Richard Siber never planned to own a pizza shop. The Wellesley business consultant says he was just trying to help out a few friends when he got involved with the sale of Café Nicholas, putting up his own money to help the deal go through when a friend's savings were wiped out by the collapse of Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme. But a full year later, Siber finds himself at the restaurant—now called Richies—seven days a week. Instead of building global companies from the ground up, he finds himself busing tables and buying tomatoes in bulk. And he loves it. "I've always liked to take on new …

Erwin Ramos wouldn't be where he is today were it not for a fateful bus trip through Mexico at the age of 17. The son of successful restaurateurs in the Philippines, Ramos said he was enchanted by the Mexican cooking he encountered along the route from Mexico City to the Yucatan Peninsula and Oaxaca. And though the cuisine he discovered had much in common with what he ate growing up thanks to the Spanish colonialists who once occupied both countries, he said there was something about how dishes were prepared in Mexico, the color and the flavors, the captured the young chef's imagination. "The…

Seventh in a weekly series profiling the chefs and restaurateurs of Brookline. When Deborah Hansen opened Taberna de Haro just over 12 years ago, she says Brookline diners were surprisingly accepting of a menu that featured frog legs and stuffed squid prominently on its menu. What's gotten easier, she said, is explaining the foreign concept of tapas, the small Spanish dishes that are intended, according to Hansen, to be "enjoyed with friends on the way to something else." "In the beginning, we had to do a little more explaining," she said.  "Now they come in with higher expectations and more …

Sixth in a weekly series profiling the chefs and restaurateurs of Brookline. Though all the dishes you'll find at the three Temptation Cafes around Boston and Brookline are the invention of Adba Lutfi, the restaurants themselves are as different as the three sons who run them. If you ask Nassib Lutfi, the 24-year-old brother who runs the St. Mary's Station Temptations, a worn-looking basement sandwich shop with a loyal following of lunchtime regulars, he'll tell you his brother Lou runs a much more "professional" Temptations up the street in Coolidge Corner, more like a coffee shop or trendy …

Fourth in a weekly series profiling Brookline chefs and sharing their favorite summer recipes. Just 12 years ago, Jim Brown had never tried Thai food. Now he owns his own restaurant. A former quality control manager from Maine, Brown is the unlikely restaurateur behind MJ Ready, a small and deceptively named restaurant that serves up Italian pasta, American breakfasts, espresso and a full menu of Thai dishes. Brown, who moved to Chestnut Hill from New Hampshire last year, owes his sudden career change to a few twists of fate that brought him in touch with his wife, Mayuree, a Thai immigrant …

Fourth in a weekly series profiling the chefs and restaurateurs of Brookline. Jim Solomon has opened some 10 restaurants around the country over the years, but this is the one he's been dreaming about all along. In fact, Solomon, the owner and chef at the Fireplace Restaurant in Washington, said he first developed the concept as a homework assignment at business school nearly two decades ago. And while the Fireplace doesn't feature the tree-stump chairs and wood-block tables he envisioned as a student, the dishes are more or less the same: basic, timeless recipes informed by centuries of New …

In a city full of late-night crab Rangoon and General Gao's chicken, Shun Li Chen thinks there's still room for some really good Chinese. "I think, in Boston, we need quality Chinese food," the 33-year-old dishwasher-turned-restaurateur said. Last winter, Chen closed down Jae's Grill – a Beacon Street Asian-fusion restaurant in which he owned a stake – stripped many of the Thai and Korean dishes off the menu, tore out the upholstery and re-opened two months later under the name Buddha Chen. Chen, a Chinese immigrant who got his start in the Boston restaurant scene washing dishes on the South …

This is the second article in our series profiling the chefs of Brookline. For Doug Organ, the trick to being a good chef is staying out of the kitchen. "My nature, when I get in the kitchen, I start changing things," said Organ, the fussy chef behind Brookline's Dorado Tacos & Cemitas. "So I essentially need to keep out of there." But that doesn't mean Organ has left his menu untouched in the year since he opened Dorado in JFK Crossing last summer. While the signature dishes – fish tacos and a Mexican sandwich called a cemita – haven't changed, Organ has added new items, including …

This is the first in a series profiling local chefs and sharing their favorite summer recipes. Charles Kelsey doesn't need to tell you about his turkey sandwich. He could if he wanted to, of course. He could write a whole paragraph about the antibiotic-free, veggie-fed roast turkey breast, the French almond bread or the house-made, bread-and-butter pickles. But he's not going to – unless you ask. "My whole thing is, I'm just going to put it on a plate, and you're going to notice it," said Kelsey, the chef and owner behind Cutty's sandwich shop in Brookline Village. "If you want to know more, …