rough spots: We just walk away to gain some perspective, says Hamme.

You might consider us like yin and yang in many respects, smiles Quinlivan, but we both just walk away if it gets heated. Again, it just helps to have the same goals for the restaurant.

Indeed, Quinlivan and Hamme are on the same page with many restaurant matters, but certainly with one in particular. We are committed to our community, says Quinlivan. We probably have more stories than recipes, agrees Hamme. We are a real part of this community and a number of our customers have been coming to this restaurant for a lot of years. And we have relationships with families because of our members club program.

The members club is a program that I had at the New York Cigar Club, explains Quinlivan. For $500 per year you receive discounts throughout the year on your purchases. I brought the idea to the Stone House early onbut its only $25 per year here for the membership. For that you get a ten percent discount on whatever you purchase anytime you come inwhether its a beer or a rehearsal dinner.

Its a great program that keeps us afloat during otherwise slow timeslike January, February and March, Hamme adds. The club membership includes about 800 families at this point, says Hamme, and it continues to grow. Now we have children of club members who are grown up and coming here with their childrenits one big family on any given night.

When you run a business with a lot of local customers, you make a lot of friendships, asserts Quinlivan, When we made the decision to buy the building we decided to have a party for our club membership. We closed off the back and had a barbeque and beera great party. Weve had a party every summer since, and it just keeps getting bigger.

Our patrons look forward to the end of the summer party. Its a great way to say thank you to our community and our patrons, Hamme agrees.

No one would argue that The Stone House Restaurant is a good neighbor, but its not just about summer parties; they proudly and quietly give back to the community. Just ask any one of a number of organizationsA Better Chance of Guilford, the Dana Farber Gillette Womens Cancer Center, the Breaking Barriers Foundation, and the American Liver Foundation, just to name a few. We do a lot of charity work here, says Quinlivan. With a talk the talk and walk the walk attitude, the restaurant owners donate five percent of the revenues from their Tuesday till to support specific not-for-profit organizations. We give back very locallyits about the health of our community, says Quinlivan. When I was at the Culinary, one of the strong messages for future restaurant owners was to build your business up and then sell it off in the fifth year. Thats not what we want to do our investment is not just in our customer base, its also in our community. Now in our tenth yeardefinitely we are in it for the long haul, assures Quinlivan. Our goal is total enjoyment for our customers, Hamme underscores, whether its not raising our prices [which they havent done in more than a year] or working with a vendor to be sure that we get the best, the freshest product available, we are in this for our customer.