BEST CHEF NEW YORK STATE: Jennifer Boye
Jennifer Boye, Moriarty Meats & Cafe
1650 Elmwood Avenue, Buffalo, NY 14207
At Moriarty Meats & Café, Jennifer Boye is both the cafe’s chef and its one-woman baking program, turning out an extensive menu of daily specials alongside fresh rolls, baguettes, cakes, pies and cookies. Consider the hand-baked kaiser rolls for Moriarty’s lauded boeuf on ‘weck, made with homemade roast beef, horseradish mayo and a housemade kummelweck roll. The butcher shop next door, where Tom Moriarty and his team break down whole animals raised locally, supplies all the café’s meat, which Boye turns into consistently excellent dishes. Before arriving at Moriarty, Boye spent three decades leading Buffalo kitchens, earning the respect of her peers and coworkers through her deep knowledge of cookery and affable nature.
Boye was invited to cook at the James Beard House twice (2013, 2017), spent five seasons on Nickel City Chef’s home team and has played a role in countless charity events. Over her career, she led the kitchen at Elm Street Bakery during its best years, when she and her team ran a full dinner service, and later led the ice cream program at Lloyd’s Churn, perfecting its product line for retail rollout. Before that came a decade at the Mansion on Delaware, Buffalo’s only AAA Four Diamond hotel, where she created roughly 225 individualized menus a year, from intimate private dinners for visiting celebrities to 200-guest wedding receptions. Boye’s culinary work at the Mansion earned a Chaîne des Rôtisseurs Gold Plate Award.
