Photo by Erin Nelson
Rob McDaniel, executive chef and owner of Helen restaurant in Birmingham, grills a ribeye steak at the McDaniels’ home June 1, 2023.
Rob McDaniel, owner and chef at Birmingham’s Helen restaurant, has always loved to cook.
While he doesn’t cook as much at the restaurant as he has previously in his career, he still enjoys the thrills of creating the perfect dish.
There is something special about the “instant gratification of giving somebody a plate of food,” McDaniel said.
He has come to appreciate the process from start to finish. Meeting farmers, getting to know them and seeing their product in person, even as far away as Bear Creek Farms in Tennessee, is enjoyable, he said. He also meets suppliers through other chefs, like Adam Evans of Automatic Seafood and Oysters, who introduced him to a mushroom supplier.
“The act of cooking itself is fun,” McDaniel said. “It’s fun to see science in action.”
Since he and his wife, Emily, opened Helen in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic in August 2020, he has fallen in love not just with cooking, but with being a business owner.
“You don’t know what it’s like to run a business you own until you do it,” McDaniel said.
At the couple’s Vestavia Hills home, the family likes to eat good food. Going out isn’t common. If the restaurant has freshly-acquired steak or seafood, it finds its start on the McDaniels’ grill, Rob said. His brain is always thinking of how to improve the restaurant and his own culinary skills.
“It never turns off,” McDaniel said.
He’ll go to the grocery store and smell different foods and think of different options for cooking them, finding inspiration in the smell of tomato vines in his fingers, for example.
He’ll test various dishes at home, and some Helen favorites, like a ragu that includes butternut squash and shiitake mushrooms, got their start at his home.
On Sundays, McDaniel said he’ll often put a “little more” into it and will cook a larger meal. The rest of the week, it depends on what time he gets home and what mood his girls are in, he said.
The couple opened the restaurant in the midst of a deadly pandemic, and while it was not ideal, to say the least, their faith was rewarded, they previously said in 2021.
“Birmingham was very welcoming, and we just took it one day at a time,” McDaniel said.
The menu at Helen uses fresh, seasonal ingredients from area farmers and other vendors.
It offers a large selection of vegetables as well as meats, seafood and non-traditional sides.
After decades in the restaurant business, McDaniel intentionally set up the restaurant where he did not have to necessarily be at Helen at night, so he could spend time with his family.
McDaniel made his first foray into the culinary world at Hot and Hot Fish Club, Jim N’ Nick’s Bar-B-Que and other restaurants after attending culinary school in Vermont. In 2009, he opened SpringHouse on Lake Logan Martin and stayed there until the end of 2019.
Around that time, McDaniel began to feel unhappy. Despite the success of the restaurant, he knew a change was needed. He opened his Bible one day to Deuteronomy 1:6, which recalls God telling the people of Israel they have “stayed on this mountain long enough.”
While the McDaniels may not have been on a mountain, Rob said he knew it was time to move on.
His mother told him that God would test his faith during this next move, which eventually turned into opening Helen. A few months later, the world shut down with COVID-19.
The couple held onto their faith and followed through with construction, which began in February 2020. They eventually opened in August 2020.
As much as he loves to cook, McDaniel knows he isn’t alone at the restaurant, freeing him up for family time.
“We have an amazing, amazing staff,” McDaniel said. “We try to over-communicate and communicate often.”
Growing as a business owner, McDaniel said he has learned not to get comfortable and to push himself.
“Don’t be scared to make mistakes,” McDaniel said. “I want to keep myself out of that comfort zone.”
The goal is for Helen to run sustainably and to allow employees to have time to “experiment,” McDaniel said. “I love to be involved in that process.”
One of his favorite dishes is the vegetable plate, which is “everything in summer you want on a plate.” As far as most popular, the tomato pie at Helen, which is “like a deep-dish pizza,” remains a favorite. Tomatoes are cooked and then crusted with pimento cheese. It’s a dish that is “good for all three meals,” McDaniel said.
It’s not uncommon for McDaniel to revisit his old Moleskine notebooks and ask, “What was I thinking?” when he comes upon a not-so-great idea. But, it’s an opportunity to retool and tweak those ideas, and to reinforce the idea that at some point, you just “have to start cooking things,” he said.
The Vestavia community has been welcoming as well, he said. The couple often joked that “nobody was taking applications for new friends” when they moved in the middle of the pandemic, but that has certainly changed now. With family in the area as well, the dinner table is often full.
And the area is certainly becoming a popular place to eat, he said.
“I think Birmingham, as far as a food city, is on the verge of blowing up,” McDaniel said. “Not just the city itself, but Homewood, Vestavia Hills, the suburbs.”
