ANDREW CARMELLINI

Andrew Carmellini wants to be New York City’s chef next door. Despite a Michelin star, two James Beard awards and 20-plus years at some of the city’s finest restaurants, the Cleveland native is happiest cooking unfussy food.

Andrew Carmellini Solves Your Risotto Problems. And Goes Dutch

Best American Regional Classic Recipes

To research regional American dishes for his upcoming Manhattan restaurant, chef Andrew Carmellini road-tripped around the country in search of spectacular flavors—and found just a few good ones. So he set out to invent his own.

13 Chefs reveal their culinary battle scars

“I’ve long admired Chef Andrew Carmellini of Locanda Verde. His cookbook, Urban Italian, is a staple in my kitchen, and I’m eager to check out his new restaurant, The Dutch, which is due to open this fall. So I was thrilled to attend a cooking class with Carmellini at the New York Culinary Experience this weekend.”

“a little bit old school, a little bit O.G., a little bit Damon Runyonesque”

He’s done French. He’s done Italian. Next up for the classically trained chef: American food without boundaries.

Verde Delicious
With Andrew Carmellini at the stove, De Niro’s second try at the Greenwich Hotel hits the bull’s-eye.

“This kind of crowd-pleasing cooking isn’t designed to win culinary awards, of course. It’s designed to promote a good time in a casually stylish, relatively economical way, and judging by the crowds of people who are bull-rushing into De Niro’s new restaurant, it’s succeeding”

Best New Chef

Recipes made easy

URBAN ITALIAN
After leaving his job at a top U.S. French restaurant, chef Andrew Carmellini lived in Italy, then devised recipes with wife Gwen Hyman in their tiny New York apartment kitchen. The result? Great ideas for the home cook.

“It’s exactly the kind of restaurant New York needed in a year when everything else was heading in the wrong direction,”

“That is, delicious, smart, consistent food that makes me happy, is easy to share and doesn’t ask too much of my brain or wallet.”

“My Grandmother’s Ravioli is a valentine to its creator, a fresh wash of tomato sauce and a dusting of Parmesan on delicate squares of meat-filled pasta. “Lucky grandson,” I think to myself.”

“Just point to anything on the menu and expect your friends to share it all with you — lamb-meatball sliders with goat cheese; big, fat gigantoni pasta with Carmellini’s rich Sunday-night ragù and sharp provolone; succulent, fatty suckling pig. And on temperate New York nights, Locanda Verde opens its windows and puts tables on the sidewalk, becoming part of one of Manhattan’s last true neighborhoods, TriBeCa”

Locanda Verde Best New Restaurant 2009

“It’s the kind of dish whose complexity inspires respect for its maker.”

“The pastas showcase Carmellini’s spirit and skill—ethereal robiola-cheese ravioli, with tomatoes; maltagliati, randomly torn sheets of perfectly done pasta, tossed with pesto; creamy lemon risotto, rescued from monotony by vibrant chili oil and chives.”

“Carmellini, who eventually freed himself from the open kitchen, an “AC” dotting his galley whites, to get his ring kissed. The A-List chef as the star, with the A-ist customer and the A-ist owner in supporting roles. That’s a formula other celebrities could imitate, one that merits De Niro some applause.”

Making your own ricotta is incredibly satisfying and surprisingly simple. Here are step-by-step instructions and recipes that will showcase your cheesemaking skill.

Locanda Verde: The best breakfast in New York?

“Who knew that an Italian restaurant in Tribeca would produce New York’s best breakfast?”

The End (of the Bowl) Is Near:

We asked for a wintry recipe, and he gave us one inspired by Friuli, the cold, mountainous region where his nonna was born.