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“I really believed fine dining and Jasper’s was all about me,” said Jasper White, referring to the peak of his fame as chef and owner of Jasper’s in the eighties.
He denies being a control freak, but without much conviction. Jasper White was one of the “few” who started fine dining, as we now know it in Boston. He shot to national prominence with the extraordinary success of Jasper’s. Opening in 1980, Jasper’s was a white linen restaurant that at first stunned the dining public with its elegant French-style cooking and then became extraordinarily popular as the new wave of French-based American dining took hold of a nation tired of meatloaf and burgers. Boston diners were literally hungry for the new kind of experience Jasper’s had to offer. For eight years in the eighties Jasper White watched over his culinary masterpiece with a fanatical attention to detail and intensity that only a true control freak can muster.
Consequently this fame came with a personal cost. He ultimately became tired of the day-in day-out effort of running an organization built around him and him alone. When his lease came up for renewal Jasper amazed his fans by walking away from his restaurant. “I felt that in fine dining I had accomplished everything I had set out to achieve in my career,” Jasper muses. “I took a break, wrote cookbooks and consulted with Legal Sea Foods and others companies.” For most people, it would be hard to believe this was not some kind of excuse, but not Jasper. He really was king of the fine dining world and did literally stop while he was at the very top of his game.
After a couple of years drifting around in culinary no mans land, his entrepreneurial spirit took hold again and Summer Shack was born. This time his mission was to be a brand, a company and not a personal crusade.
The first Summer Shack opened its doors seven years ago in Cambridge. If you have never been to one, think beach side casual on LSD with a hint of Southern life style and you might get an idea. The colors and decor are a visual blast; tables covered in brown paper, Naugahyde covered booths, bits of fishing gear and lobster steamers in the dining area. Here good honest seafood is served at realistic prices. The atmosphere is as relaxed as a summer’s day and you just can’t help but smile at the cartoon figures on the wall or the actual “shack” that is the reception area.
“Summer Shack is really who I am,” he remembers. “I grew up on the Jersey shore and went to high school with Bruce Springsteen.” He talks about winding up in New England as a young man and living by the ocean in Rhode Island. “I have always just loved the pure flavor of things that come out of the ocean.” He seems more animated as this thought turns into words, “they really don’t need a lot of messing with.” Such a change from the complex and over-wrought dishes of Jasper’s days.
“I have always just loved the pure flavor of things that come out of the ocean...”
“In terms of local fisheries I am very worried. It’s the most complicated situation I have ever looked at.” This about the state of the seafood industry here in New England. “It’s so hard for me to say anything smart about it,” he continues. “I have seen both sides of it. I care about the families of fishermen in Gloucester, New Bedford and up and down the coast.” He worries about conservation, but struggles with the conflicting reports about the state of local cod and lobsters. Summer Shack buys locally when it can and supports the environmental movement by trying to act responsibly. It says something about the man that he obviously cares about the New England small boat fishing fleet. Yet his company’s own buying power and needs push them to work with vast global fishing companies.
There are now four Summer Shacks and Jasper has branched out into the seafood business with his own seafood company. With over twenty million dollars in sales and buying four million dollars of seafood each year, starting a seafood company gave him control over the quality of the product that he was buying.
I finished our interview by asking him about the future. “At this point I would not say that I would never go back to fine dining,” said Jasper. I think I saw a twinkle in his eye. Maybe the maestro is hungry for another chance at the adulation that comes from running a shrine to great cuisine. Or maybe “food is love,” the motto of Summer Shack, says it all. He is wiser now and perhaps more balanced in his life. Other things, his family, staff and his customers seems more important than they did when the young Jasper White watched over every plate at Jasper’s and believed he was “fine dining”.
Read more about Jasper White's Summer Shack at their website www.summershackrestaurant.com
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Industry Luminaries 
