Around 5:30 p.m. on a recent Monday, Mike Wiley was busy in the kitchen of his Cape Elizabeth home.

The James Beard award-winning chef and former partner of the prominent Portland-based restaurant company Big Tree Hospitality was putting the finishing touches on dinner for his No. 1 fan these days: his 3-year-old son, Sam.

With Sam seated at the dining room table, Wiley served the smiling boy a pan-charred quesadilla with black beans and Cabot Seriously Sharp cheddar, and a bowl of homemade tomato soup with oregano, a touch of crème fraîche and a drizzle of extra-virgin olive oil – just how Sam likes it.

The fact that it’s not a special occasion – just a regular dinner Wiley whips up for his son each night – is part of what makes the scene noteworthy. Because this is the life that Wiley, 41, chose for Sam and his wife, Abby Farnham, when he left his impressive kitchen career behind at the end of 2021 to be a stay-at-home dad.

Leaving Big Tree to raise his son was among the most momentous decisions of Wiley’s life. In the eight years preceding the pandemic, Wiley had become a star in the culinary world, not just in Portland, but nationally.

Wiley doesn’t intend to stay out of the workforce for good, though he’s also not entertaining any thoughts of returning to restaurants. But right now, before Sam starts school, he said he wants to take advantage of “a period of time where I can step away (from my career) and be Mr. Laundry and Captain Kitchen Responsibilities, and a dad who’s around a little bit more. It feels important to us to be with him as much as we can right now.”

“Mike takes it day by day, and I really admire that,” Farnham said. “He’s really trying to be present with Sam, giving him some of the most valuable things he can give him: time and attention.”

RESTAURANT LIFE LOST LUSTER

In 2012, Wiley and his Big Tree partners, Arlin Smith and Andrew Taylor – who met two years earlier while working under chef Rob Evans at Hugo’s – bought Hugo’s and opened Eventide Oyster Co., setting themselves on course for years of major accolades and awards.

“We were kind of busier than we knew what to do with, and it was this rocket ship ride of getting great reviews and being well received,” recalled Wiley, who also opened The Honey Paw with his Big Tree partners in 2015 on the same Middle Street block as the company’s other two restaurants. “It was incredible amounts of hard work and practically living at the restaurants, but it really was the dream.”

For the first five years, he regularly put in 80-hour weeks. He recalled with a grimace the times he had to work until 2 a.m., then be right back in the kitchen at 8 a.m. for another day. Yet the hard work paid major dividends. In 2017, Wiley and Taylor won the James Beard Foundation award for Best Chef: Northeast, their third nomination in the category.

Big Tree continued to expand, opening an Eventide in Boston and launching a catering arm of the operation out of a Biddeford commissary kitchen as well. With more than 200 staffers to share the company workload by 2019, Wiley was able to taper back – somewhat – to 60 or 70 hours a week, though he found himself doing administrative duties much more often than the hands-on work, like training kitchen staff, that he truly enjoyed.

Wiley and Farnham have been together since 2014, meeting at Eventide, where she was a server at the time. He credits her for “never putting lots of expectations on me” or pressuring him to work less. Nonetheless, when Sam was born in May 2020, just months after the pandemic struck, Wiley knew he was approaching a crossroads.

“I felt really uncomfortable with the idea of being out in the world and trying to keep the business going while God only knows if I’m going to get sick, get Abby sick or if there’d be some terrifying ramifications for Sam,” Wiley said. After two weeks of paternity leave, he returned to work to find the intensity ratcheted up more than ever.

“It was putting out fires left, right and center. We felt this big responsibility (to staff) to keep the lights on and not let all those people down,” Wiley said. “It felt really stressful to be a business owner while still following all the ever-changing COVID protocols.

“The job that was becoming harder and harder for me personally to get excited about had taken on this whole other arm of responsibilities that were entirely out of my depth, and I knew to be incredibly important,” Wiley continued.

Compounding these issues were the staff shortages that came about as restaurant workers left the industry in droves at the outset of the pandemic. Wiley and Taylor had to man the line again at Eventide – work Wiley hadn’t performed for several years.

“So it was kind of like time travel, back to the 80-hour weeks. It all lost its luster for me,” Wiley said. “It’s not uncommon for passionate cooks to feel that wane a little bit. And I had such a compelling reason to be at home in Sam. It became increasingly clear to me that I wasn’t going to be able to spend as much time as I wanted with him. (Leaving to be a stay-at-home dad) began to feel like the obvious way forward.”

MET WITH ADMIRATION, ENVY AND RAISED EYEBROWS

In 2021, Wiley and Farnham were concerned whether such a move would be financially viable. Wiley said his Big Tree salary was “the lion’s share” of the couple’s income, though he recalled Farnham being “very supportive” when he first told her he wanted to stay at home with Sam.

“At first, I actually thought it seemed too good to be true,” Farnham said. “But I felt so grateful it was something he wanted to do with his time, grateful that kind of move would make him happy. I can’t think of anything more important than him spending more time with Sam.”

The fact that Farnham’s job as assistant director of policy and research at Maine Farmland Trust provided health care coverage for the young family helped them gain confidence in the plan. The couple had also been able to build ample savings over the years, aided in part by Wiley having eaten practically all of his meals on Middle Street for years. Moreover, his Big Tree partners bought out his share in the company; he declined to say for how much.

In September 2021, Wiley met with Taylor and Smith to let them know he’d be leaving.

“We were sad, but we were understanding. We were also jealous of him, in some ways,” said Taylor, who has four children, though he said it’s not feasible for him to make a similar move. “It’d been a difficult stretch. I don’t blame him for wanting to get out.”

“When he chose to leave, COVID was pretty intense to the business and all of us personally,” Smith said. “I’d imagine he weighed all that out. A lot of time and thought went into that decision, and I was happy he was able to make that decision for him and his family.”

Evans said Wiley’s move makes perfect sense to him and Nancy Pugh, his wife and former partner in Hugo’s and current partner at Duckfat, just down the block on Middle Street block.

“We understand, because we made a similar move when we sold Hugo’s. We owned it for 12 years, and it was at its peak of success, and we just wanted a lifestyle change. We didn’t want to be inside all the time, toiling.

“The love and passion for the work can completely take up your whole life,” Evans added. “Twelve-hour days aren’t enough time to get stuff done. I admire his decision.”

Wiley said he notices a generational divide on the topic from time to time.

“When I’m talking to someone from an older generation about stepping away from work and not having a five-year plan, sometimes that is met with raised eyebrows or suspicious sidelong gazes. In our culture, if child responsibilities get ratcheted up, it’s just been the American way that the woman takes a step back and stays at home,” Wiley said. “But for the most part, it’s not as strange as it used to be. You can be a man and step away from work, and not do everything that 1950s American thinking wants you to do.”

And while he’s usually the only dad at story time at the library or swim lessons at the pool, Wiley said if he meets people at a gathering with friends and tells them about his situation, they respond appreciatively.

“ ‘Cool, good for you,’ tumbles out of people’s mouths more often than not,” he said.

“We’re really privileged and lucky to be in a position to make this decision,” Farnham said. “Sam is thriving, and their bond is so strong.”

FORGING A BOND WITH HIS SON

Wiley’s close bond with his son has been forged by countless hours of one-on-one time over the last 18 months, though it took Wiley some time to adjust to his new role.

For the first few months, Wiley would wake everyday and – out of both habit and genuine concern – think immediately about the Big Tree restaurants and the challenges his former partners and managers might be facing.

“It was weird,” he said. “There was also a period of heavy napping, where I think my body was powering down. Cooks are adrenaline junkies, and my body was winding down like an overwound clock.”

But soon enough, life as a full-time parent developed its own kind of rhythm. Sam usually springs from his crib before 6 a.m., ready for a big breakfast – the adventurous young eater’s favorite meal – which can be anything from a peanut butter and jelly sandwich to miso and butter spread on toast, a three-egg cheese omelette, or yogurt with maple syrup.

“Lately, he’s been asking for ‘too much maple syrup,’ just so we’re clear on portion size,” Wiley said.

After breakfast, on to some reading time. Sam loved “Where the Wild Things Are,” until it got a little too scary for him, but the “Kalamata’s Kitchen” book featuring Portland chef Ilma Lopez remains a go-to. “We’ve read that one hundreds of times,” Wiley said.

Then outside for a little play time, whether it’s in Sam’s “mud kitchen” in the backyard – outfitted with a ladle, spatula and springform pan for baking mud pies – or riding his balance bike in circles in the driveway while Dad follows on his mountain bike, both of them sporting matching lime green helmets.

Then it’s time for an outing, maybe to look at bulldozers and forklifts at a construction site, or to sit on a tractor at Cape Elizabeth’s Green Spark Farm. The duo also take walks in the Robinson Woods Preserve, or on Higgins or Crescent Beach. “He is totally unfazed by the frigid waters of the North Atlantic,” Wiley said. “He’s simply concerned with being in constant motion like a shark.”

Farnham works mostly from home, and having her husband on child care duty allows her to conduct her business with fewer interruptions. “When Sam comes screaming toward the room naked while she’s on a Zoom call, I can sprint after him and try to catch him before he breaks the threshold,” Wiley said.

Sam still goes to day care a few times a week, which his parents continue for the sake of his socialization, but even picking Sam up from the facility is a treat that Wiley couldn’t pull off if he were still working. Still, Wiley recognizes the luxury of his occasional reprieves.

“I’m totally impressed by real stay-at-home parents who don’t have day care or who have more than just one child. That is absolutely heroic; I don’t know how they do it,” he said.

As dinner approaches, it’s back in the kitchen for Wiley. But it’s also a chance to train Sam on, for instance, making sushi rice cakes, preparing granola or pinto and black beans, and producing homemade pasta with a cavatelli maker.

“He really likes making the pasta,” Wiley said. “He’ll push me away if I’m crowding him while he’s using the cavatelli maker.”

And as in every good kitchen, there’s good music, chosen by the percussion-adoring toddler. While Wiley pulled together Sam’s quesadilla and tomato soup, the boy had insisted on hearing Paul Simon’s “Obvious Child,” a drum-heavy favorite that Sam accompanies by banging on his tambourine.

“There are days when we’ll listen to that song 15 times,” Wiley said with a barely discernible eye roll.

Wiley’s new life came with its challenges, to be sure.

“It sometimes got a little repetitive or isolating in the first year when it’s just you and a 2-year-old,” Wiley said. “I went from feeling like the mayor of a small town at Big Tree to having a much smaller constituency here.

“I haven’t yet found a solution for replacing that social aspect of my life at work,” he continued. “I’m really excited now to go to a friend’s house for a barbecue than I would have been before. Opportunities for social engagement are much more appealing to me now.”

Wiley misses teaching cooks and being around people who are intensely passionate about food. He takes cookbooks out from the library to type recipes into his personal database.

“I definitely miss restaurants and seeing my colleagues,” Wiley said. “But that career demands everything.”

While he doesn’t expect to return to restaurant work, he said he might eventually launch a food business centered around one labor-intensive ingredient, like miso or natto (fermented whole soybeans).

“I really like fermenting things and food products that take a lot of time to produce,” he said.

“I know he’s destined for great things,” said Smith. “I’m sure there’s something else around the corner that he now has the ability to pursue. He doesn’t have the monster of Big Tree being a part of his everyday life.

“Saying goodbye to Mike was tough,” Smith added. “He wasn’t just my business partner, he is my friend. But to see him make that decision for himself and be seemingly successful at it and happy, that makes me happy.”

Wiley’s move to being a stay-at-home dad has indeed made many of the people in his life happy, like his parents. They live within a couple of blocks of the Big Tree restaurants, so they were able to see him easily enough for quick visits while he worked.

“But now we can be with him for longer, and in a more relaxed setting,” said Wiley’s dad, Chris Wiley. “Any time families can be closer and spend more time together, that’s going to be a good thing. To that extent, it’s positively affected the lives of everyone in our family.”

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