When Dale Talde opened his namesake restaurant Talde in 2012, he brought a bustling energy to Brooklyn’s quiet Park Slope neighborhood, with a small-plates concept based on bringing people together over a good meal. Since then, Talde and partners David Massoni and John Bush have created a food empire under Three Kings Restaurant Group with Rice & Gold and Massoni in Manhattan and another Talde outpost across the river in Jersey City. As he continues to diversify his portfolio, Talde is taking stock of his past as a child of immigrants to help forge his legacy.
Earliest food memories
It was a foggy summer day in San Francisco, and we were visiting my mom’s friends in Chinatown when I was 8 or 9 years old. We were going into this Chinese restaurant that had 400 items on the menu, and my mom said, ‘You can order whatever you want.’ It was a poignant moment—the freedom of choice. It always stuck with me. I love the idea of sharing [food]. I never take that for granted. That’s the most important thing. You grab a wok and start cooking, and it invigorates the passion.
On growing up in Chicago
I’m the son of immigrants. My mom is a registered nurse and came here from the Philippines in the late ’60s, early ’70s. There was a program that gave you a work visa if you were a registered healthcare practitioner, and that’s how [my parents] were able to get into the country. My dad was a merchant marine. He was a chief engineer on a ship, and he ended up joining the Boilermakers union. My mom worked the graveyard shift from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m., and she had to take care of her husband, the house, three kids, and cook dinner. She cooked what she wanted to eat—Chinese long beans, bok choy—and I didn’t want to eat that. I wanted apple pancakes. She said, ‘If you want to eat that, you have to make it,’ and it wasn’t that hard. After that, my friends would come over and I would make breakfast for everyone. That was my thing, and I had a knack for it. My mom was excited that I was excited about something.
On looking to the future
You talk about what’s changed in the industry, and for me, it was having a child. You’re not doing it for yourself anymore. You see a lot less ego-driven food. Accolades go right out the window. I want to make sure that my son is proud of me. I want to do good by him. I want to be a better person because now I have kid. The new hospitality group, the challenges of running a restaurant—having a child centers you. There’s a bigger goal now. There’s something to leave for my kid. Hopefully, he can be proud of his old man. Hopefully, there’s a talent I can teach him.
The Wimberly Interiors-designed Rice & Gold inside the 50 Bowery Hotel in New York.
Gritty Italian restaurant Massoni, designed by Workshop/APD, is housed in the Arlo NoMad.
A large mural on a brick wall defines Massoni’s intimate dining room.
