Grandma-Style Sweets And Other Kinds of Nostalgia with Chef Dria Atencio - No. 30
And more on this very salty lunch lady.
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What can you expect in each newsletter? Sweet stories from women and non-binary people in food. These are chefs, restauranteurs, farmers, and creatives—all with unique, nerdy-passionate opinions to share.
Today, I have the honor of sharing my chat with the Salty Lunch Lady, Chef Dria Atencio. If you haven’t tasted one of Dria’s sandwiches yet, close this article now and head on over to Ridgewood, where you’ll find her little luncheonette that opened up last July. Order any of her classics (my favorite is the Dill Party) and a piece of cake, then take a seat at the cutest retro counter. Her diner hugs you immediately. I haven’t decided if it’s the nostalgia of the ceramic cookie jars, pink rotary telephone, or the simplicity of her grandma-style cooking that makes me feel like I’m a child cradled in my grandparent’s arms again, but with every visit I can’t help but feel at ease.
Together, we talk about the winding road to opening her luncheonette— where she got started, how she uses her (very stylish) grandma as inspiration for the space, and why with all of her experience and culinary training she still chooses to craft her beautiful sandwiches each day. What spoke to me the most about our conversation was Dria’s passion for creating a space that emphasizes community. In our industry, it’s so easy to forget who you’re cooking for and create for recognition or ego instead of for your neighbors—our chat made it clear that her luncheonette is a pivotal piece of Ridgewood’s neighborhood because she wanted a rich community in her life and worked to make it so. Whether you’re a cook, an aspiring business owner, or just a lover of sandwiches, this one’s got something for you.
What got you into cooking?
Dria grew up during the prime of food media. We’re talking cooking shows like the original Iron Chef, BBC’s Two Fat Ladies, and Saveur when it was still in print. Because of this, her love of food developed early on. Aside from consuming tons of food media, she remembers getting excited watching her grandma whip things up in the kitchen. Not a stellar savory cook, but an outstanding baker, Alice (grandma) would create beautifully nostalgic cakes slathered in thick icing, delicious cookies, and loaves of bread from her 80’s style bread maker. You know, the kind that sits on the countertop, kind of looks like a rice cooker, and bakes one loaf at a time under a little window box that you can peek into? That one.
Since high school (where her senior project was to prepare a dinner for the class) Dria knew she wanted to go to culinary school and become a cook. Respectfully, her parents had other plans. They required that she get a real degree first but it wasn’t long after receiving her Bachelors in International Relations at Boston University, that she found her way to New York. Somehow, she fenagled her way into her first cooking position at Sorella in Manhattan, where a friend of hers had told their chef that she was a cook looking for work. During her trail, “It was obvious that I’d never worked in a kitchen before. I was working out of pint containers instead of their metals…I didn’t know how to dice a pear. But I gave my spiel anyway; I am a hard worker, I love this stuff, and I really want to learn.” Sure enough, they gave her the garde-manger role—separate from the kitchen in a dim candlelit room with 15+ items coming off her station. Freshly cut crudo, slicing meat and cheeses to order, “it was a nightmare. I also didn’t have a ticket machine so I just panic-imprinted orders into my mind.”
Dria talks about Sorella with stars in her eyes—and as they glimmered, I understood why. The description sounded like the kitchen of my dreams. For starters, the entire kitchen staff was women. We’re talking the chefs, the cooks, the dishwashers. To add to that, they were constantly changing the menu, were open to collaboration, and were interested in teaching her how to make pretty much any dish she wanted. It was fun, it was emotional, and I’m not sure what more you could ask for in a first kitchen. “They would just ask, like what do you want to learn?” She tells me, “At first, I didn’t know what to say, but started throwing things out there. Like what the heck is the deal with consommé? How do you make that? And they got the ingredients.” Dria illustrates the importance of finding mentors early on who will take you under their wing and challenge you. The importance of finding a place that gives you little opportunities to become a contributing part of the vision and that makes you feel at home, instead of operating within a kitchen that feels like a huge hierarchy not to be busted.
“Most of my career felt that way—less linear and more fluid. All of those Chefs that took me under their wing made me a better teacher in return.”
What do you enjoy outside of cooking and what inspires you?
Puzzled for a moment, trying to imagine anything she does these days outside of managing her new business—Dria tells me she loves to go to the movies. “It’s the one time I can turn off my phone and not feel guilty. I also live near a theater I love to go to. One with delicious fresh popcorn and fake butter.” Dria and I share a deep hatred for real butter at fancy theaters, a love for card games, and many other grandmotherly hobbies that I won’t bore you with…but this discovery helped me to transition into her inspiration. And that’s her grandparents.
“I didn’t realize how much my grandparents raising me affected who I was as a person until I opened this place.”
“For one, I never baked,” she explains, always just watching her grandma bake or maybe stirring in a bag of chocolate chips next to her, Dria didn’t have much interest in doing more. “Something about baking brought up that nostalgic connection, so I kept making cakes.” Alice, her grandma, was very into bright colors and vintage kitschy shit. She had a framed picture in her house of a t-shirt made out of dollar bills, she sewed everything, she did needlepoint, and she had amazing Jello molds. She decorated her table to match her entire outfit. She was always in heels, she wore buttons for earrings—glued them onto the fronts of posts. Once you know this, you can’t not see Alice all over that luncheonette.
Why Sandwiches?
“From the beginning, I always knew it would be sandwiches.” She says without hesitation. “In all my favorite kitchens, I’d talk to the other cooks and ask like, ‘how much fun would it be if we all just opened a sandwich shop?’ And they’d agree in the moment, but I was the only one who wanted it.” Dria calls sandwiches perfect little bites. And she doesn’t want to craft anything more than she wants to craft those perfect little bites.
Salty Lunch Lady feels like a big part of the community here, but you’re so new. How do you do it?
Dria began by saying she wishes she could be more involved. To host more community dinners, or host pop-ups out of her space. When we talked about the ways she makes her regulars the focus, I began to understand. Dria is here for the smiles. She wants to be the little part of your day that’s good. She explains that when she first started concepts for the space she imagined not wanting to modify sandwiches, that she wanted things to be a certain way, just so. Then she quickly realized none of that mattered. “Someone could ask for tuna on top of a fuckin ham sandwich, I don’t know. And I would look at the ticket and maybe think to myself, that’s VILE. But I’d still do it.” She went on laughing, “I’d just be glad to make them happy because that’s the point.”
Thank you again Dria, for taking the time to chat with me. The industry needs more mentors like you and the neighborhood is lucky to have another lovely gem to brighten up the day.
Follow Dria’s Instagram account @saltylunchlady for all dreamy menu updates, community hangs, and other announcements on Salty Lunch Lady's Little Luncheonette. Yes, she answers your DMs herself, because she’s insane and amazing, and wants to know her customers. The world will never know how she has the time for it all.
Now, go eat a sandwich.
