Mulino A Vino Scores NYC’s Newest Wunderkind Chef

A lot of fuss has been made over Flynn McGarry; the 16-year-old culinary wunderkind currently operating a pop-up supper club called Eureka, serving sold out tasting menus in the West Village.  In contrast, it all makes 22-year-old executive chef, Massamilliano Eandi, seem positively ancient, until you realize how much he’s truly accomplished in such a mind-bogglingly short span of time — working his way up the ranks at Michelin starred restaurants like Gordon Ramsey and ARBITUS in London, as well as the avant garde Combal.Zero in Rivoli, Italy, under the tutelage of the highly esteemed Davide Scabin.

And now, Eandi has just been named predecessor to his famous mentor —taking over the kitchen at his Italian venture in Chelsea, Mulino a Vino, which serves “cucina classica” re-imagined through a modern lens. Picking up where the reliably out-of-the-box Scabin left off, Eandi is intent on asserting Mulino as so much more than a wine bar, serving complex, one-of-a-kind dishes, as inventive and artful as they are uncompromisingly delicious.

This is Mulino A Vino 2.0: Eandi’s newest menu additions include San Daniele’s Miracle — essentially caprese salad fashioned as all-American sliders, featuring silky ribbons of prosciutto, cream-sluiced burrata, and wisps of tomato carpaccio, stacked inside homemade focaccia buns.  He pushes the envelope further with Hibiscus-infused Risotto, which adds an intriguing, floral edge to the ultra-savory rice dish (underscored by a verdant ivy pesto), as well as Chickpea Cecina cooked over rocks of pink sea salt, smoked planks of Salmon swiped with amarone glaze and piled with saffron caviar, and the showstopping Lamb Volcano; slow-cooked and roasted lamb paired with a pastry cone oozing pecorino fondue “lava,” and scattered with “ashes” made from strands of powdered black pasta.

But if there’s one dish that could prove Eandi’s calling card in NYC (besides the strength of his resume at so tender an age), it’s his Pasta Pomodoro — not nearly as traditional as it sounds.  Instead of being dunked in boiling water, spaghetti strands are rehydrated over the course of five days, by being placed in a jar with the juice, flesh and seeds of a hollowed out tomato.  After that, the pasta is put back into the fruit’s shell, cooked in the oven, garnished with fried basil leaf, and placed atop a frico-like “bed” made from basil puree and grana padano.  When’s the last time you had your mind blown by a bowl of noodles and tomato sauce?

Your move, chef Flynn.