Two things I miss from my childhood:

One: The Alpine Slide, where my dad and I would race down Mount Tom, side by side, on rickety sleds. Each sled had a plastic lever between your legs that you could grind against the concrete track, and, in theory, slow down.

Two: Pasta Jambalaya, a fusion dish that was created in Northampton in 1987 by chef Larry Guyette of Easthampton. At least I thought I missed this dish until a few weeks ago, when I realized that it was still in production.

Pasta Jambalaya is one of the Pioneer Valley’s greatest contributions to the culinary world. I have eaten it so many times that I know its ingredients by heart. It’s a big wide bowl of thimble-sized pasta shells integrated into a spicy tomato sauce with tasso ham, andouille sausage, juicy shrimp, blackened chicken, baby spinach, garlic, shallots and jalapeños. These melt into an emergent flavor that is both all of them and none of them.

Tasso is not really ham but southern-Louisiana-style pork shoulder, smoked, spiced and salt-cured. In the tomato sauce it locks arms with the rougher andouille slices. Together they push a double dose of wood smoke into the smooth, black-pepper-rich emulsion that coats every square millimeter of the absorbent but resilient shells and their greedy endowment of meat.

This year I was amazed to discover not only that Chef Larry is still serving his original Pasta Jambalaya, but that he’s doing it in the ghost shadow of my beloved Alpine Slide, halfway up Mount Tom.

There, Larry and his wife, Amy Guyette, co-own and operate an unassuming BBQ-focused restaurant called Tavern on the Hill. For decades this has been the Valley’s most scenic dining spot. The Tavern’s warm, woody dining room and panoramic open-air deck are now fully renovated and open to full capacity after a terrifying fire in late 2022.

I learned a lot about the fire from Amy, about the incredible cost of rebuilding and the heroic help of their insurance agent – Ross, Webber & Grinnell in Holyoke – whose policy enabled them to pay their workers during the shutdown. So they re-opened with almost the same staff that was there on that fateful night.

The Tavern’s interior was brought back to its former glory by Bay State Restoration. It was great to begin with, and Amy and Larry were wise to simply rekindle the old vibe.

It’s hard to make a restaurant with panoramic mountain views feel cozy enough to earn its title of “Tavern,” but this one pulls it off by making great use of wood, angled architecture and a big stone fireplace. The Germans might call it “gemütlich,” like a great family ski lodge.

When I first tasted Chef Larry’s singular masterpiece, it wasn’t called Pasta Jambalaya. At the time, Larry was running the kitchen at Spoleto in downtown Northampton, where he had debuted the dish under its unforthcoming original name: Pasta Shells. From my third bite and for the next decade, Spoleto was my favorite restaurant – and only because of these shells.

Larry’s dish wasn’t just delicious: it was probably unique in the whole world, and above all, it was fusion – Italy plus Louisiana. This designation made it high culinary fashion. Armed with these shells, Spoleto was not an ordinary Italian restaurant but rather an avant-garde fusion restaurant, Northampton’s first, and it became the hottest table in western Massachusetts.

Inventing new recipes had not been valued much in America’s fine-dining scene of the 1950s through 1970s, which was mostly a competition over who could best execute French cuisine. In Northampton, it was Beardsley’s.

This was all overturned in the 1980s. The concept of the chef-artist came first from California, with the rise of celebrity chefs like Wolfgang Puck, who would entertain Hollywood stars and late-night TV viewers with their own creative recipes that brought together wildly distinct culinary traditions in a single dish, with varying degrees of success.

Meanwhile, in New Orleans, hotheads Paul Prudhomme and Emeril Lagasse came of age by debasing, to everyone’s delight, the orthodox French recipes of Commander’s Palace, the culinary symbol of the Louisiana aristocracy. They were blackening the redfish, spiking the bread with hot peppers, squeezing shrimp heads into the sauces like peasants.

Meanwhile, in Easthampton, Larry Guyette was also coming of age. Since he was a child, he had always loved to cook, never loved schoolwork. Like Kevin Garnett, Larry cut out the middleman and went straight to the pros. He dropped out of ninth grade and got a kitchen job.

In scarce free time between line-cooking shifts and sleep, Larry would devour as many cookbooks as he could find. He would test the recipes, learn new techniques, expand the boundaries of his repertoire. In the process he fell in love with the hot, rich boldness of Prudhomme’s new Creole, and he fused them with the comforting red-sauce Italian-American of his native New England.

A brief timeline of important events:

In 1985, Paul Prudhomme invented the Turducken.

In 1987, Larry Guyette invented Pasta Shells, aka Pasta Jambalaya.

In 1998, the Alpine Slide closed, along with the whole Mount Tom ski resort. Left in its place, today, is the much safer and more sedate Mount Tom State Reservation, whose entrance is on the meandering Route 147, maybe halfway up to the peak.

If you happen to drive by, don’t go up there. Instead, turn 180 degrees to face the quilts of misty hills. Cross the street and walk right into Tavern on the Hill, the restaurant that Amy and Larry have run there since 2005.

Not only is this BBQ aerie is the most scenic restaurant in the Pioneer Valley, it is also one of the best. Reserve an outdoor table, where you can watch some of the best sunsets in the state.

Incredibly, Pasta Jambalaya isn’t the bestselling item here: that’s the slow-smoked BBQ. As usual, wallets don’t lie, and in this case they have great taste too. Before the fire, and before I tried the Pasta Jambalaya, the BBQ was my go-to at Tavern on the Hill, and it’s good as ever. Smoke billows out from the big smoker that’s built into in the basement, supplementing the aromatics of your sumptuous spread of slow-cooked BBQ meat.

Brisket is moist and fatty, coated with a supple black crust that exemplifies the ideal smoked-brisket edge. You get a good mix of muscle and fat in each pile on the plate. This stuff would be taken seriously in Texas, and that’s really saying something. Meaty pork ribs, leaner than some but still tender, also deliver great satisfaction.

The Tavern’s BBQ sauces are sweeter than you’d find in Texas, though. There are three of them, all pretty fruity. Least sweet, and easily my favorite, is the vinegary, light-colored mustard sauce.

If you’re going all out, start with the brisket poutine, a formidable indulgence. Burgers and a very popular grilled-salmon main are also both excellent.

Among sides, mac and cheese is particularly well made. The sleeper side is “Mexican corn salad.” It’s got a mysterious name and a weirdly addictive flavor-texture combination, with a strong backbone of cumin and little bits of tortilla that are soggy in a good way. I did not know this was possible, and I love it.

Local beers deck out the tap lines, wines are reasonably priced, and the bar also turns out a good gin-and-tonic.

On two post-reopening visits to Tavern on the Hill, I was lucky enough to be accompanied by my nephew Azai, who sampled the grilled-cheese sandwich. He has previously appeared in this column as an assistant taster of hot dogs and ice cream.

I once rated restaurants on a numerical scale. I finally stopped doing it about 10 years ago, and I now regret ever having done it. Azai, on the other hand, is now entering the third grade, and inescapably, he has just become acquainted with numerical grading. I thus have the duty, before closing, to report the numerical results of his assessment from visit #1 to Tavern on the Hill. (These results were later replicated in full at visit #2.)

Azai said: “I give this grilled cheese right here 8 out of 10, and these fries are phenomenal. They’re phenomenal.”

The Tavern’s grilled cheese is done in the classic style, with cheese that really melts and none of the unwelcome innovations that have polluted the grilled-cheese scene in recent years.

After eating a couple more fries, Azai decided to revise his grade: “I’d say these are both 10 out of 10… this grilled cheese is 10 out of 10, actually.”

My mom asked her grandson: “What’s phenomenal about the french fries?”

Azai shrugged and responded: “I just like ‘em a lot.”

Extra credit for great fries. Okay.

I love that the same chef who was cooking for me when I was growing up is now cooking for Azai. Amy and Larry’s gift to the Pioneer Valley is one for the ages.

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