Brasserie by Niche has parted ways with William Fugitt, who had taken over as executive chef of Gerard Craft's Central West End restaurant less than two months ago.
Craft tapped Fugitt in July to lead the Brasserie kitchen. Fugitt had replaced Perry Hendrix, who had served as Brasserie's executive chef from the time it opened last fall until he left this summer for a cooking gig in Chicago.
Craft says the Brasserie position "wasn't the right fit" for Fugitt and that he wishes him well. Craft has placed Adam Altnether, chef de cuisine at flagship Niche, in charge of Brasserie's kitchen for now.
Fugitt, a Maryland native who moved here from Ohio, says he's not sure where he'll land next.
"I am very grateful of the opportunity that I had (at Brasserie), and I am sorry that it ended so abruptly," Fugitt says.
In other departing-chef news, Jonathan Olson announced via Twitter that Aug. 28 was his last night as executive chef of Erato Wine Bar and Restaurant in Edwardsville.
Olson, who had run Erato's kitchen since January, when then-executive chef Kevin Willmann left to open Farmhaus, said in an interview with Sauce that a disagreement with management led to his exit.
Former Erato owner Tim Foley directed questions about the kitchen situation to general manager Shawn Schleich. Attempts to reach Schleich have been unsuccessful.
And in today's final kitchen update, Araka has unveiled its newly reworked menu from executive chef Steven Caravelli, who jumped to the Clayton restaurant from SLeeK Steakhouse in August.
Caravelli's new menu (PDF link) features appetizers such as beet "tartare," which the chef snapped a photo of last week, several flatbread pizzas, and pasta, fish and meat entrées from $16-$34. One of the beef options is a flat-iron steak from Piedmontese cattle, a breed native to Italy that the P-D's Joe Bonwich wrote about in last week's Let's Eat section.
For food-inclined Twitter users, Caravelli is a good chef to follow; it's not uncommon for him to tweet during service or -- better yet -- afterward, like this recent post from 2:03 a.m. on a Saturday:
"I (knew) changing 90 percent of the menu items at once would be painful, but ouch!"
