If you like the hazelnut tortamisu at Rioja, the top-rated Denver restaurant, thank pastry chef Eric Dale, who garnishes his sticky invention with gianduja chocolate and espresso crème anglaise. If you’re fond of the “flight of artisan water buffalo cheeses,” that’s him. And if you happen to pop your head into the bakery room and admire the tile job on the floor, you can thank Dale for that, too.
Ever since his boss, chef Jen Jasinski, discovered that Dale is handy, she’s had him doing double duty as the maintenance man. He’s spent hours repainting the oven, fixing the plumbing and installing a garbage disposal. And that’s just the start. He used to manage the dessert operation at one restaurant. When the recession hit, his boss asked him to take on a second location; now he’s up to three. All told, Dale says, his hours have expanded by a third, to more than 60 a week.