Michelin-starred 4 Horsemen is an icon within the nationwide eating scene, and new sister restaurant I Cavallini is beginning to develop a status for incredible Italian-style fare as properly. Government chef and co-partner Nick Curtola and his group stroll via a few of the Brooklyn restaurant’s signature dishes.
The fried eel toast is predicated on a ciccheti from Venice, however with deep-fried freshwater eel and agrodolce all layered into the proper chew on crispy baguette. The identical means that ciccheti leads a meal, the kitchen begins every single day of prep with making two handmade pastas and two contemporary pastas with pasta machines. Curtola discusses how the trofie pasta form was an necessary achievement, working for a pair weeks to make the perfect sizzling water and semolina combine and rolling out the skinny pasta items. The Union Sq. Greenmarket is one other important a part of prep, with Curtola visiting the farmers market three to 4 occasions every week to gather tremendous contemporary produce.
The nervetti, or beef tendon stew, braising prep additionally begins early with the chopped up tendons braising in aromatics and wine for 5 to seven hours. The tendons are then put again in their very own braising liquid and become a gelatinous terrine that may be thinly sliced into an onion salad. Risina beans from a small purveyor are prepped for a tuna toro dish, cooking down the show-stealing legumes for 3 hours. “These guys are brainwashed about beans,” Curtola jokes as he reminds sous chef Max Baez to not rush the beans. The thick cuts of tuna loin are dried out with loads of salt for prep as properly.
Curtola says the 4 Horsemen group has helped to carry his imaginative and prescient of I Cavallini to life as he visits chef de delicacies Dylan Takao on the wine bar, who has taken over the kitchen whereas Curtola has been busy at his new restaurant. Takao put collectively the menu for the Eater 20 and Capital One Dinner Social gathering on the restaurant a month in the past. Curtola talks about the way it was by no means a objective at 4 Horsemen to win a Michelin Star, but it surely’s been great to be honored for his or her work. Now, he heads again to the a lot bigger I Cavallini, which he says homes his “dream kitchen.”
The spiral-shaped trofie pasta are lastly rolled by 4 cooks for nearly two hours earlier than service, with over 100 items of the pasta in every serving of the over-the-top pasta dish. Curtola jumps into the pasta makingand they chortle collectively as they play an audiobook of Moby Dick whereas rolling the trofie. Earlier than serving, the freshly cooked pasta is tossed with pesto and topped with shaved belprono cheese, a cow’s milk cheese coated in black pepper. The prepped tuna is seared in a sizzling pan and plated with the cooked down beans, tomatoes, and an herb-filled gremolata.
Curtola says he desires diners to have a very good time once they go to I Cavallini, but in addition be taught one thing new, just like the origins of unusual shaved beef tendon and labor-intensive trofie. “So seeking to shock folks alongside the best way and simply give them a very pleasing expertise,” he says.
Watch the most recent episode of Mise en Place to see how Curtola and his group are joyfully introducing New Yorkers to their very own riffs on Italian dishes and a few unlikely components at I Cavallini.