New chef revamps Ram’s Head Inn menu with hyper-local, from-scratch focus
Chef Jessica Taccone is, in many ways, not your typical toque. First of all, she’s pretty chill, leading her staff with collaboration and kindness instead of the Gordon Ramsey or, worse, Rene Redzepi brand of brandishing insults and threats to pump up performance. For Taccone, whose path to the kitchen was more intuitive than typical, creating a positive atmosphere is key in crafting great food.
“There is no ‘I’ in team,” she shrugged, while scooping out a luscious bowl of her homemade Orange Dreamsicle ice cream, one of the many from-scratch items that will now wholly take over the breakfast, brunch, lunch and dinner menus at the Ram’s Head Inn on Shelter Island.
A former competitive dancer and one-time veteran of the construction industry, Taccone’s early career years were spent searching for the space that ignited her. The East Islip native majored in journalism and communications in college; that didn’t feel right. She got into the construction world, her family’s stock in trade, because it was, “something I was always around.”
She landed a job at Sandpebble Project Management in East Hampton with owner Victor Diez-Canseco, who would become a mentor. Ironically, it was this job that planted the first seeds of her eventual work-life happy place.
For more on Ms. Taccone’s culinary journey, see southforker.com.
