FOOD SPECIAL Bloomberg Pursuits March 9, 202058
things first: Couldn’t every year be the Year of
the Noodle?
After all, the various strands and shapes fash-
ioned from a base of flour and water are cele-
brated worldwide—and have been since their
earliest beginnings. Experts date pasta’s origins
well before the legend of Marco Polo in the late
1200s, all the way back to at least 2,000 years ago
during the Han dynasty.
Over the past fifteen years or so, Americans
have intensified their casual love affair with the
stuff, whether it’s the ramen at Momofuku, the
octopus and bone marrow fusilli at Marea in New
York, or the brown butter ravioli at Cotogna in
San Francisco. Last year alone, the U.S. market
accounted for $6.3 billion in pasta and noodles,
and that was just for dried varieties.
And yet, I would humbly argue that 2020 rep-
resents a new apex in the art of slurping.
New dishes are making inroads at restaurants where
they’ve traditionally had little visibility. At the carb-scant
Korean steakhouse Cote in New York, owner Simon Kim
has installed a late-night special of ram-don, also known
as chapaguri. The dish, popularized in the U.S. by the Best
Picture-winning filmParasite, is based around thick instant
noodles and stocked with chunks of steak.
Little-known shapes are getting their own micro-moment,
too. At three-Michelin-star Manresa, noodle neophyte David
Kinch is better known for his modern California cooking than
Italian staples. But at his upcoming Mentone restaurant in
Aptos, Calif., he will highlight pastas from the French and
Italian Riviera such as corzetti, or stamped rounds. At Misi
in Brooklyn, N.Y., chef Missy Robbins often dresses her cor-
zetti with sungold tomatoes; Melissa Rodriguez, on the other
hand, tops her version of it at New York’s Del Posto with but-
tery razor clams. Jonathan Benno is using it as a branding
opportunity at his eponymous spot in Manhattan, where he
adds a shrimp garnish to the oversize rounds that have been
stamped with his initials.
Even classicist chefs are taking the opportunity to expand
their boundaries. Stefano Secchi learned how to make gor-
geous stuffed pastas from his former boss, Italy’s top-ranked
chef Massimo Bottura. This year at Rezdora in New York, he
is serving doppio tortelloni, which is a larger version of the
thumb-size tortellini. It comes with two stuffing compart-
ments instead of one, and fillings change based on the sea-
son: This spring, he’ll add one to the menu with prosciutto
and Parmigiano cream.
On the ramen side, Foo Kanegae is best known for
creating more than 600 kinds of noodle dishes when he
ran the kitchen at the category-defining Ippudo in New
York. In February he opened his own space in Brooklyn
called Karazishi Botan, where the selections run much
more unconventional: One bowl he’ll serve is made with
gluten-free brown rice noodles and a broth that’s steamedF
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The late-night special
at Cote steakhouse is
chapaguri, a dish that
plays a pivotal role
in the Oscar-winning
movie Parasite