by Ebony L. Morman

By mid-August, chef Brittany Cochran knows what season it is by what keeps arriving at Stagioni: tomatoes, corn, and peaches. The late-summer ingredients are plentiful, and Cochran keeps saying yes to the farmers who supply the restaurant. Eventually, all that produce becomes its own kind of deadline. When the kitchen starts filling up, Cochran knows it’s time to figure out what she’ll do with it.

“I’m just overloaded with corn and tomatoes and peaches,” Cochran says. “I’m like, all right, well, it’s time to write a menu. I have it in-house, which means I’m not gonna let it go to waste. So let’s see what we can come up with.”

Since Stagioni means “season” in Italian, it’s fitting for Cochran to build its menus accordingly. She starts with what’s growing in the Carolinas, then finds ways to bring those ingredients into the restaurant’s Italian cooking. Cochran has spent more than two decades working in kitchens, starting when she was 15. She came to Charlotte to attend Johnson & Wales University, then worked in Michelin-starred restaurants in New York before returning to Charlotte nearly a decade ago. She recently marked six years as Stagioni’s executive chef.Though she grew up in Columbus, Ohio, Cochran says her career was “born and raised” in Charlotte.

Cochran’s connection to summer ingredients started long before she arrived at Stagioni. Growing up in the Midwest, she spent time around her grandparents’ garden, where her family grew tomatoes and corn. Those early experiences still shape what excites her in the kitchen.

“I think that’s why I kind of gravitate towards summer,” she says. “It really reminds me of home and where I grew up.”

Her late-summer scallop ravioli puts that affinity for corn on full display. Cochran turns scallops into a mousse for the filling, then pairs the ravioli with corn cream, corn foam, roasted corn, pickled corn, fresh basil, and basil oil. “I’m utilizing corn in multiple ways, and scallops in different ways,” she says. “It just really screams summer.”

Before a dish reaches the menu, Cochran works through the idea in the kitchen, often starting without a set recipe. She moves between the walk-in and her workspace, pulling ingredients, tasting them, and considering different combinations until something clicks.

From there, years of experience guide the adjustments. If a dish needs more acidity, for example, Cochran considers whether citrus, vinegar, or tomato will provide the right balance. She often works by feel first, then turns those decisions into measurements her team can follow.

Cochran doesn’t make those decisions alone. Kyle Healy, her sous chef, and Leeann Dolcetto, the general manager, taste new dishes before she brings them to the servers, and she welcomes their reactions throughout the process.

“I want as many opinions, good, bad, ugly, all of it,” she says.

New dishes can then appear as specials, giving Cochran a chance to hear from guests and make adjustments before deciding whether they belong on the menu.

Sometimes, the testing process gives a dish a longer life than Cochran planned. Her rigatoni with braised pork, fennel sausage sugo, and herb ricotta began as a special several years ago, but guests responded so strongly that it became a permanent fixture.

The oysters followed a similar path. Cochran once changed their preparation with the seasons, serving them oven-roasted during fall and winter and with a cold mignonette during spring and summer. After introducing a Calabrian chili and roasted garlic butter, she stopped rotating the preparation.

Other dishes remain tied to a particular time of year. In early spring, Stagioni regulars wait for the return of pappardelle with morel mushrooms, local ramps, pine nut pesto, fresh basil, and pickled ramps.

“When it’s ramp season here at Stagioni, people are at the door waiting for their pappardelle,” she says.

Working with the seasons also means Cochran doesn’t always get to an ingredient when she wants to. A busy year, which included representing Charlotte on season 23 of Top Chef, caused her to miss part of the local squash blossom season. She eventually found her way back to them, however. On the late-summer menu, she stuffs squash blossoms with North Carolina crab and shishito peppers, serving them with charred shishito aioli and pickled shishitos.

“A little late in the game, but I got my fix,” Cochran says.

Availability can also determine whether Cochran serves a dish at all. If she can’t source an ingredient at the quality she wants, particularly products such as North Carolina crab or local baby greens, she would rather leave the dish off the menu, she says. That’s why she stays closely connected to local farmers and purveyors to keep track of what’s available and what’s coming next.

Those conversations happen regularly, giving her an idea of when ingredients will arrive and helping her anticipate how the menu might shift.

Harmony Ridge Farms plays a significant role in that sourcing. Stagioni receives three whole hogs from the farm each month, and Cochran and her team butcher them in-house and use the meat across the menu for dishes including meatballs, ragus, pork chops, porterhouses and sausages. She also sources produce and eggs from the farm.

Cochran also uses Freshlist, which connects her with local farms, and visits area markets herself. Those relationships give her access to ingredients that need little intervention once they reach the kitchen.

“When you have quality ingredients, you don’t have to do much to make them shine,” Cochran says. “Our local and seasonal produce kind of makes my job easy because it’s already incredible on its own. I’m just here to enhance it.”

Local ingredients don’t necessarily limit Cochran to traditional Italian flavor combinations. On her spring menu, bok choy from Harmony Ridge Farms gave her an opportunity to stretch Stagioni’s identity while keeping the dish grounded in Italian technique.

Inspired in part by other chefs she had recently spent time with, Cochran paired the bok choy with locally made miso paste and shiitake mushrooms. She brought the elements together with a brodo, an Italian-style broth she became familiar with while working in New York. The combination leaned toward Asian flavors more than Stagioni’s dishes typically do, and Cochran knew she was testing the boundaries of what regulars might expect. The dish ultimately became a hit.

“I’ve got to keep it under the Italian umbrella, but I do like to push the boundaries,” she says.

Even as individual dishes give Cochran room to experiment, she considers how the menu feels as a whole. The transition between seasons changes more than the ingredients she uses. It also changes the colors, preparations, and character of the food.

Late summer brings the bright colors of tomatoes, corn, and peaches. As fall approaches, Cochran expects the menu to move toward oranges, reds, and browns, with squash, pumpkins, potatoes, braises, and stews taking a larger role. The transition doesn’t happen according to a fixed date. Cochran talks with farmers about what they expect to harvest in the weeks ahead, and Charlotte’s climate can allow summer ingredients to linger into the period when she begins introducing fall produce. She expects to begin introducing the first fall changes in late September or early October, while leaving room for whatever summer still has to offer.

Seasonal menu development rarely begins with Cochran sitting down to write a list of dishes. More often, the ingredients arrive first. And Cochran sometimes keeps saying yes, knowing she and her team will have to figure out what those ingredients can become. It’s a process that also gives the cooks around her room to contribute. Cochran encourages her team to bring forward ideas, then uses her experience to help guide those ideas toward the season and Stagioni’s Italian identity.

“It’s just not my menu, it’s our menu,” she says.

Eventually, another season begins arriving through the kitchen door. Cochran starts looking, tasting, and saying yes again, until there’s enough in front of her to begin creating what comes next.

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