Q & A with Fung Tu’s Jonathan Wu and John Matt Wells
At the forefront of the refined Chinese food trend, Fung Tu — fittingly straddling traditional Chinatown and the envelope-pushing East Village — gained instant notice for dishes like Bean Curd and Bacon Terrine, Smoked Chicken Salad over Masa Pancakes, and smoky, Duck-Stuffed Dates. But it sort of faded into the background just as fast, in the face of Danny Bowien’s flashier Mission Chinese Food and Thomas Chen’s newer Tuome.
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Q & A with dell’Anima & L’Artusi’s Joe Campanale
It’s no small feat to become a sommelier at Mario Batali’s Babbo at the tender age of 23, but Joe Campanale did just that, and he hasn’t stopped impressing the food community ever since. Together with restaurateur August Cardona and chefs Gabe and Katherine Thompson, the now 31 year-old Joe Campanale has made the Epicurean Group a triumphant success that it is…
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Grilled Seafood Salad
There’s really nothing you couldn’t (or shouldn’t) throw on the grill come summer, and seafood is very much included! So instead of defaulting to steaming your seasonal shellfish, throw hearty specimens like calamari, shrimp and sea scallops directly over the flame, to add a seriously smoky element to this delicious, lemon and herb-dressed salad!
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Red, White and Blueberry Pork Buns
Fourth of July-themed food can be undeniably cheesy, but we’ve got a great way to embrace the red, white and blue color scheme (and no, we’re not talking about whipped cream-frosted, berry-decorated sheet cake). Our fluffy, snow-white Chinese steamed buns are glazed with a spicy, blueberry-sriracha sauce, and topped with ribbons of crunchy red cabbage, for a fabulous party dish that’s totally holiday appropriate, yet entirely unique!
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Q & A with Prune’s Gabrielle Hamilton
If you’ve yet to read Gabrille Hamilton’s James Beard Award-winning memoir, Blood, Bones and Butter, you might be surprised to hear her refer to herself as a “reluctant” chef. After all, the owner of the long-running, much admired Prune (where it’s still nearly impossible to get a table, and for which she’s also snagged a highly coveted Beard award), is regularly upheld as being one of New York’s greatest culinary talents…
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Q & A with Rebelle’s Chef Daniel Eddy
NYC is home to many of the very best French chefs in the world, from Eric Ripert to Daniel Boulud to Jean-Georges Vongerichten. So who would have thought that a Nicaraguan New Yorker — and a former actor, no less — would currently be serving hip French fare in the city?
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Q & A with Cafe Clover’s David Standridge
David Standridge, the former chef at the West Village’s Market Table, might not have been the obvious choice to head up the kitchen at the new, health and wellness-focused Café Clover, which features dishes like Ivory Lentil Risotto, Cauliflower “Steak” Romesco, and Quinoa Tagliatelle with beet greens. “At Market Table, I was bringing in 300-pound pigs a week,” he laughs…
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Q & A with Louise Vongerichten of Chefs Club
Jean-Georges Vongerichten is one of the undisputed kings of the culinary world — so what was it like growing up a veritable princess? “It was very interesting and rewarding,” remarks daughter Louise Vongerichten, who also happens to be the Brand and Business Development Director for Food & Wine’s Chefs Club, in both Aspen and New York…
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Q & A with August’s Chef Josh Eden
“I like to think I’m one of the better kept secrets in New York,” asserts chef Josh Eden, who’s headed up the kitchen at romantic West Village favorite, August, since 2011, and recently helped facilitate its move to a larger space on the Upper East Side. “I haven’t gone out there to seek recognition from the press; I enjoy getting it from customers instead”…
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Q & A with Grocery Guru Eli Zabar
Eli Zabar just might have the most famous last name in the world of gourmet groceries. But he’s not actually connected to that line of stores, which have plied the Upper West Side for the last 80 years with smoked fish, rugelach, bagels and hand-sliced pastrami…
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Q & A with Quality Meats & Quality Italian’s Michael Stillman
The son of Alan Stillman, founder of the seminal New York steakhouse, Smith & Wollensky, Michael Stillman is bonafide restaurant royalty. And while he eventually launched Fourth Wall in 2007 with his father, the influential hospitality group behind Quality Italian, Quality Meats and the seasonally-metamorphosizing Park Avenue, Stillman insists he never intended to follow his dad’s footsteps into the restaurant industry…
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Special Holiday Side Dishes: Sweet Potato and Gruyere Gratin
We genuinely enjoy cooking. But when it comes time for our family to divide Thanksgiving duties, we somehow always get stuck with sweet potatoes. That’s why, each year, we take great pains to devise exciting, totally adult preparations for sweet potatoes, and one of our favorite inventions thus far is this utterly elegant Gratin…
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Tandoori-Style Thanksgiving Turkey with Cranberry Chutney
While Thanksgiving just wouldn’t be Thanksgiving without turkey, and it makes an striking centerpiece for the holiday table, let’s be honest here — Turkey isn’t exactly the most flavorful bird. Sure, it’s tasty smothered in gravy and cranberry sauce, or layered into the perfect bite along with stuffing and mashed potatoes, but on its own, turkey can be dry and bland. Well, not this bird. Given the Indian treatment with aromatic, sweet and savory spices, and marinated overnight in a flavorful, moistening blend of yogurt and mustard oil, this Tandoori-style turkey will be the talk of your Thanksgiving feast!
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Q & A with Il Buco Alimentari’s Head Baker Kamel Saci
If pastry chefs tend to get less widespread attention than savory chefs, artisan bread bakers generally receive even less. But why should they? After all, bread is one of humanity’s oldest foods (having been around since the dawn of agriculture), and was famously referred to in the Bible as “the staff of life.” So if you stop to think about it, it’s a noble pursuit to devote your career to churning out the tastiest loaves imaginable, and Kamel Saci, the Head Bread Baker at Il Buco Alimentari in the East Village, makes some of the very best…
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Q & A with Petaluma’s CJ Bivona
Taking the executive chef position at Petaluma, the recently revamped, 30-year-old Italian institution on the Upper East Side, might seem an odd move for CJ Bivona, who, previously, was perhaps best known for cooking James Beard Award-nominated Southern fare, at Jeff McInnis’s praised Miami hotspot, Yardbird. But in actuality, the Hudson Valley native insists that he’s actually a lot more at home with pizza and pasta than fried chicken and shrimp and grits…
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Q & A with Tuome’s Thomas Chen
Chinese food is definitely having a moment right now, and we’re not talking about Lo Mein and Fried Rice. Young chefs like Thomas Chen — an Eleven Madison Park vet who just opened his first restaurant, Tuome, in the East Village — are putting a fresh, contemporary face on the cuisine, using top-notch ingredients and refined techniques in order to finally take Chinese fare to the next level…
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Q & A with The Fourth’s Marco Moreira and Jason Hall
What could be better than having one, wonderfully talented chef in the kitchen? How about having two? The Fourth’s Marco Moreira, also the driving force behind the terrific Tocqueville, and sushi mecca, 15 East, recently took on Jason Hall as his second in command. But Hall is hardly your run-of-the-mill assistant. Alfred Portale made him his own chef de cuisine at Gotham Bar and Grill all the way back in 2009…
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Q & A with Mas (farmhouse) & Almanac’s Galen Zamarra
Although highly respected in the industry, Galen Zamarra doesn’t make the news often. Ever since winning the James Beard Award for “Rising Star” at Bouley early on in his career, he’s essentially kept his nose to the grindstone. Until now that is, with the opening of his super seasonal, new eatery, Almanac…
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Q & A with Nick Morgenstern of GG’s & Morgenstern’s Ice Cream
Nick Morgenstern may have built up an impressive resume as pastry chef in some of New York’s top kitchens — Daniel, Gramercy Tavern and Gilt, and at his own two restaurants, Goat Town and Brooklyn’s General Greene —but it wasn’t until last May that he realized his lifelong dream; of opening up a classic ice cream parlor…
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Q & A with The Gander’s Jesse Schenker
It ain’t easy to reinvent the wheel, but Jesse Schenker has done just that with his inventive, American fare at West Village sleeper hit, Recette. Well, he’s at it again with a new venture, The Gander, with the likes of Buffalo Sweetbreads and Fries with Beef Aioli…
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