Love to eat in Portsmouth, N.H.? Thank Jay McSharry.

Boston Globe

08-04-2025

Most restaurateurs tell me how hard it is to open a restaurant. You have so many of them. How did you do it?
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I keep it simple. I partner predominantly with chefs, and then I try to run the front of house with some great managers. These chefs have a stake in the game, and they've worked their way up. They're a known entity to me for the most part — their work ethic, their commitment to the job.
How do you decide who to work with?
I'd like it to be a passion project, a chef being passionate about the cuisine they're going to engage with. I know that, when I started Jumpin' Jay's Fish Cafe, it was a passion project for me. It was years in the making, and a lot of different influences. The same energy I have, I want to see in my chefs.
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For instance, Moxy is Matt Louis, who worked at The French Laundry for five years. He went out and traveled. He staged at Noma. He staged at Eleven Madison Park. Then he went out and created his concept for New England tapas, which is based on taking the Spanish influence of tapas and applying it to the region of New England.
The pitmaster and chef at Ore Nell's, Will [Myska], his mom is Grandma Ore Nell from Houston, Sugar Land, and those are her recipes. It's all ideally based on passion.
Why restaurants, and why New Hampshire?
I grew up in Westport and Wilton, Conn. Westport has a great restaurant scene. My whole family worked at Viva Zapata in Westport. I'm the youngest of seven, and I loved restaurants. My sister owned a restaurant in South Norwalk called Jasper's Oyster Bar, and I worked there when I was young, and I always thought that someday I wanted to open a restaurant.
As the youngest of seven, we went out maybe once a year, to a steakhouse with a salad bar. So my food passion, I think, came from working in my sister's restaurant. I just love the energy of a restaurant, and then the food passion sort of just unfolds.
I started off dishing and busing, and then I managed a restaurant in college. I went to UNH, and I loved it. I graduated in '90.
It's really about the energy of a restaurant, the sense of hospitality, the sense of community, being a community partner. There's a sense of teamwork, that you're putting on a show every night, and I love that. Even the smallest link in a restaurant is critical. Being a buser at 14 or 15, you appreciate it immediately. If I was working hard, I was recognized, and I think I got a lot of gratification from that and ran with it.
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What do you think the Portsmouth food scene does well, and what do you wish it did better?
There's a great restaurant community here that supports each other; during Restaurant Week, we support each other. I'll go to a bunch of other restaurants, try their menus. We do our own form of Taste of the Nation now, in June, and people need staff. We swap staff to get people through. A high tide raises all boats. I love that about Portsmouth, and I love that everybody's out at everybody's restaurants. For a city of 22,000, we pack a lot of punch.
What do you wish were better?
We need a Spanish tapas bar in town; that would be one thing I'd love to see. Something like Toro or Barcelona. Something small, something classic.
What's your favorite below-the-radar place that people might not know about? Where might we find you?
I love [Himalayan restaurant] Durbar Square. I think their food is clean with lots of flavor, lots of vegetables. For quick bites. Nikki's Banh Mi is great. I love Street, but that's my restaurant, so I don't want to be plugging my own restaurants. I like the tuna fish sandwich or the Niçoise salad at La Maison Navarre; they're outstanding. We just went to France to ski over the February break, and my kids love crepes, crepes, crepes. We go there, and they're great owner-operators.
What's your restaurant pet peeve?
I don't like all the added fees that people are starting to do. If you need to charge more, just charge more, and pay your staff accordingly. And credit card fees bother me: It's the cost of doing business.
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As far as service is concerned, it's the classics: just being greeted within the first minute you're there and your server coming over to the table within the first minute you're there. Those are classic things.
My peeve this weekend was that we had three desserts to share for six of us, and they didn't give us individual plates. That was at one of my restaurants. They'll be hearing about it today — in a nice way. I didn't bring it up at the time. Give everybody plates. It doesn't cost you anything.
What's your biggest piece of restaurant advice, and what has been your biggest mistake?
My biggest advice is: You've got to work in the business. You've got to be in the business. I talk to a lot of people who want to open restaurants. You've got to work it, know it, feel it. Make sure you want to do it before you commit. Do it for somebody else. Do it on somebody else's nickel. And then, if you really love it, take the plunge.
I had somebody call me who wanted to open a coffee shop or buy a coffee shop from somebody. But before you do that, you should go out and work in a coffee shop. I know you're going to be the owner, but you should have the passion and enjoy making cappuccinos.
I think sometimes people look in and think it's so exciting, or they're watching one of these shows: It's not 'Iron Chef.' There's some repetition. There's a lot of: Wake up; we're doing it again. You have to have a love for the routine as well.
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Biggest mistake? Has there been a restaurant that failed or a restaurant that didn't work?
Oh, totally. I'm early on in the kid thing, but restaurants are like kids. You want them to be one way, but they become their own person, and so do restaurants.
At one restaurant I had, the menu didn't turn out at all like I was hoping or expecting. The concept changed to more of a high-end Italian restaurant rather than just a casual Italian restaurant, and that wasn't where I wanted to go. But sometimes these restaurants have a mind of their own. I don't put my imprint too far on it. I might say, 'Hey, this isn't working,' three to five years in, rather than keep trying to fix it.
How do you know if something isn't working?
It's all in the numbers. Customers can tell you all the time: 'I loved [your former pizzeria] Luigi's,' but not enough people loved it. It was a good pizza place, but it's all in the numbers. Even labor, which is a lot tougher these days, post-COVID, but I think you just have to work on it that much harder.
You seem to have a good attitude about it, though.
When you get up to bat, you know you're not always going to hit a home run. You know you're lucky just to get on base.
Since you're a Seacoast guy, let's talk about lobster rolls: mayonnaise or butter?
That's a good question. I would go butter.
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Lakes or beaches?
My wife's a lake person, Lake Sunapee. That's where we go. And our local beach is great — Pirate's Cove [in Rye].
Last but not least: What food do you absolutely hate?
There's one vegetable I don't like: asparagus. I love every other vegetable, anything else. But for some reason, I don't love asparagus.
Interview was edited and condensed.
Kara Baskin can be reached at