Two Tuesdays ago, with Hurricane Matthew headed for Florida, Citrus Grillhouse owner Scott Varricchio got a call from close friend and fellow chef Amanda Freitag – yes, of Food Network fame – who was coming to Vero Beach later in the week for a wedding.
“She was planning to fly from New York to Miami that Friday, then drive up to Vero,” Varricchio said, “and like the rest of us, she was concerned about the storm.”
With good reason, too: She was among 50 guests invited to the wedding, which was scheduled for Saturday at South Beach Place, and all of them were booked to stay at the 18-suite, boutique hotel on Ocean Drive.
So Varricchio offered a warning when Freitag called again Friday morning to tell him she was on her way to the airport.
“I told her it wasn’t a good idea to drive up here,” he said. “The island had been evacuated and we had no power. But she said she and her friend were flying down, anyway, and they would just spend the weekend in Miami if the wedding was postponed.
“As it turned out, they had no trouble down there, so they drove up.”
When Freitag and her friend arrived at South Beach Place, however – the first in the wedding group to get there – they were told the hotel was still without power and wouldn’t reopen until electricity was back on. In the meantime, guests would have to find somewhere else to stay.
Not sure where to go, Freitag texted Varricchio: “Are you at your restaurant? I need help.”
That text – and Varricchio’s response – would save the day for Freitag and her friend, as well as the bride and groom and about 10 others who arrived soon after, a day in advance of the wedding.
“I had spent the night of the hurricane in the restaurant,” Varricchio said. “This place was built so far above standards, I knew it was like a fortress. We have a massive generator that was full of fuel, so I knew I’d have power.
“I had air-conditioning, plenty of food, plenty to drink . . . I had everything I needed,” he added. “I’ve got to be honest, though. When I heard that wind blowing at 2 in the morning, I started thinking: Maybe I made a mistake. Being a New Yorker, I had never been through this kind of storm before.”
As fate would have it, Matthew stayed far enough offshore to prevent the accompanying winds from reaching catastrophic strength.
As he surveyed the post-storm situation, Varricchio actually mulled the prospect of opening his restaurant Friday night, only to decide to remain closed because his staff couldn’t get to work.
“I was ready to open,” he said. “The kitchen was ready to cook.”
So when he read Freitag’s text, he told her and her friend to come over. After they arrived and explained the situation, Varricchio opened his restaurant to the entire group.
“When Amanda and her friend got here, they were worn out and hungry from traveling all day, so I told them to go inside into the cool air, have a cocktail and we’d see what we could do,” Varricchio said.
“I told them to call the bride and groom and have them come here – that I’d offer them my restaurant for the wedding if things didn’t work out at the other place,” he continued. So the bride and groom and a few other people showed up, looking just as tired as the others, and they were getting hungry.
“I told the guests to take a seat, get a drink and we were going to cook for them,” he added. “Then Amanda and I headed for the kitchen.”
It was like old times, Varricchio and Freitag working side by side in a kitchen, just as they had done so many times before in New York. Together, they made a beet-and-goat-cheese salad, veal flank steaks and spinach pasta with garlic butter.
“We knew we could pull off a great meal with little effort, and it was perfect,” Varricchio said. “Then, just as we were finished eating and started cleaning up, the hotel called and said the power was back on, so everyone could go back and check in.
“The next day,” he added, “the weather was perfect and everything went off without a hitch.”
