By Donna Cornelius
It’s not uncommon for Blackwell’s Pub and Eatery to draw a crowd – but not in the kitchen.
Last month, a Food Network crew joined chef and owner Tyler DeStefano in the Cahaba Heights hot spot’s cooking area. They were in town to film a segment of “Local Flavor,” a digital series that highlights chefs and ingredients from across the United States.
Each series focuses on one local flavor. The Birmingham edition, which should be up on Food Network’s website and social media in August, features Blackwell’s, Dram Whiskey Bar in Mountain Brook and Hot and Hot Fish Club in Birmingham. All three were chosen for their intriguing twists on the chosen ingredient: the blackberry, Alabama’s official state fruit.
The crew filmed DeStefano making one of Blackwell’s most popular dishes: the PB&J burger, with peanut butter and house-made blackberry jam.
“I took two of my favorite things growing up, a PBJ and a hamburger, and then tried different jams,” DeStefano said. “We tried apricot, peach and strawberry. The blackberry was sweet enough and tart enough to work.”
Blackwell’s gets its name from the person who first interested DeStefano in food.
“It’s named after my mom’s mother – Blackwell was her maiden name,” DeStefano said. “My grandmother always let me help her in the kitchen. I spent a lot of time with my grandmother; my mom was a schoolteacher, and my grandparents would often pick me up after school. She cooked things that weren’t particularly good for you but tasted amazing, like Salisbury steak and gravy or roast beef with potatoes and carrots. She used lots of butter and heavy cream.”
DeStefano, 33, grew up not far from the business he and his partner, Chris Abrams, own today. He’s a graduate of John Carroll Catholic High School and Birmingham’s Culinard culinary school.
Blackwell’s is a result of a Culinard assignment that involved researching the logistics of opening a restaurant.
“Chef Ian Tarica made us go to a landlord, find out the rent, get traffic counts, price out equipment,” DeStefano said. “We had to do a big plan from start to finish.”
While working on the project, DeStefano found a space that had been a Movie Gallery. He and Abrams started renovations there in 2008 and opened the pub a year later.
DeStefano and his wife, Jennifer, met when he was in culinary school and she was working at WVTM 13. His cooking skills didn’t hurt his appeal, said Jennifer DeStefano, a Dallas-Fort Worth native.
“My friends said, ‘I don’t know where you found him, but you need to hang onto him,’” she said, smiling.
The couple has an 18-month-old son, Barrett.
Tyler DeStefano said he worked in restaurants and food service before attending Culinard.
“You can make it in the restaurant business without a degree, but I wanted to have the book knowledge and learn about purchasing, ordering and that kind of stuff,” he said.
The DeStefanos said Blackwell’s concept has changed slightly as Cahaba Heights has grown.
“Younger married couples are moving in,” Jennifer DeStefano said. “They’re looking for a local restaurant.”
One change is the number of beers available at Blackwell’s; the pub’s Draft Wall at one time listed about 10 brews but now has about 30.
“We also changed the name from Blackwell’s Pub to Blackwell’s Pub and Eatery to promote our food,” DeStefano said. “I try to have some things on the menu that are pub staples around the world.”
One example is Blackwell’s Poutine, seasoned fries topped with Guinness gravy and melted mozzarella.
“Everybody seems to enjoy our Scotch eggs,” DeStefano said about his dish that’s made up of two hard-boiled eggs wrapped in sausage and breaded and fried.
Meatloaf with a special sauce, shepherd’s pie, bangers and mash, and catfish and chips also are on the menu along with burgers, sandwiches, chicken wings, salads and sides.
Fried bread pudding is among the most popular desserts – but don’t ask the chef how to make it.
“He won’t even give me the recipe,” his wife said.
For the PB&J and other burgers, Blackwell’s uses a special ground beef blend that has “just the right amount of fat content,” Tyler DeStefano said.
“Evans Meats blends it for us,” DeStefano said. “We patty it and season it ourselves. We cook on a gas flat-top so that all the fat and goodness stays in it.”
While Blackwell’s has thrived, its owners have faced some challenges. The April 27, 2011, tornados that tore through Alabama severely damaged the DeStefanos’ Cahaba Heights home, sending them to live in a hotel for six months.
“We had a grill from our house, and we cooked burgers to feed work crews and those without power,” DeStefano said.
In 2014, a fire at a neighboring business caused smoke and water damage at Blackwell’s.
“We were shut down for almost three months, from Memorial Day to Labor Day,” DeStefano said. “Everything had to be taken out and cleaned. We had to get new tables and chairs and to repaint.”
The Food Network connection started with a phone call. Abrams took the call and at first thought it was a joke, DeStefano said.
“Then we got an email from a production guy in California,” he said.
Jennifer DeStefano said the shoot was “pretty cool.”
“They had Tyler in the kitchen showing how to make blackberry jam and the burger,” she said. “There were about four or five people back there, and they took about a million photos of the burger.”
In addition to airing on the Food Network website and social media, “Local Flavor” segments may be used as lead-ins to the network’s TV shows, Jennifer DeStefano said.
Tyler DeStefano said he likes watching Food Network but prefers actual cooking shows to contests.
“I’d like for there to be a Food Network show that’s about nothing but wild game,” he said. “I love hunting and fishing.”
The Food Network session wasn’t DeStefano’s first experience with cooking on TV.
“We’ve done some live local morning shows, and those were more nerve-wracking,” he said. “We had fun with the Food Network guys. We knew they were going to edit. It was easy. If you messed up, they just said, ‘Cut! We’ll do it again.’”
Blackwell’s Pub and Eatery is at 3151 Green Valley Road in Cahaba Heights. It’s open Monday through Wednesday from 11 a.m. until midnight, Thursday through Saturday from 11 a.m. to 2 a.m., and Sunday from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. For more information, visitblackwellspub.com or follow the pub on social media.