Meet the Chef: The Silverspoon

What does a typical teenager do when his parents leave with him with twenty bucks for pizza on a Friday night? They probably order a pepperoni pizza with extra cheese, some chicken wings and soda. Ron Silverberg was not your typical teen, he would look through his parent's refrigerator and whip up some homemade goodness or grill up his own wings in their backyard. He was working in kitchens as early as high school and never looked back. While the majority of his culinary career has been spent in San Francisco, he has returned to the Main Line to re-vamp the menu and kitchen at which is owned by his parents. Read below to find out more about a chef who loves to teach as much as he loves to cook.

Name: Ron Silverberg

Age: 26

Hometown: Penn Valley

Home now: Wayne

Favorite Thing about the Community: The chance for progression. There is ample opportunity to teach people about food and where it comes from. I want to bring quality sustainable food to the community.

Years in the Industry: 9

Earliest Cooking Memory: I would cook with my dad when I was younger but I particularly remember going to the grill and making chicken wings and three different sauces (buffalo, honey mustard and an Asian-inspired sauce) when I was 13 or 14.

First Kitchen Job: I worked at Plate in Ardmore as a garde manger (cold sandwiches, salads and cold appetizers) cook and then moved up to the brick oven station.

What brought you to the industry? I travelled to Europe on some sort of teen tour the summer of tenth grade and it revolved around sustainability and community efforts. The group was divided into 3 teams (a, b and c) and each team would have different duties including cooking, cleaning and prep for meals. I was always trading with other kids so that I could cook all the time. Also my dad has cooked full on family dinner every Thursday forever. We're not talking simple dinners but roast pork tenderloin on the grill, braised beef, etc. I grew up cooking.

Advice for Home Cooks: Use recipes as inspiration, cook out of impulse, don't be a slave to recipes. There is no reason to go shopping for every single ingredient in the recipe. Try to figure out what you can use in your kitchen.

Favorite Thing to Cook: I've always loved to cook pork in all different styles. I think it develops the best flavors, it's perfect with sweet fruits.

Favorite Menu Item: Duck three ways-- we have a crisp skin Long Island duck breast, risotto made with fregola and duck confit and fried duck tenders with a berry duck jus.

Healthiest Menu Item: Heirloom tomato and melon salad, burrata, pistachios and mint-cilantro vinaigrette.

Favorite Local Restaurant: Alba and Amis, I had the most amazing pasta dish there made with pork and stone fruit.

Favorite Restaurant in the World: Flour + Water in San Francisco.

Guilty Pleasure (food or drink): Anything deep fried, late at night...

Last Meal on Earth: "Hog wings", they are basically pork baby back ribs that are lollipopped (meat is cut away from the bone so that the meat clusters at the end of the clean bone), braised and then served with chicken wing sauce.

Cook for Any Celebrities? Some members of the 49ers football team.

Favorite Food Shows: The Great Food Truck Race, America's Test Kitchen ("I'm into food science and the way things work, I'm a why guy. I like the way they test things and the way they make things work. The show is informative and educational"). I do also like Top Chef.

Biggest Kitchen Disaster: I walked into this kitchen I was working at in San Francisco for Sunday brunch service and the whole place was flooded. We had to call in pros to pump all the water out and then sterilize and clean all the equipment. It took six days to be up and running again.