by Kristen Wile

Chef Matt Moore, formerly at Vinyl, has joined the Customshop team as chef de cuisine. Moore first gained a reputation for thoughtful, local fare during his time at now-closed South End restaurant Vana. It was there that he also caught the notice of Customshop chef/owner Andres Kaifer.

“Ever since I tasted Matt’s food, I’ve had an eye on him,” Kaifer says. “I always knew that we had very similar ethos on food and style and I thought he was an incredibly talented cook.”

The two chefs began a working friendship, meeting up for coffee or dinner and discussing what a collaborative dinner might look like. The idea of working together came up, but it wasn’t until recently that doing so became feasible. With the opening of Marina’s Tapas, a Spanish tapas food stall in Optimist Hall, and more growth in the works, Kaifer’s time is split between two concepts. Marina’s is especially personal to the chef, serving much of the food he grew up eating. 

“I like to serve fancier food [at Customshop] and it’s fun for me,” he says. “But the way I like eating is very simple and the Marina’s menu is pretty true to that.” 

With Kaifer working at both restaurants, he needed someone he could rely on in the kitchen at Customshop. After discussing it for so long, he was finally able to reach out to Moore about taking a position at Customshop. 

“I’m still going to have a lot of heavy oversight on Customshop because it’s my baby,” Kaifer says. “So I will be here a lot, but I need someone who I can trust blindly and he is that someone.”

Kaifer says he and Moore have a similar cooking style — though his own leans more Hispanic — focused on local, as well as similar plating styles. 

Having someone he can trust in the kitchen at Customshop will also allow Kaifer to help the menu evolve at Marina’s. Once the restaurant’s operations work through opening — the restaurant opened its doors this month — he’ll begin adding specials. One thing he’s particularly excited about is serving paella one night per week at one of the food stall’s eight counter seats.

“I don’t want it to just be like we make a batch of paella, we scoop it into a to-go container,” he says. “If you come and sit at the counter, you’ll get a paella pan in front of you with snacks and it’s like a whole thing.”

Moore is already in the kitchen at Customshop. In related news, his brother Kendall Moore will be leading the kitchen at upcoming Uptown restaurant Spaghett.