Secrets of the Best Chefs

(Kiana) #1

Anne Quatrano


Chef-owner, Bacchanalia, Star Provisions, Abbatoir, and
Floataway Café
Atlanta, Georgia


My question is fairly innocent, as far as questions go: “How do
you peel a grape?”
Chef Anne Quatrano is quick with her retort: “With your
teeth.”
That pretty much captures Quatrano: funny and brusque and
slightly glib about what she’s doing, which, at this moment,
involves garnishing a deconstructed baba au rhum with a dollop of
crème fraîche, cinnamon-infused sultanas, and the peeled grapes.
The finished dish is a geometric work of art: round plate,
rectangular brioche, and those ovoid grapes. In Quatrano’s kitchen,
you eat with your eyes first.
Which is why she insists that everything—the toasted brioche,
the duck that we cook before that—get blotted with paper towels,
both out of the pan and after it’s sliced. “I refuse to have blood on
the plate,” she tells me, almost wincing at the thought of bloody
duck. (She blots the brioche so it’s not greasy.) The visual extends
to how she preps vegetables for a soup. When she makes her pasta
fagioli, every ingredient is prepped to highlight its natural beauty.
The baby turnips are kept whole, the baby fennel sliced in half,
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