Talking Food with Glen Coben
An interview with the Founder of Glen & Co, New York
Photo by Lisette Wong/Spiegler
In my refrigerator > Quinoa, lots of veggies, leftovers from Sunday dinner, and cans of Sixpoint Righteous Ale. What a great name for a beer.
Favorite dishes > Spaghetti and meatballs, Chicken Scarpiello, and Pad Thai
Food I’ll never eat > I’ll eat anything, even if it’s moving-just not too fast
A night in means I’m cooking > Seafood bolognese (for his recipe, log on to hospitalitydesign.com)
Midnight snack of choice > Pizza
Restaurants I love (but didn’t design) > Roberta’s in Brooklyn and Dovetail in Manhattan
Favorite part of my kitchen in Westchester, New York > The house is modern, from 1953. We put the kitchen in the original screened-in porch, so the light that comes in throughout the day is amazing.
Latest creative design detail for a project > At Carbone, it’s one of the more subtle ones: the banquette in the back dining room is meant to look like a vintage police officer jacket-the button tufts are authentic police jacket buttons.
Newest creations in New York > The Marrow is based on chef Harold Dieterle’s menu: half is German-after his father’s side-and the other half is Italian, after his mom’s. So we wove together a feminine and masculine design-a duality. It’s also perfect since Harold’s business partner Alicia Nosenzo runs the front of house.
The Marrow
Photography by Daniel Krieger
For Carbone we channeled 1950s New York red-sauce Italian restaurants. We toured the boroughs, tasting, looking, and talking about what dining out meant to second generation Italian-Americans. References were movies such as the Godfather and TV shows like Boardwalk Empire, as well as photographs by Weegee of New York crime scenes.
Carbone
Photography by Daniel Krieger