Stacia Van de Loo storms Vucciria
By Catherine McGarry Miller + photos by Kevin C. Groen
Stacia Van de Loo came into the world in a Trans Am hurtling down Highway 57. “I was almost born in a bowling alley, but Mom pushed me back up and gave birth going 120, headed for a small clinic in Adell (pop. 517). I think it was for humans,” Van de Loo says in a questioning tone. “I was blue when the doctor whisked me away, leaving my mom in the car. Someone asked her, ‘Patsy, you OK?’ and she said, ‘Can I have a cigarette now?’”
Vucciria’s right-hand person and creative innovator to manager Maria Megna has kept on her fast and independent streak through life. The thin, willowy Van de Loo looks like she often forgets to eat, which is probably true. To watch her at work is to witness a human tornado whose wake is littered with inspired creations, sometimes culinary deconstructions, but never disaster.
She grew up in the small resort town of Elkhart Lake with her single mom. “My first remembrance of food is of standing below the table watching my mother cutting a cucumber on a wooden board. She cut the skin off and sprinkled it with salt. It made a pop and sang on my tongue. I realized that the addition of one small thing, like a spice, could change the taste dramatically.”
Frequently left to her own devices, she experimented with whatever culinary opportunities presented themselves. Her first recipe was a peanut butter marshmallow sandwich with chocolate chips melted by the heat of the toast. Van de Loo made even the prosaic childhood staple of mac ‘n cheese her own by whisking butter into the dry cheese to make it creamier.
In the intervening years before Van de Loo would come to work at Mimma’s sister, Vucciria, she entered the restaurant world by way of dishwashing at the age of 12. By 13, she was waiting tables at a small eaterie and soon thereafter joined the kitchen staff.
As a child, Van de Loo created intricate sculptures in cheese by folding, stacking and arranging the slices. Art and food became the critical intersection of her life. She continued working in various breweries and bistros through her college years at the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design where she majored in sculpture and interior architecture. There she became a master of mixed media. “I use whatever the idea needs – everything from bronze to smushed and rusty bottle caps.”
Upon graduating in 2000, she turned to cooking as a career because of its challenges. “The questions are endless and I get to work with my hands and share a conversation through food with people.” A sponge for knowledge, Van de Loo built her skills with Michael Fekr at Il Mito and Brenton Hammer and Jason Ferraro at Celia and Café Vecchio Mondo. Again, food became her architectural elements. She sculpted now with pastry and ice cream and a palette of sophisticated sauces.
“I’ve got to create or I’ll explode,” she exclaims. Vucciria allows her to do just that – from exquisitely tender seared flat iron steak salad to robustly flavored pizzas and pastas and her inspired desserts.
Her art school past and culinary present unfold in front of me in her deconstructed tiramisu cappuccino: a demitasse cup layered with espresso, heavy cream, a lady finger brushed with mascarpone and drizzled with a sweet red wine reduction and chocolate sauce. A total WOW. Her pineapple bread pudding with a caramelized brown sugar crust and gelato quenelles is equally amazing.
With a menu designed to offer a casually elegant dining experience for under $20, Vucciria is generally full of the cacophony of voices to which its name refers. And not that I’ve ever been abducted by aliens, but the interior décor by Flux Design of Milwaukee suggests a Euro-style UFO with its sleek architecture and furnishings and Flash Gordon meets Deep Space Nine light fixtures constantly changing colors while a fiery Tuscan wood-burning oven radiates in the background. And all this right here on earth, in Milwaukee. VS
