In Good Taste

Chef Ted Gidley has helmed the Clarke Cooke House for 30 years and counting

Photos by Dave Hansen

There may be no restaurant in Newport more iconic than the Clarke Cooke House; its effervescence palpable across each distinct floor, its glitz and glamour luring celebrities, famed musicians, luminaries — even royalty — since it opened in 1973. And for more than three decades, Chef Ted Gidley has shaped the French-leaning menus that have pleased their palates.

Tall, striking, and perennially clad in crisp chef ’s whites, Gidley has rubbed shoulders with a different kind of celebrity over the course of his career: the world’s most legendary chefs. These masters of their craft, best known for helming the most highly lauded temples of gastronomy, have played roles in nurturing Gidley’s passion for cooking, a calling he least expected. What began as a summer gig became destiny.

“It’s one of my favorite stories,” he says. “I’m from Providence originally, and it was the summer of 1981. A friend of mine had a room here in Newport and said to come on down and get a job. I went from place to place and didn’t really have any work experience outside of being a newspaper boy, and I kept striking out. I was like, ‘If I don’t get hired, this is it.’ The last place I walked in was One Pelham East, and I said I was looking for work, and the guy said, ‘Can you work right now?’”

The owner took Gidley to the kitchen and handed him an apron, despite his expressed apprehension. “He said, ‘Just make sure you show up for work. We’ll show you the rest. Good things will happen.’” It was a wildly prophetic understatement. Gidley later moved on to another Newport restaurant, Dave & Eddie’s Seafood Grille & Raw Bar, located at Thames Street and America’s Cup Avenue. He was there for a year
and a half when a chef, Brian Halloran, migrated to the Clarke Cooke House. Gidley joined him in 1984, continuing to cook during the summer until he graduated from college. “I decided to come back to Newport to continue cooking until the point that I figured I couldn’t go any farther, and that day has yet to come,” says Gidley.

Halloran, a French-trained chef who now resides in Jamestown (and remains a close friend, Gidley says), taught him the basics of French cooking and technique that he had learned in the south of France. Gidley soaked up every fundamental component, adding to his arsenal. Gidley and Halloran worked together for four years until Halloran left to teach food service management at Cornell University. Halloran arranged for Gidley’s first “stage” (pronounced stahj), a short-term, unpaid apprenticeship in a professional kitchen offering a cook the opportunity to gain experience and observe technique. The stage was at Le Moulin de Mougins with Chef Roger Vergé, one of the most influential French chefs of the 20th century with three Michelin stars to prove it.

“It was just for a couple of weeks, but it really opened my eyes to the fact that I was able to learn in one of the finest restaurants in the world with one of the most accomplished French chefs of all time,” said Gidley in an interview quoted by Ment’or, a nonprofit organization that supports young culinary professionals, in a post on its Instagram page in December 2023. “It made me realize that if this profession is for you, don’t give up.”

Gidley later joined another now-closed Newport favorite, Pronto on lower Thames Street, but the Cooke House lured him back to lead its culinary future in 1995, and he’s never looked back.

On its busiest summer nights, the restaurant can do just under 500 covers. It’s a jaw-dropping number, accommodated by two kitchens on different floors inside the former home of sea captain Clarke Cooke that dates to 1780. The Porch, on the top floor, is dedicated to fine dining, with a curated menu and wine list dominated by French varietals. Lower levels, including the Bistro and first-level Candy Store, share
a broader menu, but dishes are served with just as much attention to detail.

Over the past three decades, Gidley has seen all kinds of names in the reservation book that render a second look, but some stand out. “We had Daniel Boulud in for lunch,” he says of the legendary French-born chef, known today as one of the most influential in the country. “For me, that’s about as big as it can possibly get. He’s actually been in a couple times.”

Gidley did a four-week stage at Restaurant Boulud in New York City in 1997. “That was something else. I loved it,” he says. He’s come to know Boulud on a more personal level in recent years as they both work with Ment’or, connecting them with mentors at top restaurants. The organization also supports the U.S. team that competes in the Bocuse d’Or, a global competition held every two years that’s considered the culinary Olympics. World-renowned chef Thomas Keller is also a supporter of the organization. Before he was known as the founder of The French Laundry in Napa Valley and later, Per Se in New York City — both globally-praised threeMichelin-star restaurants with months-long waiting lists — Keller’s early career took shape at the Cooke House.

Some of his words are printed and framed on a wall in the restaurant: “My love affair with France truly started with my first job outside my mother’s restaurant in 1976. I worked for a French chef in Newport, Rhode Island, at a restaurant called the Clarke Cooke House, which is on Bannister’s Wharf. Working in a classic brigade, in a very busy and high-profile restaurant was an extraordinary experience. All of a sudden
I was hearing the names of sauces and garnishes such as Veronique, Dugléré, and Chasseur, and I understood that French-trained chefs could communicate orders with a single word. … I also learned that there was a right way to do things. We would do a glaçage on certain dishes, which is a hard thing to do. We’d place a sauced platter under a broiler and let it brown. If you did it right, the dish came out a beautiful golden color; if you did it wrong, it came out burnt.”

While Keller pre-dated Gidley’s arrival, kismet had a way of bringing the two chefs together.

“I was looking at the book one day in the middle of July, and this woman came up and said, ‘Are you the chef here? My boss used to work here,’” Gidley recalls. With a few minutes to spare, he showed her around and eventually asked who her boss was, curious if perhaps they had worked together. The woman worked for Keller.

“A week later, this package arrived. It was a French Laundry cookbook. I opened up the title page and it said, ‘Hey Ted, It’s all about finesse. Can’t wait to meet you. Thomas Keller.’” That fall, Gidley flew across the country to The French Laundry and spent about an hour with Keller at his restaurant. He was invited to do a stage there in 2017, and the experience was eye-opening, even for the well tenured Gidley.

“I learned more in two weeks than I have in 10 years in that place. Their hospitality level — I’ve never seen anything like it,” he says. Even in the hallowed halls of fine dining, Gidley said he wasn’t nervous; the staff immediately put him at ease. “You walk in, shake everybody’s hand, and off you go. The first job I did was chop cucumbers for a fish special, and only 40% of them were up to par. The other went to staff salads,” he says with a chuckle.

That level of excellence is something that stays with the chef, and something he emphasizes to his own staff, which he describes as extremely talented. “I have a core crew, they’re very good, and some young kids now that I think are really up and coming,” he says.

But don’t think he’s going anywhere soon.

In a culinary culture that seemingly chases trends, Gidley, a steady force guiding an icon that’s presided over Newport’s dining scene for more than half a century, proves that classic never goes out of style.