Sugar-Brined Pork Chops and Parenthood: Chef Elijah Rock

Ever wonder what happens when French culinary techniques meet Caribbean flavors in a small Florida town? Chef Elijah Rock is answering that question at Bricks (B-R-I-X) in Port Richey, where he’s crafting accessible fine dining while embracing first-time fatherhood.

The journey from Vermont to Florida’s Gulf Coast has been transformative for Chef Rock, who brings a strong French foundation to his new coastal home. His standout dishes—sugar-brined pork chops with house-made Caribbean sauce and U10 scallops with smoked tomato emulsion and creamed corn—showcase his talent for elevating familiar ingredients through technique without intimidating price points.

What sets Chef Rock apart is his commitment to reshaping kitchen culture. Rejecting the hostile environments that once defined the industry, he’s building a space where creativity thrives through respect and collaboration. This approach also guides his parenting, as he and his wife (who serves and tends bar at Bricks) build a balanced family life around their shared love for hospitality.

Chef Rock’s vision goes beyond Port Richey—he’s eager to bring Tampa to Bricks through collab dinners and food festivals. His goal isn’t just success—it’s creating something his daughter will be proud of.

Follow Chef Elijah Rock on Instagram @chefelijah.rock and visit Bricks in Port Richey, where high-end ingredients meet neighborhood prices in a dining experience redefining coastal Florida cuisine.

Chapters

• 0:45 Chef Elijah's Vision for Success
• 1:31 Standout Dishes: Pork Chops and Scallops
• 4:42 Bricks: French Caribbean Fusion Restaurant
• 8:50 Balancing New Fatherhood and Restaurant Ownership
• 13:15 Creating a Positive Kitchen Culture
• 17:21 French Caribbean Fusion Cuisine Highlights
• 21:34 Building Community Beyond Port Richey
• 25:02 Chef's Future Vision for Family Legacy

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:02

Success for me is going to be, you know, bringing my creativity to the small towns, showing people that you can. You can break away from the fryer baskets, it's OK.

Speaker 2: 0:24

Hello Food Fam. This is the Wankatalk Podcast, where you will find the perfect blend of food fun and cooking knowledge. I'm your host, carl Fiodini. Welcome to the number one food podcast in the country and the official podcast for the New York, california and Florida restaurant shows, the Pizza Tomorrow Summit and the US Culinary Open at NAFM. We're recording on-site at Ibis Images Studios, where food photography comes alive and I get to eat it. Email us to learn more info at thewalkandtalkcom.

Speaker 2: 0:54

Today's guest is stepping into two major roles all at once he's a first-time daddy and a soon-to-be restaurant owner. Chef Elijah Rock is the executive chef at Bricks in Port Richey, florida, where he's blending fine dining roots with a coastal inspiration and building a new culinary legacy while he and his wife raise their first child at home. Today he's bringing us two standout dishes. One's a pork chop, the other one is scallops. They're amazing and that's what I want to get into first right now. Let's welcome Chef Elijah to the program. Chef, welcome, thank you for having me. You were hitting home runs like crazy. Insane. Both dishes, beautiful Photography, as per usual, john, fantastic, you're welcome. Yeah, he doesn't talk, silent John. I want to do pork chops first, man. Yeah, he doesn't talk Silent John, let's. I want to do pork chop service man? Yeah, of course. So both were great. Um, I lean towards, you know, the beef, the lamb, the pork, that's. That's where I like to live. I like seafood too. Scallops are delicious, I love them, but let's talk about the pork. Oh, the pork chop.

Speaker 1: 2:02

Yes, the pork chop is definitely a mainstay on our main menu at Brick's. What we do with the pork chop is a sugar brine for 24 hours. After that we take it out, pat it dry, we cryovac them into our bags and then from there we will sous vide them for service, and then from there we hit them on the grill or in a cast iron pan just to finish them off, get them to temperature. The way that we're preparing the pork chop right now is we're doing it with our house-made Caribbean sauce, charred Cipollini onions, potato puree and sautéed asparagus Anytime you're putting Cipollini onions on anything, you're a winner.

Speaker 1: 2:43

They're one of my favorites man. They really are. You come from up north, so I was born in Vermont and spent a lot of my life in New Hampshire, right on the border of the Connecticut River there. So I'd be living in Vermont working in New Hampshire, or living in New Hampshire working in Vermont, back and forth.

Speaker 2: 3:00

Where's your funny accent? I never got one man.

Speaker 1: 3:02

My dad's from Chicago. Back and forth. Where's your funny accent? I never got one man. My dad's from Chicago, my mom's from New Jersey. They met in Vermont at a Christmas party and they settled down there.

Speaker 2: 3:16

They loved it so much. And nine months later, boom. Yeah, a couple of years later maybe, but you know, I hear New Hampshire isn't it like that, I think it's supposed to be. You can probably do it. Oh, we can do it. Sure, okay, all right, there it is Second dish scallops yes scallops.

Speaker 1: 3:29

So the scallops that we made today, that dish is on our chef's tasting menu. They're U10 scallops from New Bedford, massachusetts. We're doing that with creamed corn, smoked tomato emulsion, asparagus tips, prosciutto and pickled red onions.

Speaker 2: 3:45

Yeah, I'm going to get the prosciutto. I ate them all, I'm sorry.

Speaker 1: 3:49

No, it's fine. That's why I brought them, man, I did. They're great snacks.

Speaker 2: 3:52

So the name of the restaurant is Bricks, but it's not the bricks that everyone's thinking. Explain Bricks.

Speaker 1: 3:59

So Bricks B-R-I-X it's a unit of measurement to measure the sugar content in fruits and in wines. Bricks B-R-I-X the name fits the flavor of the restaurant being a bistro wine and bar.

Speaker 2: 4:17

So where did the French Caribbean mesh come from?

Speaker 1: 4:20

Caribbean and French fusion definitely came from my heavy background in French cooking. I was always trained in French restaurants heavy European and when we moved to Florida it was one of those things that I've always wanted to do is to get into the flavors of the islands and in Florida. So my sous chef, jeremy, is a Tampa native and he's really helped out, like developing the flavors, teaching me how to put it together in a positive way and in turn I'm showing him more of the French techniques. So it's a nice balancing act between me and my sous.

Speaker 2: 5:02

I think any chef that's coming here from outside of the state of Florida needs a Jeremy in their life. Oh, a hundred percent Right. We spoke a little bit off air earlier about what's available in terms of produce and seasonality in Florida. And part of the year, man, it's pretty, it's pretty strong, things are pretty solid. And then the other half of the year, like everything comes from somewhere else and it's fairly old. By the time you get it it's already had, you know, 10 days or so on its life already. So you come in as a chef who's used to walking out to the backyard and just, you know, pulling great stuff out of the ground, and all of a sudden your options are a little limited. How are you dealing with that?

Speaker 1: 5:49

It's definitely different. It's been a struggle a bit to find, you know, your great quality stuff, but thankfully we have great fishermen, great purveyors and we do have a lot of local farms that are not afraid to walk in the back door of our restaurant and, you know, sell us on sign and if you know you have something that's really nice, bring it by man.

Speaker 2: 6:10

I'll probably buy it from you. The sale of the restaurant happens in about a month. Yes, how is it that you're going to work around a brand new baby and a brand new restaurant?

Speaker 1: 6:21

It might be a little tough, but so far my wife and I have a good system. Since she's serving and bartending at the restaurant, she doesn't come in until a little bit later in the night, so she's with the baby all day. We bring the baby over to her parents' house, who live about five minutes from the restaurant, and they're gracious enough to watch their grandchild, which which they really love, and from there, uh, we pick her up at the end of the night together, we go home and you know, now it's now his dad's starting to hang out with with the little one it's the most special thing in the world and you have to make sure this first, like six months, is probably one of the most special because that's where they're going to learn who you are.

Speaker 2: 7:16

It's awesome. What you just said is awesome and really sincerely, that's um it's. It's nice to hear people who are still relatively young, having the babies, still putting in the work, still have aspirations. You both want to be restaurateurs, but you also want to raise a family. Have you seen that there's a parallel between a new baby and a new restaurant?

Speaker 1: 7:46

There is, in a way that it's both. You don't really know what you're getting into until you're in it. I guess it's exciting, nerve wracking and I'm definitely not sleeping enough, but I mean I couldn't be happier.

Speaker 2: 8:03

Emotions are real and what you have going on right now when you look at your daughter and then you look at the kitchen. But I mean, I couldn't be happier. Emotions are real and what you have going on right now when you look at your daughter and then you look at the kitchen. What kind of legacy are you hoping to leave behind in both places?

Speaker 1: 8:16

For my daughter. You know, I just want, I want the best for her, I want to be there for her with everything, and it's being in the restaurant industry has always been traditionally hard on families, so I'm trying to break that mold a little bit by, you know, being there as much as I can, you know. That's why having a having a really strong team is super important to me, so that I can trust them If I have to leave, if I have to go out and get, you know, pick my daughter up from school, or you know, whatever it is that I can, I can trust the people that are there that are going to fulfill my vision.

Speaker 2: 8:54

You're into the new way of things in the restaurant industry. You're looking to create a culture that's that embraces family, growth, a better work environment all the things that are the taglines in today's food industry world. How did you come to that conclusion? How did you come to that path? I?

Speaker 1: 9:11

guess in my early in my career, I mean, I worked with angry chefs in hostile kitchens. It was tough to find a place. You know you either were going to be bullied or you had to be a bully yourself and it's not sustainable for longevity, it's not good for the morale of the team. The last place I worked at, in Vermont Twin Farms, our executive chef, nathan Rich, really taught me empathy by the way that he treated everybody. You know everyone deserves respect. You know you have to be accountable for everything that you're doing, but it was really nice. You felt accepted, you felt like you belong there and you know you're able. But it was. It was really nice. You felt accepted, you felt like you, you belong there and you could. You know you're, you're able to grow, you're not afraid to mess up.

Speaker 1: 10:02

You know one of the biggest things in cooking is you have to fail to succeed or you're never gonna. You're never gonna break the mold. You know you're just gonna be making meatballs and spaghetti red sauce. You know there's nothing wrong with that. But I mean mean I like the creativity, I like the. You know the colors, the flavors, just the whole thing. And you know you don't want people to feel like they can't do it because you can. Cooking, essentially, is easy. It's all the techniques that you learn along the way, from different chefs, different cooks. You know, I'm not afraid to learn. I learned stuff from from our line cooks, from our dishwashers there's. That's the cool thing about food is that you, you never stop learning.

Speaker 2: 10:45

And you have to do it in a way that you can keep the doors open Right. So buying is super important Knowing what to purchase, when to purchase. You know, I know a lot of chefs over the years with me. They wanted like very specific items that were out of season. But they were in season in some other far away place. Yeah, I can procure it for you. You're going to pay through your nose. I'm always wondering are you going to make money on that?

Speaker 1: 11:09

Yeah, that's hard and I've definitely learned that in Florida is that sometimes what you get is what you get and you have to make changes. And you know I'm I mean, I'm up for the challenge on that. I love coming up with with new menus.

Speaker 2: 11:23

Yeah, I'm up for that challenge Opening a restaurant, massive financial commitment, like it's a big step. I tell people all the time like don't do it, you're crazy. In my family my grandfather owned a restaurant, my father did. I grew up in and around this business. I tell people to run With. That said, I love restaurants and I love this industry and I love going to new places and trying the different foods and the techniques and always looking for that next level service that really brings you back. You know you get a burger anywhere, you can get certain dishes anywhere, but like when you have good service and there's happy people in a restaurant, that's what brings you back. How did you convince yourself to go off on a financial limb to buy a restaurant?

Speaker 1: 12:10

That's uh, that's actually kind of funny. You say that because, honestly, I never really wanted to own a restaurant until until recently, the past couple of years. I, I really just want to be in charge. I want to be the boss that calls the shots and says when we can take Christmas off, when we can't. I wanted to stop working for for other people and start working for myself and I think, like as a chef, that could be a really great way to provide for my family does that mean your definition of success may have changed from, let's say, a year ago, because you've worked in pretty high-end places like your.

Speaker 1: 13:05

Your pedigree is pretty strong, and now you're in a smaller town in Florida. What equals success for you to eat quality ingredients at a price that most people can afford. I think it's really important for people to start looking at where their food is coming from, what they're eating, how they're eating it. And success is being there for your family too.

Speaker 2: 13:28

You're in Port Richey. It's a beautiful place. It's not exactly on the national food radar, but that's where you find opportunities, where do you see the opportunity in bringing your cuisine to this area?

Speaker 1: 13:43

One of the reasons why we moved down here was to Port Richey is because it looked like the town was growing. There's a lot of building going on, there's new restaurants popping up all over the place. I wanted to be one of the first people there that was doing something special, doing something different than what's been there before. We need to serve our demographic by giving them the things that they want, using the higher-end ingredients, along with the things that they're comfortable with, like doing a shrimp and grits. Maybe we'll do it with braised beef, with the, with nice polenta.

Speaker 1: 14:22

You know nice golf shrimp, the andouille sausage is always great and you know we jazz it. We will jazz it up a bit. You know I like taking ingredients and you know removing it a couple times, like tonight with the smoked tomatoes. You know we take the tomatoes, we smoke them and then we emulsify them into a gel. So we've removed it from the tomato three times and now it's a real balance because the people that live there, they expect a certain type of service, they expect a certain type of cuisine Me bringing my creativity into these dishes while serving them the stuff that they can feel comfortable with as well, at a price that they can afford French Caribbean identity.

Speaker 2: 15:13

Beyond the flavor, what does that fusion represent to you in this chapter of your life? New father, a chef restaurateur.

Speaker 1: 15:21

French and Caribbean flavors. I mean, I love them both, especially French. My wife and I, we love the islands, we love the food and the flavors when we're there, flavors when we're there. So bringing those two together as a fusion in a way that our demographic will embrace, accept and fall in love with is a nice challenge for us.

Speaker 2: 15:47

What's an example of a French Caribbean fusion dish?

Speaker 1: 15:51

So we do a jerk seasoned pork loin on special every once in a while and we've been playing around with plantains a lot, trying to be a little different. We don't fry food in our restaurant but we'll take the plantains and we'll cook them in a, you know, in a cognac brandy sauce. That is, you know, heavy, heavy French, lots of butter, brown sugar, the cognac, and then we got our plantains that we bring in, we let them ripen for a couple of weeks in the walk-in and you know we we cook them almost like a, like a candied carrot in a way, and it's like that type of fusion that I really enjoy. You know, you don't really see that a lot. Maybe it's a dish, I don't know, but it was something new for us, it was something new for our guests in the restaurant and they really, they really seem to enjoy all those flavors that sounds super sexy.

Speaker 2: 16:53

I mean, tell me another dish, what else you got.

Speaker 1: 16:55

I mean we'll get, we'll do apricots and we'll, you know, infuse them with vanilla, make an emulsification out of them. It's, it's the balance of being almost too sweet but still a savory aspect to it that you can put with steak, fish pork. I mean it works in a lot of different ways.

Speaker 2: 17:17

That apricot sauce really sounds amazing. How is that pairing with a protein?

Speaker 1: 17:21

Lately we would be putting that with our jerk seasoned pork loin. We'll do the chipolini onions on there, of course, with the brandy plantains. It all flows really nice. And we'll do our French-inspired pomme puree. That's really delicious.

Speaker 2: 17:37

I hear about food every day. We're in the food space. So far I'm digging everything you're saying. So if I come out to the restaurant, you have a bar, right Of course. What's the pair? What am I drinking with that?

Speaker 1: 17:47

Oh man you could do a bunch of different things. We do wine pairings with our, with our tasting menu, so you could go that route. We have a full liquor bar, we have beers. We're always challenging our bar staff to come up with new things that you know again fit our demographic, that also fit within our vision, like right now our bartendericky has been working on this pineapple upside-down martini that she's doing and I mean it really just knocks your socks off, man. It's really good.

Speaker 2: 18:20

I can't stop talking about that one, all right so an upside-down pineapple martini, which I presume is like an upside-down cake, does sound spectacular. I think John and I are going to make our way up to your restaurant restaurant and we might bring a camera or two and we're going to get some video footage of Vicky doing her drink. How's that sound? That's it. I think she would really like that. I guess one of the things you don't have to do in buying this restaurant is much renovation, because it looks really nice in there.

Speaker 1: 18:50

Right, how old is the building, oh man. I mean, I don't really how old is the building? Oh man, I mean, I don't really know how old the building is. It's got to be 20 years old at least.

Speaker 2: 18:57

But it looks like it's fairly freshly renovated inside.

Speaker 1: 19:03

We take care of it. We clean every day. The restaurant's been there for 10 years, so it's not perfect, but it's home.

Speaker 2: 19:09

Chef, we were talking off air about the community of things and how you kind of want to expand into the neighborhood. You know, not just not just port richie, but tampa. You want to bring tampa to port richie and you want to show the big city what the little guy can do in regards to community. I'm thinking between bricks and some walk and talk inspired events or dinners. I feel like we can bring a lot to the community To bring the community to Bricks. I think we can get Tampa to Bricks because I think your level of cooking is pretty damn good. People need to kind of just know who you are and where to find you.

Speaker 1: 19:47

Yeah, yeah, so we are a hole in the wall. We're a small neighborhood restaurant and Tampa is definitely the place to go if you want an exceptional dinner, but we definitely want to see more people coming in our doors because you can get that level of service and the of the people in your area.

Speaker 2: 20:12

They're used to certain things and and those things are really yummy. But you're a creative guy. I know you want to bring. You want to bring traditional yummy fried stuff to the masses, but you want to do it in an elevated way.

Speaker 1: 20:26

Yeah. So I mean we definitely want to be using the highest quality ingredients that we can at a price point that you know everyone can afford in our area. You know we want to do. We want to do collaboration dinners in downtown tampa. We want to be in clearwater. We want to get our name out there as not just a business but as, as as chefs we want to be. We want to be recognized for our hard work.

Speaker 2: 20:55

So obviously you want to feed your community, you want to feed your neighborhood, yeah, but you want to show off. You want to show what your chops are. You have some skill set and in order to do that, you do need to get out into the clear waters and the tampas and the St Pete's and you need to throw down with some of those chefs. Yeah, I'd love to. Okay, so we can help you make that happen. There's no question about it. It always comes back to feeding the people in your neighborhood Right and making them happy.

Speaker 1: 21:26

We are a neighborhood restaurant. We're conveniently located just outside of downtown Newport, Ritchie. We have a lot of regulars that come in and see us three, four times a week. We want to be able to expand on that. We want to be more involved with the food festivals that are going on in Tampa, St Pete, Clearwater. We want to show people that it's okay to eat high-end ingredients. It doesn't have to be super expensive either. You know you can prepare things in a way that it's stuff that you're comfortable with, but it's elevated, it's fresh, it's not fried necessarily.

Speaker 2: 22:06

Chef, what are you eating at home, at home?

Speaker 1: 22:09

We eat a lot of fish and vegetables at home. We eat lean proteins mostly. Sometimes, every once in a while we eat beef, but not too often. I would say we definitely eat a lot of fish.

Speaker 2: 22:25

Who are you?

Speaker 1: 22:26

I don't know. So we eat a lot of fresh ingredients at home, lots of fish, lots of vegetables, and we like to bring that into the restaurant. We have Tarpon Springs right next door, who offers a lot of Greek restaurants, a lot of Mediterranean cuisine and a lot of seafood coastal-inspired restaurants around us.

Speaker 2: 22:47

Yeah, but you made these pork chops today. That's something that I would have at home, but I couldn't make them the way you did Right.

Speaker 1: 22:54

So we spent a lot of time in elevating our dishes. We take something humble like a pork chop. We make sure that it's got a nice French bone on it. It's nice and thick at least two inches thick. They're 13 ounces a piece. We sugar brine them for 24 hours and then we take them out and we sous vide them or cook them from raw right onto the grill and or in a cast iron pan.

Speaker 2: 23:18

You're taking something simple and you're making it better better than I can do at home. That's the idea, and that's the idea, and that's how you're and that's what you're bringing to the community, right, chef? When your daughter's old enough to sit at the bar at bricks and reflect and understand what you and your wife build, what do you hope she feels walking into that space?

Speaker 1: 23:41

I hope she feels pride. I hope she's proud of her mom and dad that we were able to get the community to embrace us, to accept us. Look, carl, we really love the hospitality industry in the restaurant. We want to continue doing it. We don't have a choice but to win, and that's what we're going to do, man.

Speaker 2: 23:59

Chef, that was the best answer possible. Look, I saw you're cooking. I tasted your cooking. People are going to see the photography. They're going to love it. Truth is, we want to be there for your success. How do people find you?

Speaker 1: 24:14

So right now you can best place to find me is going to be on Instagram at chef Elijah rock. The purchase of the restaurant is going to be going through very soon, so we're going to be revamping our all of our socials there, excellent.

Speaker 2: 24:28

In the meantime, what I think we should do off air is come up with a strategy, a plan to do some events together, some dinners. Let's get out there, man, let's get you out there. Yeah, that sounds great, man. Excellent, john. As always, you killed it. Let's rock and roll, baby.