Even so, the experience inspired an epiphany. “I just felt really called to cooking and knew that if I wanted to move up in that world, I needed to learn how to do it. I needed some structured learning and some form of discipline. I talked to people who had done the culinary program at A-B Tech, and they recommended it.”

Iocovozzi found that structure, discipline and mentorship he wanted in the instructors at A-B Tech, as well as formative bonding among the students, particularly in an early labs course that taught stocks and sauces. “That class was dynamic and diverse, and brought so many different skill sets. It was intense and silly and so hard.”

Silver Cousler Iocovozzi at his restaurant Neng Jr’s in West Asheville.

For Iocovozzi—whose mother is Filipino and late father American and who was raised in North Carolina—finding his culinary arrow was also a challenge, one sometimes frustrated by the rigidity of established cooking techniques.

“I kind of struggled with that classical, traditional French method,” he said. “I went through a phase when I hated it, but I have circled back and use it in my kitchen now.”

The kitchen that is now his is Neng Jr’s, an 18-seat Filipino restaurant he and his husband, Cherry Iocovozzi, opened in the rear of a building in West Asheville in the summer of 2022, one month after they married. In its first year it was named Best New Restaurant by multiple national publications and was a 2023 Beard Awards finalist for the same. In 2025, Iocovozzi was a finalist in the Best Chef Southeast category.

Ironically, while still enrolled at A-B Tech, an instructor there made his internship conditional on his landing a position in a James Beard–recognized restaurant or under a James Beard–nominated chef. That’s how Iocovozzi ended up working with chef Elliott Moss, who helmed the kitchens at several well-known Asheville eateries and worked with Iocovozzi “one way or another for seven years.” 

That included time at The Admiral, Bull and Beggar and ultimately, Buxton Hall Barbecue. “I was sous chef there and it was my first experience running things,” he says. “It was a huge kitchen, and we fed so many people. That restaurant taught me a lot of things I love about barbecue and the overlap of barbecue and Filipino food that has always been an important part of my cooking.”

During a subsequent stint as chef de cuisine at Gan Shan West, Silver and Cherry launched a series of Sunday night pop-ups called Love Songs, pairing Filipino dishes with natural wine chosen by Cherry.

Silver laughs when he says, “It took so long—though it seems so obvious—to figure out the food I was going to do was Filipino food, with my own influences and interpretation as a Southerner.”

It took more time to find the space, raise the funds and do the buildout—much of it delayed and complicated by Covid. But in 2022, the black door from the alley to the red staircase that ascends to the inner sanctum that is Neng Jr’s opened for service.

Three of the items on the debut menu remain: the simple seasonal fruit; lumpia; and the signature briny, silky adobo oyster nestled in the shell with adobo mignonette, encircled with a two-inch slender rope of sea grapes and topped by a bright yellow cured quail egg yolk.

Through three years, the succinct menu has changed many times; Iocovozzi keeps each one as an archive, preparing to write a book someday. Those changes are driven by season, availability and by life itself.

“It’s an ebb and flow, of stamina, of feeling. Recently I have been feeling really good and inspired to create new things. At my happiest, I am cooking and feeding people. I have a relationship with food that I don’t think I can ever quit.”