Background: from waiting tables at the original TGIF to chef at Lindey’s Restaurant and Bar

Education: California Culinary Academy

Hometown: Columbus

Favorite food city: Rome

On having his name on the door: There’s more pressure to be here and be involved all the time. The name was almost like a default choice. At one point, I was trying to come up with a name and it was really hard for me. I was pitching to one of my high school friends “Café Testarossa” and he goes, “Oh Kent, they’ll think you named it after a male hormone.” It was actually the Ferrari, but that idea was shut down. It came down to the end and we went with Rigsby’s Cuisine Volatile. But my focus was the “Volatile,” because my thing was that the kitchen was ever changing and explosive to a certain extent – spicy flavors and everything.

On being a Short North pioneer: Not long after we opened, Columbus Monthly published a cartoon with two bums sitting on the sidewalk underneath the window with our logo on it, and it said, “There goes panhandling down here. Everybody has credit cards now.” Alluding to the fact that all this gentrification was happening down here. I remember working in the kitchen one night – this is in the first months the restaurant was open – and it was a really busy night, a full house, and this crazy guy comes in the door, really haggard and wild-eyed, and started walking through the dining room, yelling, “I am the son of Jehovah! I am the son of Jehovah!” I come out of the kitchen and I [mimes tapping someone on the shoulder] say, “Could you come and sit with me for a second?” And the staff is looking at me, and I say over my shoulder, “Call 911.” I sat down with him at the family table and he’s yelling, “I am the son of Jehovah and you’re all going to die!” And I replied, “Well you know, we are all going to die and I am a son of Jehovah, too.” I was just engaging him until the police came and took him away. I was just young and sort of stupid, I guess, but I had no choice. I don’t know if I could do the same thing today.

On long-running menu item capellini Natasha: I’d get bored now and then and take it off the menu. There’d be rebellion and I’d put it back on the menu. So, in my old age, I’ve decided why fight it and just give people what they want. It was a dish that I had in Toronto, with the vodka cream sauce. I decided to replicate it, but make it my own with the pepper vodka to make it spicy. It’s comfort food, you know, rich cream and vodka with a just little kick in spice, and then the smoked salmon is very popular. It’s just a different type of noodle dish that is unique. As people tried it and it caught on, it really stuck with them. Some people rave about it, they come here just to have that.

On art and food: Art is an intrinsic part of culture; I think good art and sculpture and painting and photography make people aware of their cultural surroundings and heritage. Art really pushes different buttons and it’s really important for a culture to have an art focus. In this country, it’s getting more and more scary to a certain extent where all we’re worried about is football and reality programs. I think fine dining, or good dining, is an artform itself, and not just some pretty-designed plate. It really is a holistic cultural approach that involves the people that grow the produce, raise the animals and then the people that deliver it, and then the people that make it.