Chefs Jennifer Carroll and Billy Riddle have left Spice Finch and are setting a new course for life

Life throws you unexpected curves. For chefs Jennifer Carroll and Billy Riddle, the first was the pandemic, which upended their Center City restaurant, Spice Finch, and all but idled their catering business, Carroll Couture Cuisine.

The next was Riddle’s health issues. Riddle, 36, last year was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis, an inflammatory bowel disease that had left him unable to work demanding hours in the kitchen. Carroll, 48, who shot to fame in 2009 as the hard-edged chef from Northeast Philadelphia on the Top Chef series, stepped away from Spice Finch entirely to join her partner of 10 years.

Much of 2022 was a blur of doctor’s offices, medical testing, treatments, and uncertainty. “We had to change so many things in our life in order to make him better,” Carroll said. “He wasn’t looking so great for a couple of months.”

Now, rather than cook together at Spice Finch, or at weddings, or at the massive pop-up dinners they used to conduct, they work together from their Kensington loft, hosting small private dinners, shooting videos for their subscribers, selling their own spices, doing research-and-development for food companies, and hosting private virtual group-cooking classes.

The less-frenetic pace is “keeping everything in check,” said Carroll, who nearly 20 years ago was a top lieutenant for chef Eric Ripert at New York’s Le Bernardin before she returned to Philadelphia to open 10 Arts at the Ritz-Carlton with him in 2008. “We’re alleviating stress and choosing capacity over capability and really prioritizing — besides health — doing the things that we love to do and that fulfill us.”

Riddle, who grew up in Rising Sun, Md., and studied culinary at the Art Institute of Philadelphia, came up through some of the top kitchens in Philadelphia, including Lacroix, Ela, and Townsend, and then — after he and Carroll relocated to Washington, D.C. — with chef Michael Isabella’s group.

Riddle said he had noticed discomfort with his digestion in late 2021. In May 2022, he decided to seek medical treatment after hearing a podcast by chef Eli Kulp with guests chef Jim Burke and his wife, Kristina Burke, about their battles with cancer. (Jim Burke, chef at Wm. Mulherin’s Sons, died of the disease last August.)

“I wasn’t thinking that I had cancer, but something was just not right,” Riddle said. He recalled thinking, “I shouldn’t avoid this, and I need to do something about this.”

The doctors’ advice was vague, confusing, even contradictory, Riddle said. “I would hit this wall every single time.” As he suffered, the couple’s chef friends wanted to step up, Carroll said. “Everyone’s like, ‘What can we make?’ ‘What can we bring?’ And I said, ‘Here’s the list of everything that he can’t have.’ Literally everyone’s reaction is like, ‘What the hell is left?’”

Riddle said his list of foods ebbs and flows. He avoids red meat and pork, and most raw vegetables.

Because everyone’s case is different, “we talked to so many people for answers,” Carroll said. “It’s really nice to talk about things because it’s not a sexy disease. As soon as you start talking about it, it’s crazy how many people that we know are like, ‘Oh, I have this,’ or ‘I have something like this,’ or ‘My mom has it.’”

Riddle’s frustration mounted. “I never had that security of understanding what I could face,” he said. “The doctors that I had don’t know what it is to live through this.” During one flare-up, he said, “it felt like Freddy Krueger was with me the entire time.”

Then Riddle turned toward functional medicine, an alternate approach, through nutritionist Dane Johnson and CrohnsColitisLifestyle. Although Riddle gets conventional medical care, he also takes probiotics, does meditation and stretching.

Most important, he is destressing. “I would wear stress on my sleeves, especially in the kitchen,” Riddle said. “I love what I do. I love cooking for people, but we chefs push ourselves very hard sometimes. I’m still learning how to manage that and find some calmness in my life, but I’m way better off than I was last year.”

During the pandemic, the longtime couple started building a mini-media empire on Patreon, an online platform where Carroll’s subscribers pay up to $35 a month for videos, recipes, and one-on-one video chats. Riddle, who taught himself video production, set up a studio with a small kitchen separate from the couple’s.

It has been a boon “because being able to work from home and choosing the hours that we want to work is important,” Carroll said.

As Riddle was stuck on his health roller coaster, Carroll said, “we had the flexibility of saying, ‘I’m not feeling 100%’ or ‘we have three doctor’s appointments today.’ We have the flexibility to choose when we’re working and lay down and take the break that we need to do. The restaurant world doesn’t give you that. Of course, we still have deadlines that need to be fulfilled.”

Riddle also started his own Patreon program called Chill Bill’s Cooking. “That’s been good because we’ve found ways for him to become re-inspired and to learn about new ingredients and new ways to cook things that we haven’t done in the past,” Carroll said.

The couple’s small team can fill in for Riddle. “Our team is a lot less stressful to deal with because we understand each other, as opposed to the labor issues that restaurants have to deal with,” Carroll said.

The less-frenetic pace has also allowed Carroll to work more with the Sisterly Love Collective, a group that champions women in hospitality professions.

Downsizing also has had one other benefit. “It makes the connection with people, honestly, a lot nicer,” Carroll. “Instead of meeting people at the restaurant and doing a simple ‘hello’ and a table check-in, it’s developing a deeper connection.”

“When you’re working in a restaurant, that’s your life, right?” Carroll said. “You give up weekends and parties and family and all of that because the restaurant always comes first. Well, now we’re alleviating stress and choosing capacity over capability and really prioritizing. Besides for health, we’re doing the things that we love to do and that we’re able to do and things that fulfill us.”