Monday, December 01, 2008

By MIKE MOONEY
mmooney@modbee.com

last updated: February 10, 2008 08:10:19 AM

Joe Hargrave realized his dream in July.

He calls it Laiola (pronounced Lye-Ola).

Maybe you've heard of it?

The San Francisco restaurant offers a Spanish menu and wine list, as well as a full bar, in a relaxed neighborhood setting.

There's been buzz -- plenty of buzz -- not to mention rave reviews from customers and food critics alike.

Still, it appears that Hargrave is only at the start of his great epicurean adventure.

At 35, Hargrave, who grew up in Modesto, and business partner Andrew McCormack, 32, already are working on two new restaurant concepts.

"There are a lot of things I don't do well," Hargrave recently told The Bee. "(But) I love food. It's one thing I do very well. I'm lucky I found something I truly loved at an early age."

That love was nurtured in the kitchen of the Hargrave family home on Magnolia Avenue in Modesto.

His parents, Mike and Sue Hargrave, still live in the comfortable two-story dwelling where Joe and his sisters grew up.

"Our family was always in the kitchen," Hargrave said. "Cooking (together) is something we've always done."

But cooking is not how Hargrave has made his mark in the food-service industry.

"Everyone thinks Joe is a cook, and he does like to cook," said his dad, a retired sea captain. "But that's not what he does. He's into the management end of the (restaurant) business."

Joe Hargrave's time in the kitchen taught him at least one thing, however, the importance of quality ingredients.

Fresh ingredients.

Organic ingredients.

"The beauty of Spanish cooking," Hargrave said, "is that they use fresh, organic, sustainable local products. We do the same thing. We buy all of our ingredients from local (San Francisco Bay Area) farmers."

At Laiola, Hargrave said, the fare is Spanish-style cuisine with a California "sensibility."

The importance of ingredients is something Hargrave said he picked up from his mom but didn't appreciate at first.

"She really understood ingredients," Hargrave said. "When we were kids, we would have wheat germ with homemade plain yogurt and honey for breakfast.

There was no Count Chocula or Froot Loops served at the Hargrave breakfast table.

"She put so much time and effort into our meals, and I didn't appreciate it at all."

That wasn't the only difference between Hargrave's home life and the lifestyles of many of his childhood chums.

Hargrave's dad was a seaman, away for long periods of time. So while his dad guided giant SeaLand cargo ships to ports around the globe -- sometimes spending as many as six months away from home at a stretch -- his mother provided structure for Joe and his three siblings.

"I was strict," said Sue Hargrave. "With Mike being gone for so long, they all had to help around the house. Everyone had chores."

Hargrave said he had so many chores to do on Saturdays that his buddies didn't even bother to come around.

By his sophomore year, Joe, too, had shipped out.

No, he didn't stow away on one of his dad's ships. He took off for Midland School, a boarding school in Santa Barbara County.

Over a summer, he visited a friend who attended the school. Hargarve liked what he saw.

With enrollment limited to 80 students, Midland combines an accelerated college-prep curriculum with life on a 2,860-acre working ranch.

"They (students) lived under primitive conditions," said Sue Hargrave. "If you wanted more heat or hot water, you had to go chop the wood build the fire yourself. They had to do everything for themselves, even haul away the trash.

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