Jen Picciano’s Gates Mills Kitchen Remodel Was Inspired by Cleveland Restaurants

Jen Picciano’s welcome to her Gates Mills home includes a lunch of creamy carrot ginger soup, mixed green salad and toasted crostini served with a tomato basil butter. We tell her she shouldn’t have gone to the trouble. This is a woman, after all, who juggles two jobs: reporter and special projects producer at WOIO-TV 19, where she hosts the monthly restaurant-and-dining segment Cleveland Cooks as well as the monthly video podcast Taste Buds, and co-anchor of The Mark Nolan Show on WMJI 105.7-FM, where she does the twice-weekly Cleveland Bites.

“I love to cook,” she reassures. “I love to entertain.”

It’s why Picciano and her husband, Benjamin Stocum, an executive search firm owner, embarked on an extensive first-floor renovation of the house, a traditional 5,000-square-foot abode built in 1978 that Stocum found on the market in late 2022. They spent close to a year working with Chesterland design-build firm Compass Studio redesigning the spaces to host friends and family. Many features were inspired by what Picciano has seen in the restaurants where she’s cooked with some of Cleveland’s best chefs. Flow, function and durability were as important as transitional style and ambiance for this couple with three daughters.

“These are not rooms for show. These are rooms for welcoming people,” Picciano says. “That lifestyle informed our choices.”

The open floor plan transformation began at the front door. The Compass team opened up the foyer to a second-floor bedroom and removed a wall that concealed half the staircase to reveal the entire flight of steps and an upstairs hall. The result is a striking white-paneled entry. A wall between the kitchen and living room was replaced by a quartet of handsome columns supporting a load-bearing steel I-beam. And a wall between the kitchen and sunroom was demolished to create an open cooking-dining space.

“There are a lot of restaurants that have open kitchens,” Picciano says. “It’s part of the theater of dining out.”

The star of the creamy walled, engineered hardwood-floored culinary stage is a 48-inch Thermador gas range. Picciano chose it for the two ovens, six easy-to-clean burners, simmer setting and indestructible cast-iron griddle. A backsplash of light gray matte-finish tile in Sonoma Tilemakers’ textured Dahlia pattern separates the range from a trumpet-shaped stainless steel range-hood shroud trimmed in brass ribbon. Stocum designed the CopperSmith-fabricated shroud to the inch on graph paper.

“The ceilings in this house are not (high),” Picciano explains. “We had to be really thoughtful about how this was made so it still (had) this shape that I wanted with a much lower ceiling.”

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The white cabinetry was customized to store everything from stockpots to spices and cooking utensils, the latter of which are easily accessed from under-counter pullouts flanking the range. A built-in Bosch speed oven functions as both a microwave and convection oven.

Five feet of space separate the 12-foot-long kitchen island from a similar structure topped in the same white quartz and painted the same Benjamin Moore Hale Navy. One side houses under-counter cabinetry that replaces a portion lost from removing walls. Picciano uses the top as a buffet.

“I don’t like having food on the island with the (dirty) dishes and the sink,” she explains.

The other side is a banquette that provides seating for four to five people along one side of a 10-foot-long dining table that Picciano inherited from her great-aunt. She got the idea from the banquettes she’d seen at chef-owner Douglas Katz’s Kiln and Zhug and restaurateur Malisse Sinito’s LockKeepers and Marble Room. The seat was upholstered in a blue gray commercial vinyl, the back in a light blue woven performance fabric. Sinito helped Picciano determine the pitch of the bench and the shape of the cushions.

“I know from my many conversations with restaurant owners that these are major decisions,” she says. “They think about how people are going to sit in them, for how long.”

A wall-spanning Hale Navy wet bar turned a smaller sunroom off the other side of the living room into a cocktail lounge that keeps guests from mixing drinks in the kitchen while Picciano is cooking. A prep kitchen under construction will be outfitted with red cabinetry customized to accommodate Picciano’s “small appliance addiction.” The setup was dictated by a practice she’s observed in restaurants: The kitchen is for cooking; the prep kitchen is for slicing, dicing and marinating.

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In March Picciano and Stocum hosted a chef’s potluck dinner attended by the likes of Katz, Flour’s Matt Mytro, The Last Page’s Brad Race and Juneberry Table’s Karen Small — the very people whose work influenced much of Picciano’s remodel. The results received plenty of compliments.

“Before we even ate, they were already asking, ‘When are we scheduling one of these again?’” she says.

Discover a few of Jen Picciano's favorite recipes to cook in the new kitchen.

Spaghetti Carbonara, from Michaelangelo’s chef Michael Annandono

Picciano achieved a restaurant-quality version of her husband’s favorite pasta dish after working with Annandono on Cleveland Cooks.

Ingredients  Serves 2 

-12 ounces of spaghetti, dry

-1 gallon of water with 1 tablespoon of fine sea salt

-2 eggs, whole

-2 tablespoons of heavy cream

-1/4 cup of Parmigiano-Reggiano, grated

-1 teaspoon of black pepper

-3 tablespoons of parsley, chopped

-1/4 cup of pancetta, small dice

-1 tablespoon of butter

-1/4 cup of chicken stock

-Sea salt and black pepper to taste

Instructions

1. Boil water with sea salt, and cook the pasta until al dente.

2. In a medium stainless steel bowl, whisk eggs, cream, Parmigiano-Reggiano, sea salt to taste, black pepper and parsley. Reserve.

3. In a medium saute pan, brown the pancetta in butter until crisp. Add black pepper to taste and deglaze with chicken stock. When the pasta is cooked, add to the pancetta and stock mixture. Heat for 30 seconds. 

4. Add pasta to the egg and cheese mixture, and briefly heat the bowl over an open flame while constantly mixing. Plate and serve.

Peruvian Aji Verde Sauce, from Cordelia chef Vinnie Cimino

“I would eat a tire if it had this stuff on it,” Jen Picciano says of the versatile green sauce. “It’s usually served over chicken (grilled chicken thighs at her house) and rice.”

Ingredients Yields 1 to 1 1/2 cups

-1 cup of Duke’s-brand mayonnaise (Cimino’s favorite)

-2 cups of cilantro leaves

-2 jalapenos, seeded

-4-5 cloves of garlic

-2 tablespoons of lime juice

-1 ounce of Parmesan cheese or ricotta salata

-Salt to taste

Instructions

1. Combine all ingredients, and blend until smooth with an immersion blender, standard blender or food processor. Adjust the heat and acid as desired.

Carrot Ginger Soup, Jen Picciano’s recipe

Picciano’s alternative to squash soup is her go-to for seasonal dinner menus. She notes that it can be made ahead of time and “freezes well.”

Ingredients  Serves 4-6 

-6 large carrots, peeled and cut into chunks

-1 small yellow onion, sliced and peeled

-1 inch of fresh ginger, sliced

-2 cloves of garlic, peeled and chopped

-2 tablespoons of olive oil

-3 teaspoons of salt (optional, to taste)

-1/2 teaspoon of ground black pepper

-Pinch of turmeric

-Pinch of cayenne pepper (optional, to taste)

-4 cups of vegetable stock (can substitute with low-sodium)

-1/2 cup of coconut milk or heavy cream

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. On a rimmed baking sheet, toss carrots, onion, ginger and garlic with olive oil to coat. Season with salt, pepper and turmeric, plus cayenne pepper if using. Roast until tender.

2. Place roasted vegetables and stock in a blender. Start slow and increase the speed for several minutes until the mixture is smooth. Taste and add more seasoning if desired.

3. Add coconut milk or heavy cream and pulse to mix. Taste and add more seasoning if desired. Heat and serve, or freeze for later.

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