Coming from a big Italian family, Tyler Fenton learned from a young age how food could bring people together.
“I have like 30 cousins or something,” said Fenton, who is the co-owner and head chef of Reilly Craft Pizza & Drink, 101 E. Pennington St. “We had really big family meals.”
By the time Fenton was in middle school, he took over cooking duties from his mom, who, despite her heritage, was “not the best cook,” he said. He found recipes online or by watching Food Network and it sort of took off from there.
When he was old enough, he took a job as a line cook at Vivace Restaurant. He worked at the Italian eatery until opening Reilly Craft Pizza & Beer in August 2012.
“I loved it because it was such a different environment than I’ve ever been in,” he said. “I really enjoyed the fast pace.”
The restaurant and beer garden is in the historic site once occupied by the Reilly Funeral Home. The rustic space was a good spot for a pizza place, Fenton said.
“The layout of it lended itself to an open kitchen,” he said. “From the front door, you can see the pizza oven.”
The menu for Reilly Craft Pizza & Beer is a mix of authentic Italian dishes, Italian-American dishes, and dishes that have an Italian philosophy behind them, Fenton said. The most popular pizza is the fennel sausage and peppers pizza.
“We’re sort of playing on the fact that we’re an Italian pizzeria not in Italy,” he said, noting they make about 100 pounds of the sausage in house every week. “We’re not trying to be Neapolitan pizza. We don’t have to follow any guidelines. We have the creative freedom to do what we like.”
Fenton said that business has been “well above what we were expecting” during the first 2½ years. So much so, that they were able to open a beer garden in the back of the restaurant last year and a cocktail bar in the basement on New Year’s Eve.
He said his main goal is to continue making food that people like. Plans include incorporating more local ingredients and rotating the menu seasonally.
“We want to keep pushing forward,” he said. “The goal with Reilly is to not have one menu and stick with that menu forever.”
Tyler Fenton took some time to answer a few questions for us:
What is one unique ingredient you can’t cook without?
“Salt. It’s not a very unique ingredient, but it’s a very important ingredient. Without it, food is very flavorless.”
What is one food you can’t bring yourself to eat?
“I have not had a single food as a group that I dislike. For example, classic things that turn people off like brains: I’ve had bad brains that I didn’t like and good brains that I did like. I do not have any generic food phobias.”
If your cooking career ended tomorrow, what would you do?
“I’d think about going to school for architecture. I think architecture is very interesting. If I had to choose a different career path, I think that would be a challenging and rewarding direction to go.”
