The Book on Xavier Teixido
As plans for a second Kid Shelleen’s location in Branmar Plaza in north Wilmington come to fruition, so begins a new episode in Xavier Teixido’s career as a chef and restaurateur, a career that reads more like a culinary novel than a cook’s book. Leaf through the pages, and it falls neatly into chapters:
- The early years in Delaware and Philadelphia, with the young Teixido starting out as a roustabout kitchen hand who develops a passion for the business and becomes a bona fide chef and manager at a fancy Philly restaurant while sometimes sleeping in his VW
- Teixido is called to New Orleans to be a high-profile manager/consultant to the legendary doyenne and Big Easy restaurant owner, Ella Brennan, in which he “freshens up” the kitchen at Commander’s Palace and, as managing director, recommends Brennan hire a young guy from Boston named Emeril Lagasse
- A return to Delaware, becoming a minority partner in the 1492 restaurant group during which he opens several venues, including the original Kid Shelleen’s
- And, finally (thus far), as founder of Harry’s Hospitality Group which owns Harry’s Savoy Grill and Harry’s Savoy Ballroom as well as the original Kid Shelleen’s near Trolley Square and the one coming up in Branmar Plaza.
As sub-plot to this culinary journey, write in that along the way Teixido has taken time to head the National Restaurant Association and to be on the boards of several local charities and nonprofits.
But at this particular moment in his story, while picking at his lunchtime Greek salad in a corner table at the original Kid’s, Xavier Teixido contemplates what his fifth act might be, as a former U.S. senator nods hello and a local contractor stops by the table to pay homage. At 1:30 on a Thursday afternoon, the place is packed, so Teixido, now nearing 70, and his managers must be doing something right as Covid, at least temporarily, recedes.
“People are looking for value,” Teixido says, taking stock of the post-lockup eating-out scene, “and they are looking for simplicity and authenticity. They are going away from over-complication.”
This sounds odd coming from a manager who once faced down a head chef in the kitchen at Commander’s who wondered why this young upstart from Delaware had ordered the 20 cases of fresh artichokes stacked in the middle of the floor instead of the canned ones that he had been using in the restaurant.
But, no, whatever the restaurant’s style, Teixido still believes in fresh always and local whenever possible. “Here, at Kid’s we still make our guacamole and pico de gallo fresh,” he says.
Like all restaurateurs, Teixido has had to cope with what might be called the three horsemen of the post-apocalypse of the past two years — increased volatility in prices, a limited workforce and a creaky supply chain. But rather than grumble about it, Teixido tries to find ways to overcome the problems, or at least amicably adjust to them, a characteristic that has set him apart during his long career.
The Early Years
Xavier Teixido was born in Paraguay in the early 1950s, but his family fled to New York because of political upheaval in their native country. His father, a neurosurgeon, at first was on the staff at Sloan Kettering but then moved to Delaware to set up practice.
“My parents were always generous,” Teixido remembers, and Delaware had an international retinue of scientists and engineers working at DuPont and elsewhere who were often passing through the Teixido living room on their way to the family table.
At the time, the youngster had little interest in food, but he remembers his mother getting a call from a playmate’s parent who curiously asked what they were having for dinner. “Other kids played after dinner, but my family being continental, we played before dinner,” and the kid had seen an octopus on the Teixido kitchen counter being readied for a meal. “He told his mom we were going to eat ‘monster,’” Teixido laughs.
He went to school first at Highland Elementary and then at Tatnall, but already he and his father were butting heads. “He was a surgeon, and I was the oldest, so the pressure was there for me to do something respectable. I was a tough teen. If my parents left the door cracked, I was gone,” he remembers. Teixido permanently left home when he was a sophomore at the University of Delaware to make it on his own, often sleeping in his VW. “I was a janitor, I did construction, I scooped ice cream. I could always find a job.”
The job that would forever change his life was while he was still in college in the 1970s. It was in the kitchen at Brandywine Raceway, not far from where Harry’s Savoy is today and the site of the current Regal Brandywine Town Center. “I loved it,” Teixido says. The restaurant was being run by a very professional national organization, he says, “and we broke down whole animals and made our own soup stocks,” he says.
The manager befriended him — “He was the guy I needed” — and told him he would have to understand every part of the business, both front and back of the house, if he was to succeed. “When I came to work each day, he would ask, ‘What did you learn yesterday?’ If I said, ‘Nothing,’ he would say, ‘Then you don’t want it very bad.’”
After three years, however, his mentor told him he had learned all he would learn there, and that it was time to move on. Teixido first got a job at the Columbus Inn, then went to Philadelphia looking for more experience and inspiration while working at The Frog with French cuisine. Starting as a line chef, he excelled there, too. “There were a lot of people at The Frog who were like me, plus they were internationally trained and understood French cooking,” he says. He also opened the restaurant’s second location on Locust Street.
A Stint in New Orleans
Then in his late 20s, Teixido got a call from a national headhunter who had job in New Orleans. “I said the only thing I would be interested in New Orleans was if it was with Ella Brennan at Commander’s Palace,” Teixido somewhat cheekily told the recruiter. Which was the job in question. “At the time, I was reading a lot about what was going on in the food world, and Commander’s Palace was one of the few places with authentic American cuisine.” But when the headhunter met with Teixido, he was surprised that he had so much experience at such a young age.
Nevertheless, Brennan decided to hire him, although Teixido wasn’t told what the job would be. “She just said to me, ‘Keep your eyes open and your mouth shut and come back in two weeks.’” He did, and that’s when he told her they needed fresh artichokes and fresh everything they could lay their hands on if she wanted to up the Palace’s game. He rose quickly in the organization, but at a price.
“New Orleans was tough,” Teixido says now, with a tone that says the memory is still fresh. “It was both heaven and hell — 70 to 80 hours a week. I was young, but after two-and-a-half years I was burned out.” He also wanted to reconnect with his family, so when an offer came to work with his old boss, Davis Sezna, and the 1492 Hospitality Group, he took it and came home to Delaware.
A Return to Delaware
“This was during the yuppification of Delaware,” Teixido says, and just having worked at the high-end Commander’s Palace, he tried to apply some of the lessons learned there to local fine and casual dining. “This was 1984, and restaurants were still pouring from jugs as their house wines. Some bartenders had to be taught to use a corkscrew.”
This period saw Teixido work as a driving force in establishing 1492’s restaurant collection — Columbus Inn, Klondike Kate’s, Kid Shelleen’s, Hartefeld, and Harry’s Savoy among them. “I was with Davis for nine years,” he says, but in 1993, Teixido finally decided to cash in on every chef’s and restaurant manager’s dream — to own his own place. He left the group and was able to buy Harry’s Savoy, which he had opened five years earlier. The hard-driving kid in the kitchen from Brandywine Raceway, Frog and Commander’s Palace was now 42.
At 1492, Teixido had worked with a young chef — David Banks — and eventually hired him away to cook at Harry’s while Texido served as “the out-front person.” The two soon went looking for another place. “Originally, we wanted to buy Chadds Ford Tavern, but discovered the township was going to be difficult to deal with, “so I said, ‘Screw this.’”
Instead, they opened Harry’s Seafood Grill on the Wilmington waterfront. After a few years, the two agree it was Banks’ turn to strike out on his own, and Harry’s Seafood Grill became Banks’ Seafood Kitchen & Raw Bar. Next, Teixido purchased Kid’s which he saw as a place where “you could find good food, good wine and could take your children.”
The Next Chapter for Harry’s Hospitality Group
Now, he looks around the dining room and sees a lunchtime mix of men in suits, sports addicts at the bar, groups of young women from their offices involved in conversation, all enjoying the restaurant’s menu and ambience. So it’s not as though Teixido has nothing to do as he contemplates his next chapter, what with Harry’s and Harry’s Ballroom — which are like two separate places, one a restaurant, the other a huge event place — and now the two Kid Shelleen’s. “This is my social life,” he says, “and I feel a responsibility to the people here. I’ve hired them, seen them grow up, know their kids. This is what I really love about the restaurant business.”
His current business partner and protégé, Kelly O’Hanlon — who is described as “a bartender from Kentucky with an accounting degree” — is now director of operations for the group after starting out behind the bar at Harry’s in 1995. “Kelly is like family,” Teixido says with a note of pride.
These days, Teixido finds himself cooking more — but now at home — and he’s extending his knowledge of Spanish and wants to learn French. He doesn’t go out much, he says, because so many people locally know him, and he doesn’t enjoy becoming a center of attention in someone else’s place. He ponders “going someplace else to live for a while,” maybe for a few months or perhaps a year, just for the experience, perhaps Europe.
He smiles and leans back, his salad still half-eaten. A touch wistful but as confident as ever, Xavier Teixido knows there’s always an interesting next chapter coming along, perhaps one even more exciting than the one he’s living now.
Harry’s Savoy Grill
2020 Naamans Road, Wilmington, DE; (302) 475-3000; Facebook Instagram
Kid Shelleen’s Charcoal House & Saloon
1801 West 14th Street, Wilmington, DE; (302) 658-4600; Facebook Instagram
