Q & A with Locanda Verde's Josh Nadel

Locanda Verde is a lovable restaurant for many reasons, like lamb meatball sliders, fire-roasted garlic chicken, outstanding desserts and a terrific and extremely affordable wine list. While most people associate Locanda Verde with chef Andrew Carmellini, Beverage Director Josh Nadel also has a lot to do with the restaurant’s success. Though he may not look it, Nadel’s practically a veteran in the New York restaurant scene.  He earned praise as a sommelier at both Cru and Veritas before joining Andrew Carmellini at Locanda Verde in the Greenwich Hotel. 

To think, he had no formal training whatsoever.  Instead, he taught himself traveling through Italy and on the job, quickly becoming one of the best sommeliers in the country.  (I’ve personally discovered some of my new favorites at dinner at Locanda, like the Rivolta Falanghina 2008.  The menu also features some of Nadel’s favorite bottles, like a white Kuenhof Sylvaner 2009 and a red Valtellina Superiore ‘Sassella’ 2006.   We can look forward to his wine list for The Dutch, Carmellini’s newest venture, located in Soho, with real deal American cooking. 

Single/Married/Divorced?
Married for two years. My dog came
first, though.

What did you want to be when you grew up?
A
fireman and baseball player.

What was your first job in food
and what did you learn?
The Bagelry on 96th and Madison during
my senior year of high school. My first day mopping, I leaned the mop
handle against the neon ‘Bagelry’ sign and broke it. It cost the owner
$600 to fix. So I learned it’s nice when the boss knows your mom.

When
did you first become interested in wine and spirits?
For wine,
it was during a semester abroad studying Fine Arts in Florence, Italy.
For
spirits, it was Scotch. I love single malt Scotch. When exactly that
was, I don’t remember. My first post-college apartment in New York City
was above a bar called ‘Kevin St. James’ on 47th street and Eighth
avenue that had a pretty good Scotch selection at the time. That
definitely was part of it.

Did you receive any type of formal
training? If so, where?
Nope.

You became a sommelier
at Veritas and Cru.  What were some of the most important things you
learned there as far as hospitality, working with customers, corked
wines, and the like?
So much…they were both such special and
individual places. Tim Kopec, the Wine Director from Veritas, is one of
the most charismatic guys on the floor I have ever seen. The same goes
for Michel Couvreaux, with whom I worked at Cru, but totally different
styles. I learned how to translate what a customer describes to you as
the wine they want, into serving the wine which is actually going to
make them happy, which are often not at all alike.
Corked wines are a
major bummer. Making great wine is heroic, and it’s a shame to have
that ruined by something as seemingly benign as a cork. It’s an even
bigger bummer when it’s an old wine that has been treasured for years,
sometimes decades, and turns out to have been doomed from the start.
It’s a screwed up analogy, but a treasured, corked bottle of wine makes
me think of the Apollo 13 space mission; they were screwed from the
get-go.

How did you tell a fake Bordeaux or Grand Cru from a
real one just by looks alone?  Or can’t you?
I can, and
unfortunately I’ve had ample opportunities to develop and use this
skill. It’s a very serious problem, especially with all the young money
and enthusiasm in the market over the past 10 years, and it’s not going
away. Labels are easy markers, and so is the glass. There are some
pretty bad fakes out there these days.

How is Veritas
different than Locanda Verde?  How much control do you have over the
wine menu?
I run the entire program at Locanda Verde. At
Veritas, Tim Kopec made all the buying decisions and ran the show.

What
are some of the best deals by the glass as well as by the bottle at
Locanda Verde right now?
So many. By the glass, we are featuring
an unusual dry Vespaiolo from Contra Soarda for $12, and Billecart
Salmon Brut NV Champagne for $18. By the bottle, a few of my favorites
are Kuenhof Sylvaner (white) for $65, Triacca Valtellina Superiore
‘Sassella’ (red) at $45, and at the higher end, Paolo Bea Sagrantino di
Montefalco ‘Pagliaro’ at $120, among many, many others. 

In
an online article for the Wall Street Journal, you mentioned that it’s
often better to buy by the bottle.  Why is that?
Generally
speaking, the more the bottle costs, the better the value to the
customer. It’s sort of an unwritten sliding scale. Good Beverage
Directors understand when and where to offer value in their programs,
rather than mindlessly marking things up with a formula in order to
achieve a predetermined cost basis.
 
How do you think New
Yorkers’ taste in wines have changed in the past 10 years?
PINOT
NOIR PINOT NOIR! People are also really getting into wine as the
beverage of choice with dinner, regardless of how knowledgeable or geeky
they are, which is fantastic. People are, on a whole, better educated,
which can make their experience as a guest more indelible, if you engage
it correctly.

What’s your preference, red or white wine?
Depends
on the food or the mood. I love both. I also have cravings for red wine
analogous to what most people consider ‘food’ cravings.

Did
you travel through Italy to develop Locanda Verde’s beverage program?
I
had been fortunate to travel through Piedmont, Liguria and Tuscany
prior to  Locanda. Last October, I traveled through Campania and the
Amalfi Coast, which made a deep impression. Sicily and Sardinia are
next.  Carmellini fills in any blanks. He has been everywhere.

How
closely did you work with Chef Andrew Carmellini to craft the beverage
program or does he let you do your own thing?
We discussed the
list focusing on food driven wines which pair with the menu, and it has
succeeded in that regard. Value is also very important to us. If he sees
something he doesn’t like, we take it from there. He is incredibly
involved in every facet of the beverage program, including spirits and
cocktails, and I can’t foresee that changing at any restaurant he ever
opens.

Will you also be creating and overseeing the beverages
for The Dutch?
Yes.

Locanda
Verde

377 Greenwich
St.

(212) 925-3797