With Valentine’s Day just around the corner, it’s difficult not to believe in the Yiddish concept of beshert when you hear the stories about how destiny brought together the couples who operate two of Buffalo’s hottest new restaurants —The Coda and Amaryllis.

Richard "Roo" and Karen Buckley from The Coda

(photo: Rose Mattrey)

The Coda’s Richard “Roo” Buckley and his wife, Karen—he from Williamsville and she from Jerusalem—met when he was managing a bar on the southeast corner of 1st Ave. and St. Marks Place in New York City and she was managing a café on the northeast corner of the intersection.

“She made my coffee in the afternoons and I made her cocktails after work,” Roo Buckley reminisces. They spent a lot of time crossing the street, there was what he refers to as “casual flirting” and nine months later, in June 2001, the couple married.

Jennifer Stainrook, co-owner of Amaryllis with Matthew Harrington, recalls that she had been working for 18 months as assistant pastry chef and gardmanger in charge of the “cold line” in the kitchen at the Rue Franklin when he came on board with responsibility for vegetables and sides.

Jen from Williamsville and Matt from Albion worked inches away from each other in the small kitchen for a year. But they shared something in addition to the small space: a very strict rule that says you don’t date anyone with whom you work. They came together as a couple after they left the Rue and spent summer 2004 growing heirloom tomatoes that they sold to local restaurants. Matt then went to work in the kitchen of the Garden Restaurant in the Albright-Knox Art Gallery and Jen joined the kitchen crew at Left Bank.

They reunited as chefs in the kitchen at Brodo on Elmwood Avenue where they stayed until deciding they wanted a restaurant to call their own. The couple opened Amaryllis last fall at 675 Delaware Avenue in the lower level of the Westbrook Apartments.

Jen received her training in San Francisco at the California Culinary Academy, while Matt is a graduate of the East Coast’s Culinary Institute of America. Each has unique food interests: Matt likes to work with meats, with a particular knack for braising; Jen is into seafood and cold items. “But we share the same interests in simple, good food and top ingredients and seasonal items,” Stainrook explains.

Jen is in charge of Amaryllis’ kitchen five nights a week while her beau is “out front,” greeting customers and managing the restaurant. Both hope that before long they find someone to take on Matt’s responsibilities and soon will be sharing kitchen duties once again.

“I love cooking with her,” Harrington confides. “It’s wonderful. You’re with the person you love every day, all day. It’s great, as long as you can separate ‘home’ and ‘work.’”

One way they have been able to accomplish that, with a suggestion from Jen’s father, is through formal weekly “partners meetings” to discuss work matters without taking away from their homelife.

Amaryllis' Jennifer Stainrook and Matthew Harrington

(photo: Rose Mattrey)

Similarly, Roo Buckley says he and Karen “work well together,” to a large degree because they complement each other. “She’s definitely the organized one. She makes sure everything has its own space and is clean and neat. I’m kind of the creative mess at the stove.”

Karen Buckley learned her restaurant skills “on the job,” working in restaurants since she began waiting tables in Jerusalem at 15. Her husband is a graduate of New York City’s French Culinary Institute.

The couples’ first experience cooking together was preparing dinner parties for family and friends. They then took on large-scale catering, the highlight of that experience being when Karen worked as Roo’s sous chef as they oversaw food preparation for 7,000 people a day at the 2003 U.S. Senior Open golf tournament in Toledo. The first restaurant kitchen in which they worked together was at the Allen Street Hardware Café, where Roo did double duty while working at the Rue Franklin.

They opened The Coda at 350 Pennsylvania St. (this is the restaurant’s second reincarnation in a decade) last September. Except when Roo’s brother, Pascal, is on hand, the Buckleys handle all chef duties. Roo works the “hot line,” Karen the “cold line.”

“I love it,” Karen says of working with Roo, although she admits that there are times when she wants to be in charge, but defers to him as “the chef.” “We work very well together,” she adds. “It always surprises me how well we work together.” Roo admits: “We sometimes get on each other’s nerves. It’s part of being married.”

Roo’s commitment to exploring new possibilities with food is underscored by his passion for delicious “experimental” ice creams like those with flavors such as pea/Parmesan cheese, goat cheese and sun-dried tomato/chocolate.

Karen, he admits, provides the necessary balance for his creative vision. She’s the first (and probably only) person, for example, who’s ever going to question his desire to add garlic to strawberry ice cream.

“I’m always pushing the envelope,” Roo notes. “She brings my way-far-out ideas back down to Earth.”

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