Meet the Chef: Chef Tim Mellor of Primavera Pizza Kitchen

A local guy who grew up with a vegetable garden and cherry tree out back, Chef Mellor of recounts the craziness of working on South Street in the 1980s and bartering with front of house staff for cold beers, and shares his simple, yet delicious, final meal on earth.

Name: Tim Mellor

Age: 44

Years in the Industry: A long time...I started working restaurants when I was 18.

Earliest Cooking Memory: Making pancakes on a Saturday with my dad when I was five. We had a garden out back with lettuce, so if we wanted to have salad with dinner, we'd go out back and pick some lettuce. We also had a cherry tree, and it took forever to bare fruit, but when it finally did I remember sitting around the kitchen table with my mom and sister and pitting every single cherry we had picked to make cherry pie. It was the best cherry pie I'd ever had in my life.

First Kitchen Job: Dishwasher at a little place in north east Philly. My parents were friends with the owner and he gave me a job. I learned how they made food by watching what the cooks were doing. They kept tossing super hot sizzle platters [small oval metal plates for cooking meat or anything else that needed to be put in the oven] into the dish sink. One day, someone didn't show up and I got to fill in for him. It was fun. Then I went to the Restaurant School in Philadelphia. I went to the Monte Carlo Dining room for my externship [an unpaid internship required to graduate from cooking school]. My first job was to clean six cases of artichokes [this is one of the most time consuming and difficult prep tasks, there are thorns involved, if you move too slowly the artichokes oxidize and turn brown, etc.], it took me almost the whole shift. The worst part was that the prep area was this basement, or "prep dungeon," and my first day it was raining and the lights were flickering. Oh yeah, I also had to peel two cases of pearl onions [extremely time consuming task].

Advice for Home Cooks: Keep it simple, develop a small repertoire of a few dishes you like and then build on it. Try to cook seasonally.

Favorite Thing to Cook: Seafood —we do a lot of seafood here. Like right now there is wild striped bass, a great fish off the Jersey coast. Local fish is the best fish.

Favorite Local Restaurant: Phil's Tavern in Blue Bell for their roast beef sandwich.

Favorite Restaurant in the World: My favorite city is San Francisco. People just stand by their doors and tell you to come in for dinner. Mona Lisa Restaurant in the North Beach area of SF is fantastic.

Guilty Pleasure (food or drink): Champagne. My favorite used to be Moet & Chandon White Star but now it's Domaine Carneros [which is owned by French champagne powerhouse Tattinger] in Napa Valley.

Last Meal on Earth: Fresh porcini mushrooms sauteed with olive oil and garlic, a crusty loaf of good bread, a grilled ribeye and champagne.

Biggest Kitchen Disaster: I was working at the original Primavera restaurant [a 30-seat restaurant] on South Street in the '80s. Our restaurant connected to a courtyard that we shared with Monte Carlo Restaurant. My chef and the server were using really crass language and being very loud. I think I was working there for free at the time and kept quiet. The chef of Monte Carlo comes over to complain about all the swearing and threatens the next person to swear with getting fired. My boss turns to me and starts cursing non-stop and then takes off his apron and walks out, never to return again. The chef of Monte Carlo, who had other line cooks at his restaurant that could cook for dinner service, and I ended up cooking dinner for all the guests at Primavera that night. I had been bartering with the servers and bartenders for beer, they would sneak me beers and I would make them something to eat. I had been stockpiling my beer in my walk-in refrigerator. That night the chef of Monte Carlo went to the walk-in and saw all these stolen imported beers and freaked out and yelled at me some more. But that night after dinner service he just turned to me and said, "Um, I think you should come in a little earlier tomorrow," which was a crazy understatement since we had lost our chef and I was still such a young cook.