Big Grove Brewery chef in national spotlight

SOLON — Big Grove Brewery's executive chef, Ben Smart, hadn't planned to be a chef.

But now he's bringing national attention to Iowa with recognition from Plate magazine, which named him as one of 30 'chefs to watch in 2016' along with culinary experts around the country from New Orleans to San Francisco, New York City, Chicago and more.

After graduating from the University of Iowa in 2004 with a geoscience degree, Smart, an Iowa City native, started his career as a geologist.

But the 9-to-5 desk job wasn't for him, he said.

'I went crazy,' he explained, adding he'd 'always had this bug itching' in the back of his mind — he'd always enjoyed cooking. In fact, instead of watching cartoons after school, he'd watch cooking shows on PBS, he reminisced.

He decided to return to school, this time to Kirkwood Community College for a culinary arts degree, which he earned in 2007. He then went work in a number of fine dining kitchens including the American Restaurant in Kansas City, Mo., and the Herbfarm in Woodinville, Wash.

It was in these highly rated and already established eateries that Smart refined his culinary craft, drawing inspiration from the skilled and knowledgeable cooks around him. Smart was quickly promoted to sous chef at the Herbfarm — just one year after starting. He worked side-by-side with the head chef as they rotated the menu every two weeks, forcing them to be creative with freshly grown ingredients from the restaurant's farm.

'It was a constant creative process,' Smart said. 'We were pushing each other as hard as we could.'

And at prices upward of $200 per person, there was 'a lot of pressure' to perform well, he said.

Five years into his gig at the Herbfarm, Smart was contacted 'out of the blue' by Doug Goettsch, owner of Big Grove in Solon and Pullman Bar & Diner in Iowa City.

At the time, Goettsch was just beginning to formulate his plans to open the brewery and called Smart to ask if he knew any cooks in Iowa who could staff the kitchen.

'At that point, I'd worked with Chris (then executive chef at Herbfarm) bfor so long. We didn't need each other anymore and I felt like I was banging at the ceiling,' Smart said. 'I was ready for the next step.'

Smart returned to Iowa and opened at Big Grove three weeks after his son was born, he said.

Since it opened in 2013, Big Grove has been drawing customers from all over Iowa to small-town Solon for fine food and brews.

The menu rotates to accommodate fresh and local ingredients and includes items such as glazed king trumpet mushrooms with house-made tortellini or prosciutto sugo pizza on dough made from scratch. On the same menu you'll find something as simple as oven-baked mac and cheese or a burger with a house-made bun and pickles. Perhaps the most notable fan favorite, however, is the Brussels sprouts flash fried and bathed in salty, sweet and spicy sriracha vinaigrette.

'People go crazy for the Brussels sprouts,' Smart said. 'We go through 200 pounds of Brussels in a week.'

Within the three years Smart has been with Big Grove, he not only has received national attention — he also helped open a second restaurant, Pullman, and is in the process of opening another Big Grove location in Iowa City.

'It's been a wild ride,' he said. 'I've come a long way from where I've started. ... I've never been part of something built from the ground up. I'm really excited to see what the future holds.'