Walk into the Torreon Grille this month after a Tuesday round and the room looks the same. Same patio doors open to the 18th green, same easy hum of a clubhouse lunch crowd, same wait staff who know your order before you sit down. What's different is who's working the line, and if you've lived in the White Mountains for more than a few years, you've probably already eaten his food somewhere else.
Vince D'Angona is now the executive chef at the Torreon Grille. Until last year, he was the owner and only cook at Crockery Café & Infusery, a small, cash-only spot on White Mountain Boulevard in Pinetop-Lakeside where he built a following on what he called Comfort-Gourmet Cuisine. That move, quietly reported by the White Mountain Independent, is the kind of local detail that doesn't show up on a golf community's amenities page but explains a lot about how a resort clubhouse actually runs.
A Familiar Name, Just Not This Kitchen
For anyone who spent the last few years driving to that little storefront at 43 W. White Mountain Blvd, D'Angona's food needs no introduction. He ran Crockery Café solo, posting his daily specials on Facebook and warning regulars when he was running low so they wouldn't show up disappointed. His four-cheese grilled cheese, Monte Cristo, and French onion soup built a small, loyal crowd, and his chicken chili verde earned him the 2020 White Mountain Chili Cookoff title. The catch was that Crockery only took cash, which meant every visit came with a trip to the ATM first.
D'Angona left that café last year, and he spent the time since then off the radar of most regulars until his name resurfaced this month attached to the Torreon Grille, the clubhouse restaurant that sits on Summit Trail overlooking the fairways.
Where the Skillset Actually Comes From
D'Angona's path to that kitchen isn't a resort résumé. It's a town résumé, built one job at a time:
- Grew up in the San Fernando Valley, one of seven kids, learning to cook from his father as soon as he was tall enough to reach the stove
- Relocated to the White Mountains in 2015 and took his first local cooking job at Eddie's Country Store, working the café there for two years
- Spent three years at the Lion's Den, where he estimates he flipped around 150,000 burgers that locals still talk about
- Opened Crockery Café & Infusery on his own terms, won the 2020 chili title, and ran the place solo until leaving it last year
- Landed at the Torreon Grille as executive chef, bringing the same comfort-food instincts to a much bigger dining room
It's worth noting his son, also named Vincenzo, currently cooks at Pinetop Brewing Company, which means the family's cooking now bookends the town, from the brewery near downtown Pinetop to the clubhouse inside Torreon's gates.
Why the Grille Usually Looks Outside the Gate
This hire is a departure from how the Grille has typically staffed its kitchen. In November 2022, Torreon brought on Jeffrey Jacobson as executive chef, a hire announced with the kind of press release usually reserved for resort openings. Jacobson arrived from Shadow Hills Golf Club in Indio, California, after stints in desert resort dining including La Rue Café Wine Bar in La Quinta. Torreon's general manager at the time, Rolland Vaughn, framed the hire as an infusion of outside polish:
"We are so excited to have someone of Jeff's caliber on our team. He brings a wonderful combination of experience and fresh ideas to our team and our menu."
That's the pattern golf communities usually follow. Recruit from the same circuit of resort kitchens that supply Scottsdale country clubs and desert golf courses, then let that chef adapt fine-dining technique to a mountain clientele. Somewhere between Jacobson's arrival and now, Torreon also brought in a food and beverage manager, Scott Waddle, whose menu changes drew enough notice that diners specifically credited him with turning the Grille around.
D'Angona breaks that pattern. He isn't importing anything. He's someone who already spent about a decade cooking for the same population that eats at Torreon, just from a counter across town instead of a table inside the gates.
What Actually Changes at Your Table
Torreon's own description of the Grille promises a heavy menu of classic American cooking, built to satisfy after a day on the course. That baseline isn't going away. What D'Angona adds is the specific comfort-food register he spent years perfecting on a much smaller scale: the grilled cheese and Reuben instincts of a short-order cook who also happens to be a chili champion.
For regulars who've eaten at both rooms, the closest comparison might be what happened when Crockery's small, ever-changing specials board met a kitchen built to handle a golf community's lunch rush, wedding receptions, and verandah dinners at once. The scale is different. The sensibility carries over.
It's Still the Room Everyone Already Knows
None of this changes what the Grille is structurally. It remains open to the public, not just to Torreon members, which is easy to forget if you've only ever walked in through the clubhouse. It still handles the family gatherings, the after-round lunches, and the occasional wedding reception on the back patio that residents have used it for since the community was built. What changes is who's cooking, and for the first time in a while, that person already has a track record in this zip code rather than a résumé from somewhere else.
If you've spent any time in Torreon this summer, at Prime Rib Wednesdays or watching the Deck Shot tradition play out on the terrace, this is one more thread in the same story: a community whose daily rhythms depend as much on who's running the room as on the room itself.
Erin Amos has spent years tracking the small, specific details that make life in Torreon and the rest of the White Mountains feel the way it does, from clubhouse changes to trail conditions to the local businesses that keep this community running. If you're weighing what it actually looks like to live here full time, or you're already local and curious what your Torreon property is worth in today's market, Erin Amos can walk you through it. Get Your Free Home Valuation whenever you're ready to see where things stand.
