Globe-trotting chef returns to roots with new restaurant Metuchen restaurant owner and chef says there is no place like Jersey BY JESSICA ALFREY Correspondent METUCHEN - Many people dream about visiting exotic locales, wasting away their days far from their home state. But not everyone thinks that way. Chef John Harkness Jr. has traveled all over the world, from France to Germany to Hawaii, yet he returned to New Jersey to open his new restaurant, Aglio. According to Harkness, there is "nowhere like this area. The diversity of New Jersey is really great - the diversity of people, the diversity of restaurants." The general attitude of New Jersey natives kept Harkness coming back, despite the sometimes nasty connotation of hailing from the Garden State. "We [New Jerseyans] are known to have a little bit of an attitude," Harkness said, "but between each other, I think we're tolerant." Harkness, owner and executive chef of Aglio, is a man who believes in getting back to your roots. His love of his home state brought him back after he received two bachelor's degrees from the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, N.Y. Harkness, who grew up in Edison, knew he wanted to be a chef from the time he was a child. A self-described "TV head," Harkness used to watch chefs on television shows, such as Mel on "Alice," and knew that was what he wanted to do. Growing up in a house with three siblings, Harkness' mother used to allow him to cook for his siblings and help with dinner. Harkness' household didn't exactly have typical rules when it came to the dinner table, he said. Never did his mother tell him not to play with his food: Harkness has fond memories of putting French dressing on his beets and standing his broccoli up in his mashed potatoes like trees along the stream he would carve out. Harkness credits his mother, a second-generation Italian, with being his greatest culinary influence. He said his household was a lot about good food being associated with good times. Harkness carried his love of cooking into real life, working at such restaurants as The Culinary Renaissance in Metuchen and Creations Restaurant and Meeting Place in Madison, where in a matter of two months he changed the two-star restaurant into a four-star dining experience. As further evidence of his returning home to his roots, Harkness' Aglio used to be Café Abbraci, where he worked as the original executive chef in 1995 for a brief time before returning to school for his second bachelor's degree; he then returned for another year in 1998. Harkness believes his restaurant adds to the diversity of New Jersey. "My restaurant kind of puts another vegetable into the stir fry: it's not your average style," he said. Harkness noted that he had someone describe the menu as very progressive and exotic, but he sees it as a rustic style, working with ingredients such as risotto, tabbouli and potatoes. "We add into the diversity," he said. "We bring back a style of cooking that's been lacking for about the last 10 years." Harkness described his menu as going back to the roots of cooking, saying that he can't even pronounce some menus of other restaurants, even after 23 years in the business. During these past two weeks, Harkness described the turnout at Aglio as having met his expectations very well. Throughout all of his accomplishments, Harkness has still made the time to raise a family. He has been married to his wife, Lynn, a first-generation Italian, since 1997. Lynn and John met through mutual friends in Staten Island, N.Y., while Harkness was in school. Together they have three children - Caitlyn, 6, Alexandra, 5, and Luke, 9 months. Harkness hopes to raise his children in the same way that he was brought up. He enjoys exposing his children to different kinds of cuisine, such as Thai or Indian. He said that while his children can be a bit picky when it comes to food, his daughter Alexandra has a taste for spicy cuisine at the tender age of 5. In addition to raising his family and running the restaurant, Harkness has been pursuing a master's degree in education through an online program, and hopes to finish in another year and a half. Additionally, he has been the culinary arts instructor at Holmdel High School for eight years. Life hasn't always been so smooth for Harkness, however. As a child, he was diagnosed with retina blastoma, a disease that caused the loss of his eye, which had to be replaced with a synthetic eye. The loss of an eye never held him back, he said, because he never knew anything else. But when he was a student at J.P. Stevens High School in 1985, he was barred from playing football because of the loss of his eye. He challenged the ruling on the grounds that it was discriminatory, and he won his case. Now, Harkness is watching the same thing happen to his son Luke, who has been diagnosed with the same condition, though technology will make it easier on his son. Harkness said the family has spent the last nine months going back and forth to Manhattan to treat Luke's illness. Thankfully, the disease was caught early enough that his son will not lose an eye. Harkness has a vision for his new restaurant, hoping to live up to the "fine dining experience" advertisement on the window. "I want it to be known in the state as having food second to none," he said. As further proof that Harkness likes to get back to his roots after achieving status as a five-star chef, he said that if he had to eat one food for the rest of his life, it would be something from his childhood. "If it came down to it," he said, "it would be my mother's rice balls." Aglio is located at 140 Durham Ave. in Metuchen; the Web site is www.restaurantaglio.com.