Q & A with Skal’s Chef Ben Spiegel
On the surface, five-month-old Skal might just seem like yet another New Nordic restaurant in NYC. And yes, it’s named after a Northern drinking toast, the owner is from Iceland, and there’s a decided Scandinavian slant to former Noma apprentice, Ben Spiegel’s menu. But the young, Toronto-born chef insists that more than anything, this sunny neighborhood spot (improbably situated in Chinatown, skirting the border of the Lower East Side), simply embodies a fresh approach towards eating and dining out in general.
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Q & A with the Food Network’s Anne Burrell
Anne Burrell’s first television gig may have been to roll out pasta for Mario Batali on Iron Chef America, but it quickly became evident that she was a Food Network star in her own right. With her spiky blond hair, spunky skirts, irrepressible energy and can-do attitude, she’s since proven herself as a charming, fun-loving host of cooking shows like Secrets of a Restaurant Chef, and firm but compassionate mentor in competitions like Worst Cooks in America and Chef Wanted.
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Q & A with Kingside’s Marc Murphy
While much of the country knows Marc Murphy as a judge, on the popular Food Network show, Chopped, New Yorkers are lucky enough to know him through his restaurants. There’s the elegant and ambitious Landmarc, a contemporary bistro boasting two sprawling locations in both Tribeca and the Time Warner Center. There’s the infinitely more casual Ditch Plains, a slew of beachy seafood shacks (Murphy is an avid surfer). And now, there’s the recently opened Kingside in Midtown’s Viceroy Hotel, a snazzy, 104-seat brasserie featuring…
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Q & A with Joe & Misses Doe’s Joe Dobias
While there’s something innately comforting about the well established or tried-and-true, lets face it, everyone is always looking for the next big thing. That’s what makes the two-month-old Joe & Misses Doe so uniquely appealing… while it’s been assembled entirely from scratch (including the name and menu), it’s also wholly familiar, a 2.0 version of the popular five-year-old restaurant, JoeDoe.
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Q & A with Khe-Yo’s Soulayphet Schwader
Southeast Asian food couldn’t be more popular in New York right now, from Kin Shop, Pig and Khao and Fatty ‘Cue in Manhattan, to Talde, Pok Pok Ny and Nightingale 9 in Brooklyn. But as familiar as we’ve become with spicy Thai Curries or Vietnamese Bun, you’d be hard-pressed to find a restaurant entirely focused on the cuisine of Laos. That’s where Soulayphet Schwader comes in. The AZT, BLT Steak and Umi Nom alum has just opened Khe-Yo, the city’s first fully Laotian restaurant, with the help of Iron Chef Marc Forgione, his longtime friend and collaborator.
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Q & A with Contra’s Jeremiah Stone and Fabian Von Hauske
If you ask chefs Jeremiah Stone and Fabian Von Hauske to describe the concept for Contra, their new, tasting-menu only restaurant, they’ll insist that its clean and spare, like their Lower East Side space, with food that’s serious, but doesn’t take itself too seriously. “We’re just trying to stay focused, showcase great products, and avoid doing things that represent who other people are as cooks…
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Q & A with Pok Pok Ny’s Andy Ricker
New York is having a love affair with Asian cooking, and Andy Ricker’s three terrific Thai eateries are among the most respected restaurants of all. There’s the flagship Pok Pok Ny in Brooklyn, modeled after his original outpost in Portland. There’s the recently opened Whiskey Soda Lounge just next door, which showcases delicious drinking food alongside cocktails made with Ricker’s own Som Drinking Vinegars. And there’s Pok Pok Phat Thai on the Lower East Side (formerly Pok Pok Wing), which focuses on highly authentic renditions of the popular, but too often bastardized dish.
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Q & A with Piora’s Chris Cipollone & Simon Kim
It’s one thing for a Hamptons restaurant to draw crowds during the height of the summer season. But the 25-year-old Nick and Toni’s is a veritable institution year round, attracting both local, loyal clientele, and a steady stream of celebrities as varied as Bill Clinton, Mick Jagger, Steven Spielberg and Martha Stewart.
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Q & A with Toro’s Ken Oringer and Jamie Bissonnette
It’s one thing for a Hamptons restaurant to draw crowds during the height of the summer season. But the 25-year-old Nick and Toni’s is a veritable institution year round, attracting both local, loyal clientele, and a steady stream of celebrities as varied as Bill Clinton, Mick Jagger, Steven Spielberg and Martha Stewart.
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Q & A with Charlie Bird’s Chef Ryan Hardy
It’s one thing for a Hamptons restaurant to draw crowds during the height of the summer season. But the 25-year-old Nick and Toni’s is a veritable institution year round, attracting both local, loyal clientele, and a steady stream of celebrities as varied as Bill Clinton, Mick Jagger, Steven Spielberg and Martha Stewart.
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Q & A with Balaboosta and Bar Bolonat’s Einat Admony
It’s one thing for a Hamptons restaurant to draw crowds during the height of the summer season. But the 25-year-old Nick and Toni’s is a veritable institution year round, attracting both local, loyal clientele, and a steady stream of celebrities as varied as Bill Clinton, Mick Jagger, Steven Spielberg and Martha Stewart.
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Q & A with RedFarm’s Ed Schoenfeld
How does a local, Brooklyn boy, and a Jewish one at that, become a Chinese food expert? Add successful restaurateur and ask the incomparable Ed Schoenfeld, who is currently orchestrating the build out of three exciting restaurants alongside partner, Zach Chodorow. There’s the under-renovations RedFarm in the West Village, his top-rated, modern Chinese eatery that’s expanding to meet a growing demand. There’s Decoy, a Peking Duck spot and cocktail lounge just downstairs, currently operating as a 28-day, pop-up Steakhouse. And then, there’s the spacious new RedFarm on the Upper West Side, which will serve restaurant signatures, like Pastrami Egg Rolls and sculptural Chicken Salad, although Chef Joe Ng’s famous Pac-Man Dumplings will probably be replaced by a new, Hello Kitty version. “The way things have worked out, fortunately or unfortunately, is that everything is coming down at the same time,” Schoenfeld shrugs. “Red Farm UWS took longer and Decoy is coming together quicker, so we’re just rolling with the punches.”
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Q & A with New York Sushi Ko’s John Daley
New York Sushi Ko’s John Daley doesn’t exactly fit the expected mold of Sushi Chef. His bare arms are covered by a riot of tattoos, with the words “FISH” and “RICE” emblazoned across his knuckles. He plays reggae music over the restaurant’s sound system, and is known for muttering expletives (sometimes playfully, sometimes not) at his sous chefs. Oh, and he’s caucasian.
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Q & A with Atera’s Matthew Lightner
For a chef so new to the New York dining scene, Matthew Lightner has made quite an impressive, East Coast debut. An alumni of L’Auberge in California, Mugaritz in Spain, and Noma in Denmark to name a few, Lightner launched his first New York venture, Atera, in March of last year. And in just a short time, the avant-garde, modern American eatery has already garnered two Michelin stars, a spot on Bon Appetit’s Best 50 New Restaurants list, and a 3-star review from The New York Times.
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Q & A with Iron Chef Masaharu Morimoto
Who doesn’t know the name Masaharu Morimoto? He was everyone’s favorite competitor on the original, Japanese cooking show, Iron Chef, and continues to be just as popular on its Food Network spinoff, Iron Chef America. Morimoto introduced the America to an entirely new brand of Asian fusion with his restaurant Morimoto (which currently has outposts in Philadelphia, Florida and NYC), dreaming up dishes like “Duck, Duck, Duck” — a trio of Peking-style duck leg, a duck egg, and a roast duck sandwich made with a foie gras-infused croissant — as well as Rock Shrimp Tempura, glazed in a sauce inspired by Buffalo Chicken Wings.
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Q & A with Distilled’s Chef Shane Lyons
Despite a six-year tenure as a child actor, it would have been a surprise if Shane Lyons had become anything but a chef. Both of his parents are industry vets, and began teaching him how to cook at three years old. He eventually enrolled in the C.I.A, his mother’s alma mater, and became the youngest ever graduate at the age of 18. And this led to various respectable kitchen stints… first as a private chef, and then at restaurants like Craft Bar, Café Boulud and Momofuku Noodle Bar. But it’s at the recently opened Distilled that Lyons has achieved his ultimate goal, to become an executive chef and owner of a bustling New York eatery.
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Q & A with Alder’s Jon Bignelli
wd-50, Wylie Dufresne’s seminal, molecular gastronomy-loving eatery, is closely associated with all sorts of madcap, culinary experiments. After all, signature dishes include deconstructed Eggs Benedict with english muffin crumb-coated fried hollandaise, and Pizza “pebbles” made from a variety of dehydrated, tomato and parmesan flavored powders. So what can patrons expect from his new East Village restaurant, Alder? According to executive chef and wd-50 alum, Jon Bignelli, he and Dufresne have taken a decidedly more traditional (but no less fun and creative) approach to food.
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Chefs Speak: What’s Your Favorite Father-Related Food Memory?
Many classic childhood food memories tend to revolve around one’s mom. The special soup she made you whenever you got sick. The warm batch of cookies waiting when you tramped in from the cold after a long day of sledding and snowball fights. But that doesn’t mean our fathers didn’t leave just as formative an imprint. From Paul Denamiel’s Baba Rhum-fueled escapades with his papa in the foothills of France, to the secret recipe tomato sauce Bryce Shuman used to woo the ladies, these chefs lives never would have been the same without a little culinary help from dad. Here are a few of their favorite father-related food memories!
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Q & A with Danji & Hanjan’s Hooni Kim
Having grown up in Manhattan, trained at the French Culinary Institute, and worked at two of the top, high-end eateries in the city (Daniel and Masa), it wasn’t a given that chef Hooni Kim would open a Korean restaurant. “I’ve always been more of a New Yorker than anything else. But I realized that at the best restaurants, chefs puts themselves onto the plate,” he says. “Once you eat their food, you should have an idea of who this person is, what they’re about and what their experiences are. “
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A New & Improved Nick And Toni’s in the Hamptons for 2013
It’s one thing for a Hamptons restaurant to draw crowds during the height of the summer season. But the 25-year-old Nick and Toni’s is a veritable institution year round, attracting both local, loyal clientele, and a steady stream of celebrities as varied as Bill Clinton, Mick Jagger, Steven Spielberg and Martha Stewart.
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