JONATHAN BENNO: I'm not
accustomed to--
I've always done these kinds
of interviews or cooking
segments, they're always
very brief.
Like when we made the pasta.
It's demo a couple of dishes
and it's over.
Tell me about your career
and it's over.
But last night was a little
challenging for me at points.
Because we were together
for four or five hours.
And four or five hours together
with the camera and
you and questions.
You need to keep things going.
And you need to keep
asking questions.
And you just keep shooting--
what did you say, 12 minutes--
that is fun and hit
all the bases.
Honestly, for me, I
wasn't embarrassed
to be with the entourage.
But I felt to stay--
it was a little bit
challenging.
Mm!
It's a casonsei that has a sweet
potato as the filling,
toasted almonds, just a little
bit of sherry vinegar.
And then this one we finish
with mozzarella
that we smoke in-house.
My name is Jonathan Benno and
I'm the chef at Lincoln
Ristorante.
Lincoln Ristorante is on 65th
street, between Amsterdam and
Broadway, right in the
Lincoln Center.
With everything that happens
up here, there are all the
performing arts houses,
it's a pretty
inspirational place to work.
There's been a lot of allusions
to being on stage
when you're working on
the line at Lincoln.
The kitchen is completely
open.
The food is a modern
interpretation of a classic
Italian cuisine.
It doesn't have a
regional focus.
The pasta dishes here are
very, very popular.
Where's the strozz?
-Strozz is behind here.
JONATHAN BENNO: This
is a strozzapreti.
So it's another pasta that
we make in-house.
It has a little bit of
squid ink in it.
That's what gives
it the color.
This is probably one
of the few--
what we'll call signature pastas
at the restaurant.
Strozzapreti means
priest strangler.
Strozza, preti, priest.
I never worked in Italy.
I've been lucky enough
to travel there.
I'd say, I had a good foundation
in pasta making
over the course of the
past couple years.
I grew up in Connecticut.
I start washing dishes
when I was 15.
I moved out to Hawaii.
I worked out there
for a while.
I came back to New York.
I went to the Culinary
Institute of America.
I went back out West.
I was lucky enough to work in
Napa with Thomas Keller the
first year the French
Laundry was open.
I came to New York for about
eight years, and worked for
Daniel Boulud.
I was working at Craft with
Marco Canora and Tom Colicchio
when the opportunity came
up to open Per Se.
I was at Per Se for six years.
I started thinking about
what was next.
I knew that I wanted to do
something completely different.
I've always been passionate
about Italian food.
And I've always loved going to
Italy, and learning about the
culture and the cuisine.
I've tried to take everything
that I've learned up until
this point, and and
apply it here.
Here we are now, two years
later, with a restaurant that
has a firm identity and
a strong following.
The restaurant knows who it is
and what it is and what it
wants to be for, what you
can imagine, is a
very diverse clientele.
You told me to pick a restaurant
that I really
wanted to go eat at.
I've been dying to go to Nick
Kim's restaurant, Neta, in the
West Village.
I know Nick probably for eight
years now, since he opened
Masa and we opened Per Se.
The two guys that joined
me for dinner--
Chung Chow and Dominick
Tesoriero.
Chung, I met out in California,
when he was a cook
at Bouchon and I went back out
to work at the French Laundry,
and then was one of the opening
sous chefs here.
Dominick is a real character.
DOMINICK TESORIERO: I'm
still a [INAUDIBLE].
JONATHAN BENNO: He was probably
with us for about six
months, and comes back often,
and helps us with off-site
events, and things.
Chung is from Hawaii.
And I think we share certainly
a passion for fish and sushi.
NICK KIM: Neta, for us, means
fresh ingredients, what's
available now versus when
it's not in season.
So we're very seasonal driven.
Simple, honest.
And right now what Jimmy is
doing is breaking down the
collar piece.
A lot of the restaurants will
basically just cut right
through it.
But we take the time to
remove each layer.
And what we do with the sinew
is we'll marinate it.
And then we'll grill it.
And we'll make sinew sushi.
-Here we have beautiful, fresh
dungeness crab salad with some
cucumber, wild parsley, and
a dashi vinaigrette.
JONATHAN BENNO: One of the
really beautiful things about
eating like that is it always
leaves you wanting more.
That two to three bites,
and you wish there
was a fourth bite.
But by the time you realize that
there's no fourth bite,
the next course is already
coming to the table.
It's almost the kind of meal,
and the kind of experience,
where you really want
to be quiet.
And you really want to think
about what you're eating.
And I think you pick up on
that pretty quickly.
NICK KIM: We cook things very
lightly, so when you taste
things it's very gentle.
Like this scallop dish,
for example.
Scallop's warm, foie
gras is hot.
And the uni is room
temperature-ish.
Our soy sauce that we age
in a bourbon cask.
JONATHAN BENNO: If you had said
to me warm foie gras, sea
urchin, scallop, I wouldn't
connect those dots myself.
But the way that he did it--
definitely one of the best
things that I'd ever had.
Although I was full--
not like overstuffed
but perfect at
the end of the meal--
it was one of those meals that
I didn't want it to end.
I remember the first time I
ate at the French Laundry,
feeling the same way.
Thank you very much.
What Nick and his team are doing
there, they really stand
out in my mind as one of the
best meals that I've ever had.
After that we went to
probably one of my
favorite bars in the city--
Peter McManus Cafe.
My wife is a chef as well.
That was always kind of
our rendezvous point.
We would meet there, and
have a beer together.
INTERVIEWER: Would you say it's
a hard thing to bring a
camera to your favorite bar?
JONATHAN BENNO: That was kind
of a funny location.
People want to see what's going
on, and who is that.
Why is there a camera?
I've lived in that neighborhood
for a long time,
and I know those guys
very, very well.
For me to be out at McManus at
midnight was surreal, almost.
My wife and I moved up to
Westchester recently.
We have two little girls.
I started bobbing a little bit
towards the end, because for
me to be out--
it's just funny.
I guess I'm getting older.
The dish I chose to make
for the real munchie--
I love sandwiches.
I'm crazy about sandwiches.
I always have been.
I also love to work
with tripe.
So what we did was we took the
honeycomb tripe and braised it
whole, until it was tender.
And then cut it into cutlet-size
pieces, breaded
it, and fried it.
So it was a tripe cutlet on our
country bread with lemon
aoli, B&G hot peppers, pickled
red onions, and arugula.
DOMINICK TESORIERO: Amazing.
Sometimes, life is
really grand--
just sometimes.
JONATHAN BENNO: Cheers.
DOMINICK TESORIERO: Chung.
CHUNG CHOW: Cheers it up.
JONATHAN BENNO: You
drove, right?
DOMINICK TESORIERO: I did.
CHUNG CHOW: This is so good.
