peeled tomatoes), I was stunned. Meat, fish and produce deliveries
arrived and the cooks would fall on them like marauders, yanking out
what they needed—frequently right off the truck—so it would be ready
for lunch. The quality of food was magnificent. Orders started coming in
and I'd have to run down to the butcher who was cutting meat to order. A
short, Ecuadorian pasta maker with nubs where two fingers had been
rolled garganelli, cut spaghetti alla chitarra, laid out sheet pasta for
ravioli and punched out fresh gnocchi which were immediately sent
upstairs to be served. On the line, a truly awe-inspiring crew of talented
Ecuadorians made focaccia and white truffle oil-filled pizzas, rubbed
fresh striped bass with sea salt, filled them with herbs and roasted them
until crispy, sliced translucently thin sheets of Parma ham and speck,
and prepared an amazing array of pasta dishes, yanking the fresh-cooked
stuff to order out of two simmering pasta cookers and finishing them in
pans from a mise-en-place of ingredients so vast and well prepared that I
had no idea how they kept them all straight.
I never really knew how to cook pasta before. Here, dried pasta was
blanched in small, undercooked batches and laid out unrinsed and still
warm on lightly oiled sheet pans before being finished in sauce a few
minutes later. Fresh pasta and thin-cut pasta was cooked to order.
Pasta was cooked the right way. Meaning, the penne, for instance, after
saucing, stood up on the plate in a mound, rather than sliding around on
the plate or being left to drown in a bowl.
"You want to taste the pasta," explained Gianni, "not just the sauce." It
was, I must admit, a revelation. A simple pasta pomodoro—just about
the simplest thing I could think of, pasta in red sauce—suddenly became
a thing of real beauty and excitement.
All the food was simple. And I don't mean easy, or dumb. I mean that for
the first time, I saw how three or four ingredients, as long as they are of
the highest and freshest quality, can be combined in a straightforward