Restaurants
Locanda Verde, the Dutch, Joe’s Pub, the Library at the Public, Lafayette, Bar Primi, Little Park, and Evening Bar, New York; rooftop bar Westlight, Mister Dips, and soon-to-open Leuca, Brooklyn, New York; the Dutch Miami; and set for 2018: venues in a Detroit hotel
On becoming a chef
Growing up in south Cleveland in the 1970s and ’80s, it wasn’t something you heard talked about. I knew I liked to eat. I loved to cook with my mom. I really wanted to go to music school and got accepted to Berklee College of Music [in Boston]. I also started working in restaurants when I was in high school, so I got the bug a little bit. It was a decision between doing the music thing or the cooking thing.
On cooking for former Governor of New York Mario Cuomo
I just got to school at the [Culinary Institute of America in New York], and after three weeks I answered a random ad at school that said ‘private chef, weekends in Albany.’ They interviewed me over the phone, then they [asked me to] show up at this address, but I still didn’t know who the family was. I got in my rusted 1973 Maverick and drove up to Albany, and I was like, ‘Oh, that family.’
Bar Primi in New York. Photography by Noah Fecks.
On working for industry greats (after and in between stints in France and Italy) like Gray Kunz and Daniel Boulud
It was a different culinary time in New York—the great uptown restaurants were the most important; there weren’t many downtown restaurants. If you were a serious chef, you were working for a restaurant that had a ‘Le’ in front of the name. It made me a better chef: I showed up early, stayed late, tried to learn as much as I could.
On opening Locanda Verde and the Dutch, after helping to launch Michelin-starred Avoce
An old customer of mine, Robert De Niro, was opening a hotel [the Greenwich] in Tribeca, and that’s how [Italian restaurant] Locanda Verde in 2009 came about. I was already working out the lease on [roots-inspired American restaurant and oyster bar] the Dutch in SoHo. It was an intense time, opening two businesses a year apart but I have two great partners, Luke Ostrom and Josh Pickard. We formed NoHo Hospitality, and here we are.
On heading to Brooklyn’s Williamsburg neighborhood, with venues in the newly opened William Vale hotel
We were involved in a development project down the street [that fell through]. The William Vale was going up and we saw that the building was going to be significant. About a year into the project the developers parted ways with their original [restaurant] partner, and we were introduced. For a hotel restaurant to be vibrant, you need local people there hanging out and you need to take care of the people at the hotel, and sometimes it’s hard to achieve that.
On design, with partners like Meyer Davis, Rockwell Group, Roman and Williams, and Gachot Studios
I am probably overly involved. We try to have a music-set quality to every place. I wanted some glamour at Westlight. It could have been easy and cliché to do something in Brooklyn that had brick walls and reclaimed furniture. Rooftop bars are getting kind of sloppy, and we wanted to do a more elevated rooftop experience that is also a lot of fun. The Dutch was a great American restaurant, and I wanted to tell that story in a particular way with different rooms, and Roman and Williams understood it. For Lafayette, I always wanted to do a big, bold, grand café, and that space just felt like that. Little Park is a small restaurant and I wanted to do something vegetable focused. So New York real estate drives [the restaurant] a lot, but it’s also what we are feeling. Others have been quick redos of spaces on a budget that didn’t work in hotels—and how do you make that feel fresh.
On restaurant design pet peeves
Understanding that a restaurant is not residential. The furnishings take a beating; you can value engineer a project without sacrificing the look and the texture if you take the time to do it.
