Za Dude Pizza plus Kettlehead Brewing plus tunes
Josh Migliori and his partner Brett Murray have been working to redesign the entire menu for a chain of breweries, but first they were heavy-metal musicians.
“I grew up in the early 2000s,” Migliori remembered. “I was part of the metal and hardcore scene; I was playing a lot of screaming music. I was touring full-time in the late 2000s. And then I kind of retired from doing that in 2010, and got into the restaurant business around that time.”
After that, Migliori said, he worked in a number of restaurants, and in recent years he and Murray ran pop-up restaurants and cooked for events as Za Dude Pizza Co.
“We were basically like a food truck without the truck,” he said. “We would pop up at breweries throughout New Hampshire and Massachusetts and Maine for the past couple years, just working at festivals and catering.” Eventually, Migliori and Murray were approached by the owner of Kettlehead Brewing in Nashua to redesign the brewery chain’s food service.
“We opened up in [Kettlehead’s Nashua] location in April,” Migliori said. “We started as a pizza pop-up before we ended up here; we’re not just doing pizzas now. We have the ability with a full kitchen to take the crazy and wacky kid foods that we were doing and take that to the next step.”
In Kettlehead Nashua’s menu, that sense of fun is apparent. Migliori’s take on grilled shishito peppers, for instance, is called You Think You’re Hot Shishito?! They are served with a charred scallion and citrus vinaigrette and kimchi. The Party Animal Fries are covered in caramelized onions, queso and “gnarly sauce.” Other dishes make reference to classic rock bands. C.R.E.A.M. stands for “Corn Rules Everything Around Me”; it is a spread inspired by Mexican street corn, and includes a charred scallion lime crema, cotija cheese, cilantro and Taki dust.
The idea, Migliori said, has been to design a new menu from the ground up, being as innovative as possible but still serving pub food that is consistently delicious.
“We’re excited to keep putting out daily specials, collabs with the chef, and working on seasonal things,” he said. “We’re bringing in a lot of local farm produce, working with the local businesses and purveyors in the area, just trying to do really good, upscale pub food. We’re taking everyday bar food and taking it to the next level.”
Going hand in hand with Kettlehead’s food evolution, Migliori said, is its approach to live music. “Having the ability to have a venue of our own that is coinciding with a restaurant and a brewery, we really wanted to be able to provide something different that a lot of venues in New Hampshire don’t really do. We’re able to kind of take our skill and our menu that we’re doing right now in Nashua and tweak [the dishes we serve] during the day. We can now do slices during the late nights … or if they just want to grab some fries or a hot dog or a number of different late-night apps that we have on the menu. It’s really quick [for our customers]. Within a couple minutes they have their food and they’re able to go back out and enjoy the music and enjoy the night with their friends.”
’90s Pizza Party
What: A night of music with cover bands Dangerous Nights and A Blockbuster Summer featuring ’90s music, a special pizza menu and more, according to a post on Kettlehead’s Facebook page.
When: Saturday, Aug. 16, at 8 p.m.
Where: Kettlehead Brewing, 97 Main St., Nashua, 204-5718, kettleheadbrewing.com
Featured photo: Brookford Farm (courtesy).