When new restaurants go high, Ed Davis goes low “brow.” He once was the chef de cuisine at Benjamin Sukle’s lauded birch and Oberlin restaurants, and now he owns his own business – a really “damn, delicious” sandwich shop – in Downcity called Debbie’s. Named after his mom, the homey lunch and dinner spot serves hoagies and hot dogs with farm-sourced sides and salads that just might upstage the main characters.
Davis got his start in Providence’s burgeoning culinary scene at Farmstead in Wayland Square under chef Matthew Jennings, alongside Ben Sukle. He moved on to the former beloved neighborhood hang Cook & Brown, where he first met his partner Jen Davis, who has been the Beverage Director at the Eddy for over a decade. While both places no longer exist, their fresh-from-the-farm influence is evident in some of the bright and beautiful salads and sandwiches that Davis now serves at Debbie’s. He also previously served as sous chef at the Dorrance, before birch and Oberlin, and then moved over to running Durk’s Bar-B-Q before he made the decision to go out on his own.
Whether it’s upscale or simpler, he says the steadfast work ethic remains the same across the table. “To be honest, cooking is hard if you’re trying to do it well; so whether it’s ‘high end’ or casual, you’re gonna be working your ass off, if you want it to be good,” he says. “I think the whole casual-to-high-end spectrum is extremely subjective anyways.”…