Peter McCarthy - EVOO, Cambridge and Za, Arlington

Peter McCarthy is a veteran lead chef of Kids Cooking Green dinners, having put lobster bisque on the menu, among other dishes, for a KCG spring dinner. He is known in the Boston/Cambridge area for his restaurants, including EVOO (Extra Virgin Olive Oil), which serves eclectic New American cuisine including grass-fed beef tenderloin and butternut squash-sweet corn chowder. Ingredients are locally sourced from Drumlin Farm in Lincoln, Verrill Farm and Pete & Jen’s Backyard Birds, both in Concord and Kimball Fruit Farm in Pepperell, among others.

McCarthy and his wife Colleen, opened EVOO in 1998, and moved it to Kendall Square in 2010. He left a position as Executive Chef at the Bostonian Hotel where he had worked upon graduation from culinary school, starting as a breakfast cook and working his way up. As he puts it, he left the Bostonian “to pursue his dream of opening his own restaurant.”

And he wasn’t done with EVOO. In 2004, he opened Za (short for pizza, of course!) in Arlington, where he’s played with pizza recipes, including a mac ‘n cheese version and a fresh take on salads (they look almost like short towers). A second Za is next to EVOO.

EVOO is at 350 3rd St., Kendall Square, Cambridge (www.evoorestaurant.com) and Za is at 138 Mass. Ave., Arlington (www.zarestaurant.com)