Showtime: Culinary Students Run Clementine Pop-Up

Running a restaurant pop-up is all about beating the clock. Food is a precision sport, and pop-ups require more exactitude than usual. Three JWU culinary juniors — Nathaniel Siple '25, Jared Duckro '26 and Wyatt Clopton '26 — learned this firsthand when they ran a pop-up at Clementine, a modern cocktail bar in downtown Providence.

JWU has led a few pop-ups at Clementine, which doesn’t have an in-house chef but benefits from the culinary flexibility afforded by hosting regular pop-ups. Three College of Food Innovation & Technology (CFIT) faculty members — Matthew Britt, William Lendway and Jaime Schick — conceptualized a dinner last summer.

“We all wanted to do something cool. There’s no doubt that we wanted to over-achieve, if possible.”

The December 2024 pop-up was intended to be a capstone-level dinner, much like the student-led Chef’s Tables that take place on campus. But the timing during finals and a flurry of high-intensity culinary labs meant that several seniors passed on doing the dinner.

Knowing that she needed to secure a team quickly, Assistant Professor Vanessa Ali ’15, ’19 MAT reached out to Jared, who had taken a few of her classes, to ask if he would be interested. Jared immediately asked Wyatt and Brady, his roommates. But Brady was just about to get surgery, so Nate stepped in as the third chef. Thanksgiving break was about to start. The trio needed to settle on a menu — and fast.

Crunch Time

With Thanksgiving break falling squarely in the middle of their planning and execution time, they had only four days to get ready for prime time. And not four full days, either — they were forced to fit their practice times around their lab schedules and outside work. They needed to make every minute count.

Despite the time crunch, the trio was adamant about stretching their skills and really bringing their A-game. After some necessary menu tweaks due to sourcing

difficulties, they settled on three dishes:

• Tuna Crudo with smoked blood orange dashi, pickled daikon and kumquat
• Dry Aged Duck with late-fall mushrooms, chou farci, rutabaga puree and pomegranate
• Soy Milk Sorbet with spiced kataifi (shredded phyllo) and fermented persimmon

Although each chef focused primarily on one course, they all worked together to improve and refine the dishes as a whole.

‘Respect the Food’

All three student chefs received a massive amount of support from JWU, from lab spaces and ingredients to mentorship. The trio used multiple lab spaces within the Cuisinart Center for Culinary Excellence (CCCE), but spent most of their time in 417, the capstone lab primarily used by senior-level students.

“Every day after we got back, we were pretty much prepping,” Nate explained. Chefs Wyatt Maguire, Matthew Britt and Rizwan Ahmed offered their support throughout the process — in particular, making sure that the students didn’t get stuck on the technical aspects of completing their dishes. “They walked us through the whole process of the stress that comes along with developing the menu and having to get everything together in such a short period of time,” said Jared. “And just being sure we were organized and staying on top of our work.”

Maguire showed the team how to break down the five whole ducks they received, as well as how to use the dry ager in 417. “He showed us the first one,” explained Jared. “And then, Nate and I just sat there breaking down ducks, just checking in on each other. ‘Does this look right to you?’”

Their faculty mentors also emphasized the need for clean uniformity in their dishes: “You’ve got to make it look good every step of the way,” said Nate. “Ahmed and McGuire both are very big on consistency on all steps, and from the start to the end, it all has to be handled with care,” explained Jared. “No cheating the system.” “Respect the food,” concluded Nate.

Showtime!

Transitioning from the relative comfort of JWU’s facilities to Clementine’s workspaces needed to happen seamlessly — “all hands on deck,” quipped Jared. Luckily, explained Nate, “Clementine gave us free reign in their space.”

Clementine’s compact dining room is centered around a u-shaped bar with seating. The kitchen space is equally small — roughly 10’ x 10’ — and the team needed to make room for plating. There was a small but useful downstairs space where they set up a workstation. Chef Britt came through with a stainless-steel table that the trio assembled roughly 20 minutes before service.

“You’ve got to make it look good every step of the way. From the start to the end, it all has to be handled with care.”

The group knew they needed to be prepared in advance, so they brought cooked or pre-mixed items (like the prepped duck) with them. Each team member focused on their primary dish, but they all collaborated to keep things moving. Wyatt made good use of the walk-in and chest freezer downstairs to keep the sorbet and dessert plates ice-cold; the team did a lot of running up and down the stairs to deliver perfectly chilled desserts to their guests.

Clementine booked two full seatings, the first of which was filled out with students and JWU colleagues. Having friendly faces in the crowd helped the trio get into a good groove that they carried through to the second seating.

‘We Wanted to Do Something Cool’

All three student chefs agreed that the compressed timeline and extra pressure benefited their menu.

“We all wanted to do something cool,” explained Jared. “There’s no doubt in our minds that we wanted to over-achieve, if possible.”

“I feel like we did a pretty good job and I wouldn't have changed very much. … Maybe the pressure made us lock in a little more,” said Nate.

The crew also took Chef Britt’s advice to heart to be as minimal as possible. “We took only one speed rack, one rolling rack and that was it,” said Jared. They used as little equipment as possible on site. “We only took what we needed, nothing extra — and that definitely helped us a lot.”

And at the end of the night, there was very little waste. Noted Wyatt, “We were very, very organized and I think that took a big weight off our shoulders.”

For all three, the night was a unique and fun way to put their skills to the test. Wyatt called it “a whole different experience for students.” “We have experiential learning and internships, but [the Clementine pop-up] is kind of in-between,” explained Nate. “It’s like the school was guiding us, but we got to do it on our own through the experience of being in the real world and making a menu for paying guests.”

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Clementine photos by Matthew Britt and Eli Velasquez.