| Stanley James Nicas, the owner and
executive chef of the Castle Restaurant. Stanley
was born on May 29, 1923, in Milford, Mass., the son of
Dimitrius and Panagio (Natsis) Nikas. Less than a year
later, Stanley's family returned to Northern Epirus, Greece,
to care for his grandmother. He grew up there, working in
his father's general store and as an apprentice chef. In
1939, Italians invaded the region at the start of World War
II and the U.S. instructed its citizens to return home. As
the only male U.S. citizen in his family, 15-year-old
Stanley boarded the SS Rex for New York alone, armed with
just $20 and a few English words.
Stanley met an uncle in Stoughton, Mass., and spent
several years working in area restaurants. After Pearl
Harbor, Stanley enlisted in the U.S. Navy and served on the
U.S.S. Bunker Hill CV-17, an aircraft carrier stationed in
the Pacific Ocean, from 1942 through 1945, rising the ranks
to Boatswain's Mate Second Class. While at sea, he fought in
23 major engagements as a gunner on the Mount Five gun
station, including in the Battle of Okinawa in May 1945 when
two Japanese kamikazes struck his ship in less than 30
seconds, killing more than 400 of his shipmates. An
explosion during that battle injured Stanley and knocked him
into the Pacific, where he was rescued. After the war,
Stanley played for the U.S. military soccer team in South
America on a mission to promote good will.
In 1946,
he returned to Worcester and purchased the White House
Restaurant on Park Avenue Extension. Shortly after, at a
church Thanksgiving dance, he asked a pretty Greek girl to
dance. She was Helen Kotseas, the oldest of six sisters who
helped run her father's produce-delivery business. They wed
in 1949.
Later that year, the couple bought a
restaurant and dairy bar called the Castle on the shores of
Lake Sargent in Leicester. They later built a pizzeria next
door. By the mid-1960s, Stanley and Helen had a successful
business and three children, but when Worcester began
tearing down old buildings, including the public library and
YWCA, they decided to build a real castle. Stanley had the
buildings' immense stones delivered to him, and over the
next several years, the Nicas family built by hand a
striking stone castle, complete with moat, on Route 9 in
Leicester. The Castle Restaurant was born and, for the next
50 years, became one of the region's most legendary
fine-dining destinations.
For more than 65 years,
Stanley and Helen worked long hours together building a life
for themselves and their families, both in the U.S. and
Europe. The restaurant was a true family business, with
their son Jim running the dining room, Evangeline handling
the finances, and John leading the kitchen. Meanwhile, the
Castle became hugely popular, winning national culinary and
wine awards.
Stanley believed strongly in hard work
and in sharing his knowledge with the next generation. He
often said he always wanted to be a schoolteacher; he
instead ended up as a teacher in the kitchen. He began an
esteemed apprenticeship program at the Castle in 1952 and
worked with both the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde
Park, N.Y., and Johnson & Wales University in Providence,
R.I., for over 40 years.
Stanley helped found the
Distinguished Visiting Chef program at Johnson & Wales in
1979 and then chaired the program until his death, teaching
cooking demonstrations alongside more than 170 of the
world's best chefs. Johnson & Wales awarded him an honorary
doctorate degree in 1979 and named him a distinguished
visiting chef in 1982. The Culinary Institute of America
named him Chef of the Year in 1980.
Stanley became a
nationally known chef, cooking for several U.S. presidents
and coaching the U.S. team in the international Culinary
Olympics. He was a member of the American Academy of Chefs,
the American Culinary Federation, the International Wine and
Food Society, and many other esteemed culinary
organizations. He served as the grand commander of the
Honorable Order of the Golden Toque, the grand bailli of La
Confrérie de la Chaîne des Rôtisseurs, and the national
chairman and president of the Les Amis d'Escoffier Society.
He was a 32nd degree Mason and a proud member of the
Veterans of Foreign Wars Post in Rochdale.
Stanley
was an avid skier, a world traveler, and a student of
history. He worked tirelessly all his life, on his feet in
the Castle kitchen until his death. Cooking was his passion,
but his true love was his family. In his later years, he
looked forward to summers in Cape Cod, where he would spend
hours telling stories to his grandchildren.
Throughout his life, Stanley said he was lucky. He was lucky
to be born in the U.S. and he was lucky to be the only one
of 11 children to have the opportunity to return to America.
He was luckier still, he'd say, to have survived World War
II, when his ship buried more men at sea than any other. And
he was the luckiest, he knew, when he met his life partner,
Helen.
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