Faustina (Courtesy of The Cooper Square Hotel.)
Regarding Faustina... Had you been to Table 8 previously? Yeah, funny enough, I was invited there for friends and family when it was opened through another friend who was invited, so he invited me.
Why do you think it didn't catch on there? What was the problem? You know what, I have no idea. Some things work and some things don't, you never know. But it's not my business to say, and I'm going to kind of let that stay where it is, which is in the past, and really focus on moving forward.
Fair enough. How did you get involved in opening the restaurant? I think the owners of the hotel came to Scarpetta and saw what we were doing there, and fortunately it seemed to resonate with them, and they asked us whether or not we'd be interested in doing it. So we decided take it down the road a little and see if we had a mutual business understanding, and it just kind of grew from that point on, fortunately. They had a need, and I had a kind of a concept in my back pocket, so to speak, because I had been thinking about doing something like what we're doing here for a pretty long time.
And what is the concept? So the idea for the menu is, it's kind of this share-plate idea. It's very different than any food I've ever done before, and it's inspired by the late-night parties we've had at Scarpetta, when the staff is kind of sitting around, and I'll go into the kitchen and cook something. This is more along the lines of things that I would cook at home for dinner parties and for staff members late night. So everybody liked it, and my Chef de Cuisine here, Ryan Morrison, we spent a lot of time talking about this stuff and developing some things, and this kind of food is a lot more in his wheelhouse... I think currently there are about 46 items on the menus. And hopefully every single one of those items is just delicious; that's the goal. And for being open, today it's a week, not even seven dinner services yet, we're achieving those goals. It seems to resonate with people, and there's nothing better than that.
Scarpetta
So it's not strictly Italian? Well, I would say, the way I look at it is, my father's side of the family came here in the early 1600's and founded Salem, Massachusetts, so if you look up Roger Conant, he's my great-great-great-great-great-great grandfather, and he grew up in the north of Maine, a very American family, a potato farmer in the north of Maine. So that background of Italian-American for me has always been really really prevalent. And so it's not just an Italian background that I have. A lot of this food has an American influence, but it's kind of like maybe a modern Italian-American cuisine, you know what I mean? If I really had to put it in a box, that's what I would do. But essentially, it's inspired Italian food.
What are a couple of things that might surprise someone who thinks in broad strokes that you're an Italian chef? There's Balsamic-Glazed Pork Ribs on the menu, with a tomato and mustardy chutney. Then there's fried chicken with porcini and potato stufato, which is stewed porcini mushrooms with potatoes together. Then they're fried and we poach and put in buttermilk, bread it and fry it. But then on the other side of the coin, there's a tajarin pasta which is inspired from tormante, which is a straight aged pasta which we make, then I toss it with a little bit of tomato and sea urchin. There's a balance of things. There's cannelloni filled buratta that's baked and then topped with stewed baby tomatoes. There's a sea bass tripe which I kind of grew up with, on my mother's side of the family, and we mix it with merlotti beans, and we make it kind of in a style of a risotto, where we stir it and finish it with parmigiana cheese and rosemary oil, serve it with toasted bread. With things that people wouldn't normally associate with American food either, so really it's kind of, I don't want to say it's personal because personal is personal, but it's an extension of maybe the new Italian-American palate.
It's an extension of you and your experiences, and what you're curious about now. Yeah, it's a lot of fun. I spent some time in Tokyo as well, looking at the way a lot of people approach Italian food from that angle. And really, I have this new found respect for Italian cuisine as far as that's concerned. That reverence that Japanese have with ingredients, applied to Italian cuisine was really so curious to me and spectacular. So I was coming at it from a lot of different angles, so that's why I say it's inspired modern Italian food. There's a lot going on, but the ultimate goal is just to make it good.
Have you considered opening a restaurant in Tokyo? I haven't considered it, because I haven't been approached about it. I've fantasized about it. But I will approach that if I ever get an offer. I'm probably a few years away from that.
How did you get into cooking in the first place, and when and why did you decide to do it as a career? Oh, I started cooking when I was 15 years old, I was a kid, I went to a vocational school in Waterbury, Connecticut, and I started working at a family friend's restaurant as a dish washer just to make some money. And I had always played a lot of sports, and I was a big baseball player and all that kind of stuff, and it was that same camaraderie that I found in the kitchen that I found on a team. So it resonated with me, I really liked it, I enjoyed it. And as I was going to that vocational school, I wanted to be in plumbing, but I couldn't get into the program, so my second choice was culinary arts because it was the only thing other than gym that I got an A in. So I just kind of worked, coming at it from two angles, working all day and then being in the culinary program. And also, to make it a little bit more real, the most attractive women were in that same class, so as a teenager, 15, that's definitely where I wanted to be!
Do you have any advice for young chefs trying to make their way into the business?There's a couple things, ya know, that work ethic is the most important thing. It's not about following dollars. Anytime I've ever made the decision to follow dollars it's been the wrong decision. It really has to be about following your heart and doing the things you believe in. The work effort you put forth I think is the most important thing. Working for free sometimes, focusing on the goal, figuring out what that goal is and then keeping your eye on it all the time. And never sacrificing your own integrity for any reason at all.
Finally, what's your worst kitchen scar? I was 16 years old, and I was working a kitchen in Waterbury. And you know, especially early on back then, everybody was drinking and doing drugs in the kitchen stuff like that. I was never in the drug scene, but I think I had a glass of wine or beer or something in the kitchen, I was 16 years old, obviously I had no business doing it, especially at work. So I was cleaning up, and I had stopped serving food, and I had had a beer, so of course at 16 I had a buzz. As I was cleaning everything, and I ran my knuckles somehow across a saran wrap box, that kind of saw-like thing.
Ooh, I hate it when that happens. I cut my knuckle open so badly, I still have a scar on my knuckle. I think I had six stitches on there. Brutal, brutal, and I never drank in the kitchen again. Not while I was working, anyway. So that experience, at a very young age, taught me not to drink at work, but also after I have a drink, I never talk business, because it all changes. Everything shifts, and that's it, no more talk about business, no more shop talk, let's talk about other things.
Special thanks to Ben Yakas.
