Darrell Boles

The Recognition StarChefs published Boles’s Ham Hock Cavatappi in 2024, built with mustard greens, spicy tomato sauce, parmesan, and basil. The same year, StarChefs listed Scallops, Miso-Tobiko Aïoli, Fried Potatoes, Scallion as a featured dish for him, placing shellfish with fried potato, scallion, and a miso-tobiko sauce. Also listed in 2024 was Braised Wagyu Beef Cheek, Potato Purée, Demi-Glace, Cognac-Soaked Prunes. The set continued with Lobster Mac and Cheese, Korean Rice Cakes, Smoked Cheddar, Parmesan, Green Tabasco, Old Bay, Lemon, Herbs, a dish that joins New England seafood language to rice cakes, smoked cheese, heat, citrus, and herbs. A second cavatappi preparation, Cavatappi, Smoked Ham Hock, Braised Mustard Green, Spicy Marinara, Parmesan, Herbs, was listed by StarChefs as another featured dish for Boles. Taken together, those 2024 dishes give the clearest public measure of his cooking: smoked pork, greens, spice, dairy richness, seafood, beef, and composed sauces handled without unnecessary restraint.

The Work

Behind It The brunch work carries Boles’s Southern roots and his fondness for Waffle House. He channeled both into a one-day-only brunch menu at the restaurant, making Waffle House-inspired Southern-style comfort food part of the kitchen’s vocabulary. That menu language includes Boozy Cereal, carnitas & eggs, miso banana bread, peanut-butter-stuffed brioche French toast, and a croissant sandwich with smoked ham, truffle butter, aged cheddar, and fried egg. In that register, he recreates Waffle House classics with a smothered, unapologetically indulgent spirit, leaning into abundance rather than polishing away the reference point.

The Road Boles holds executive-chef roles at the Cambridge restaurant and at JK Food Group. His public arc is shaped by that dual leadership and by the cooking that connects his Southern roots to the menu work that appeared in 2024. The path reads through dishes rather than biography alone: ham hock with mustard greens, scallops with Miso-Tobiko Aïoli, wagyu beef cheek with Potato Purée, lobster macaroni with Korean Rice Cakes, and brunch plates that answer a Waffle House memory with restaurant-level construction. The result is a body of work that makes comfort food specific, ingredient by ingredient.