For the first time in his life, chef Andrew Carmellini found himself cooking at home every night in his three-by-nine-foot kitchen. Instead of an army of sous chefs and dishwashers, it was just him and his food-writer wife, Gwen Hyman. Carmellini has worked at establishments like Lespinasse, Cafe Boulud, and, most recent, A Voce. Faced with doing his own prep work and grocery shopping and equipped with the standard New York–sized kitchen, Carmellini found himself cooking Italian with an urban twist. And so, Urban Italian: Simple Recipes and True Stories From a Life in Food was born. This book is basically the story of my life. Well, minus the part where I'm a respected professional chef. But I, too, am...
Continue reading »
Last Wednesday, I was at the Union Square Greenmarket when I was waylaid by Andrew Carmellini, the chef-partner at A Voce. "Hey, Ed. Can you give us a hand with our stuff?" I said sure and loaded the four boxes and two bags of produce into a cab along with Carmellini and two of the cooks at the restaurant. We took the cab to 27th and Park, and then we schlepped the boxes one block to the restaurant. By this time, it was 11:45 a.m. and A Voce was about to open for lunch. When in A Voce, or should I say Rome, I said to myself, so I decided to have a bowl of pasta. Although Carmellini first became...
Continue reading »
The James Beard Award nominations were announced yesterday, and at Serious Eats we don't want you to have to sift through all nine pages of nominees [PDF], so let's see if we can cut to the chase for you. The Outstanding Restaurateur nominees feature some actual and different heavyweight restaurateurs, including Richard Melman (Lettuce Entertain You, Chicago), Drew Nieporent (Nobu (NY), Rubicom (SF), and many others), and Keith McNally (Balthazar, Pastis, and Morandi, among others). All three of them have made a point of not cloning any of their restaurants, which I really appreciate....
Continue reading »
