Everyone knows UMass Amherst wins ‘best campus food’ year after year. Few know the dining halls are open to the public. - The Boston Globe (2024)

Overseeing all this culinary excellence is the literal “director of culinary excellence” Alexander Ong, originally from Malaysia, who worked for Ritz-Carltons in Georgia and Florida before opening restaurants in San Francisco. Though he’s trained in classical French cooking, he found he missed Asian food living in the South. “That’s when I started craving food from home” — like pork knuckle noodle soup — “but I didn’t know how to cook it,” he said in a recent phone interview. So he taught himself, using family recipes his sister sent through the mail. After their mother died, she “held all the secrets to our family’s cooking.”

At UMass, Ong encourages culinary workers to share their own secrets. “I’m really not here to teach people how to make the best ramen,” he said. Instead, he asks, “How do you project yourself through your cooking — your history, your family, your country of origin? How do you tell that story?”

And they answer, with flavor — Kusum Sharma, from India, serves an “Indian breakfast” of cauliflower and potato curry, idli (a savory rice cake), and coconut chutney. Nabil Fahmy, from Egypt, makes beef kofta skewers, falafel, and hummus with pita. Joe Denoronha, born in Brazil, is better known as “Pizza Joe” — he flips bespoke pizzas like the “Big Dill” white pizza with dill pickle, ranch, and garlic olive oil.

Pamela Adams, the director of bakery operations and executive pastry chef, hails from Haiti, and loves to make bonbon siwo, a tropical spiced gingerbread with blackstrap molasses, fresh ginger, and grated coconut. On a recent Saturday night, she served up a delectable red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting.

I consider myself to be a well-informed denizen of the Valley: I’ve lived here for more than a dozen years, been the editor of the local newspaper of record, and spent plenty of time at UMass. But somehow, I’d never known about UMass Amherst dining’s open-door policy until last year. Several friends and neighbors I polled this past weekend (standing in line for the “Fun Slide” at Northampton’s Three County Fair), likewise had no idea.

Marlow was the first in our family to experience the wonders of the new Worcester Commons, which opened in fall 2020. This past October his friend’s mother, who teaches nursing at UMass, took her son and mine to campus. She texted me early that morning to advise Marlow not have breakfast — pro tip. For lunch, he ate Japanese curry with chicken katsu and udon, drank unlimited soda, and discovered the sundae bar — all for six bucks and change, though some prices just went up. (For adults, breakfast is $11.50, lunch $15.50, and dinner $18.75. Children 2-10 are $6.50 for all meals; under 2 are free. UMass alumni receive a 10 percent discount.)

When Marlow came home, he said it was one of the best days of his life. I was dumbfounded: How had I not known about the greatest dining deal in the sleepy west of the woody east? For one, it’s not really promoted or advertised. That’s because the focus is on serving the students, said DiStefano. “Anyone can come in — we’re never going to say no — but it’s not like we’re trying to compete against any local businesses or restaurants.” (He noted they source food from more than 100 local and regional farmers, and work with other small vendors like apiaries and dairies.)

Now that I do know about it, I can’t stop myself from spreading the word. Marlow even brought my parents there for breakfast the last time they visited from Florida. The only thing my mother and father love more than a deal is a made-to-order omelet. They got that and so much more; a couple of days later, they went back without us.

Telling family and friends about Worcester Commons is one matter, but Marlow has mixed feelings about broadcasting our little secret to, say, Globe readers. Locally, our family is hardly alone in congregating there. And I should add that timing is everything: It’s best to avoid the mobs on move-in days. We like to go at odd hours during summer and school breaks, though there’s a charm to sitting with a bunch of hungry undergrads when school’s in session. DiStefano recommended checking out the dining halls during holidays like the Lunar New Year and Diwali (the Hindu festival of lights).

The Monday before my kids went back to school, I took my son and his friend Oliver to Worcester Commons for lunch, a last hurrah for summer. For the occasion, Marlow wore his brand-new “Billy Madison 2024: I am the smartest man alive!” sweatshirt and Oliver brought along his yo-yo.

Before we’d even grabbed our silverware, I heard someone say, “Hey, I know that kid!” It was another kid, Sacha, who recognized Marlow. He was with his little brother and their mom, Wendy Barnes, an English professor at Greenfield Community College. I asked what were they doing here. Her look told me it was a dumb question. “I come here because it’s all you can eat,” she said as a server loaded up Sacha’s plate with vegetable spring rolls at the Street Food station. “It’s affordable and family-friendly, and they can try a lot of different foods,” she added.

It’s also spacious enough that an 11-year-old can swing a steel yo-yo and not hit anyone in the head. The Worcester dining room is roughly 25,000 square feet and serves around 12,000 meals daily during the school year. There’s even a livestream showing diners during its hours of operation, from 7 a.m. to midnight, seven days a week.

Once we found a hightop table, Marlow and Oliver were off like shoppers in a supermarket sweep, Ping-Ponging past stations offering Vietnamese pho, artisanal pizza, chicken tinga burrito bowls, halal burgers, Montreal chicken thighs, hand-cut sweet potato fries, and harissa-braised zucchini. Marlow was back first, carrying a plate of Japanese chicken curry and a “concoction” of ginger ale, Sprite, and co*ke. I started off slow with a spinach-and-artichoke-stuffed port mushroom, golden-crispy on top and earthy and tender in the middle. I was ready for another, but when Oliver hadn’t returned after 10 minutes I grew concerned. “I wouldn’t worry,” my son assured me. “For a big place, it’s pretty easy to navigate.”

Sure enough, Oliver soon found us, his eyes wide but his plate less than full with a single slice of BBQ chicken pizza.

“This is some weird pizza I’ve never had before,” he said.

“Is it like chicken bacon ranch pizza?” Marlow asked.

“It’s like chicken dipped in ranch but without the ranch and more bacon,” Oliver clarified.

He went back for seconds.

Meanwhile, I cleared my plate of Thai basil tofu and stir-fried baby bok choy but later wondered what becomes of all the food that doesn’t get eaten. DiStefano said UMass Dining both keeps and forecasts service records of the amount of food served, the goal being to mitigate waste. “A good chunk of our menu items are made to order,” he noted, so portions can be customized.

Soon my wandering eye alighted on the next table, where two men were slurping a verdant broth — green curry pho. One of the slurpers was Stephen Rich, a microbiology professor who runs a major university program focusing on ticks, the New England Center of Excellence in Vector-Borne Diseases. The other was a PhD student who works in the lab. Rich dines at the Commons at least once a week — he’s sometimes joined by his wife and two kids, especially in summer “when it’s hot and we don’t like to cook,” he said.

In the dog days of summer, local families abound, especially those with young children. But shortly before classes started Sept. 5, Worcester Commons drew visiting families as they dropped off their big kids.

Vanshika Agrawal, 18, a UMass freshman from near Raipur, India, learned about UMass Dining’s top honors from a receptionist at Hotel UMass. She’d spent the previous two weeks touring the United States with her mother, father, and younger brother before bringing them to lunch at the Commons, where she has a meal plan. (Families of students with meal plans eat for free.)

“I tried almost everything,” she said, but she especially liked a vegan rice bowl with stewed lentils. “I think I’m going to munch on that forever.”

Her mother, Rama, appreciated all the vegetarian options since they constantly worry about food when they travel. “We have separate luggage for Indian snacks,” she said, adding that she enjoyed talking to the Indian cooks in Hindi.

Her father said that in the past 15 days they’d eaten in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, and New York City, “but this is the best vegetarian food we’ve had, definitely.”

Her brother loaded up on pasta and co*ke.

Which reminded me … it was time to get back to the boys.

“So what do you think?” I asked Oliver.

“I’d like to never leave,” he said.

Brooke Hauser can be reached at brooke.hauser@globe.com. Follow her @brookehauser.