By Altan Becker
Bustling through the Ursa Minor bakery in Western New England University’s dining hall, Warren John Hardman always takes a moment to speak to students before diving elbows-deep into a new dessert. He isn’t here out of necessity; he’s here for the love of the game and the whimsy of life. After over thirty years in the restaurant business, Hardman knows his way around the kitchen.
He got his start at the Culinary Institute of America in New York before taking a job at Le Chateau, a renowned French restaurant, straight out of school. “I was the pastry chef, {but] I didn’t know shit… and it was amazing. I was there for thirteen years… and I was in heaven,” he remarked, smiling at the memory. Flipping through a photo album packed with pictures of pastries, he described the people that bought them and the events he baked for. “I look back at all these pictures and I think … so many things have been part of it. … It’s my life. It’s been so many people’s lives I’ve changed with how many cakes I’ve done. There have been a few hiccups, you know, but it all comes out.”
Hardman takes that approach to everything he does, holding firm to his belief that everything works out in the end, even if not everything goes to plan. For him, food was the plan. “My cousin said ‘well, John, you gotta think. what do you want to do most with your life?’ and I said, ‘well, food, fashion, and flowers.’ Flowers you don’t gotta have, that’s nice but you don’t gotta have. Fashion, that’s too high profile and I don’t have enough inside for that, and food you always have to eat. So I said ‘okay, I’ll just try and do the best [I] can.’ And I’d say it’s worked out for me. And I’ve gotten to do all three.”
No matter where life took him, Hardman always returned to his first love: food. Growing up in a big Italian family, he was taught to cook from childhood, joking, “As long as you were tall enough to reach the table, you were old enough to roll the pepperoni. … My aunt was the baker, and she taught me how to bake. … That’s who makes the molasses cookies, that’s her recipe.”
With a fond smile painted on his face, Hardman explains how many places he’s worked, and how loved he felt at every one of them. After twenty years at Max Downtown in Hartford, Connecticut, he went on to own his own restaurant. “I had my own restaurant with an independent theater, so I had my clientele built right in. … my friends had an Italian restaurant in the area, so I didn’t want to do Italian, my background was French, so, I’ll just do everything! So it was an eclectic kind of thing. … It lasted a good ten years almost, and then I just got burnt out. So then I moved up here,” he said, gesturing around the dining room.
“I think back.., all the parts in my life. It goes in cycles. I had to organize this stuff, I was throwing out all this shit, and I saw what my life is. And how many people I make happy and everyday, you guys make me feel so good. I see the kids, and you guys are so polite,” he remarked, grinning. “ All the kids say hello, and it makes me feel so good. It’s what I can do. … It’s not just a cupcake, it’s not just a cookie, it’s how you can make it better.”
