Picture it: New York, 2010. Four young cooks toil in the kitchens of Del Posto, that Manhattan mecca of the most elevated of Italian cuisine, then overseen by chef Mark Ladner. Working side by side, they developed a friendship, brought together by their similar philosophies, respect for the mother country and appreciation of Ladner’s style, which makes the most of Italian tradition, classical techniques and local ingredients.
Nearly a decade later, after moving in different directions and helming celebrated Italian restaurants of their own, the four came back together. The occasion was a one-night-only James Beard Foundation fundraiser at the Venice-focused Boston restaurant SRV, held as part of the foundation’s Taste America series of pop-up dinners across the country. The result, as 120 lucky diners discovered late last month, was nothing short of magnifico.
The current restaurants of the chefs in question are all James Beard Award honorees themselves: Michael Lombardi and Kevin O’Donnell earned SRV status as a Best New Restaurant semifinalist in 2017, while husband-and-wife Eduardo Valle Lobo and Kelly Jeun run the kitchen at Boulder, Colorado’s Frasca Food and Wine, an award winner in 2013 and 2019.
They each, as O’Donnell explained to La Cucina Italiana USA, learned from Ladner “to let ingredients shine, which is a very Italian way to cook. The mentality often is ‘less is more’, so rather than adding another ingredient to a dish, we’re often removing one. The food we each make tastes and feels so Italian, but it’s an elevated, sophisticated Italian. The flavors might be really rustic, but it's all presented very carefully, cleaned up and refined.”
The multi-course meal—which raised awareness about the Foundation’s goal to create a food world that is more delicious, diverse and sustainable—showed this philosophy off to great effect. O’Donnell and Lombardi—whose specialties include Venetian-style cicchetti tapas and fresh pasta made from flour milled in house—contributed a trio of one-bite canapés, including a nicely salted nervetti friti with carne cruda and black truffles. Their pasta course, cappellacci with lobster, nero di sepia, Calabrian chili and Meyer lemon, combined New England and Venice perfectly, with the citrus note offering a brightness that made the dish stand out.
Meanwhile, the offerings from the Frasca chefs, who cooked in northern Italy’s Friuli-Venezia Guilia region after leaving del Posto, added some of the flavors of Valle Lobo’s Spanish heritage into the mix: An octopus confit served with both beetroot and beet tops as well as in-season fresh radicchio met with a vinaigrette featuring Ibérico guanciale, while a dish of hay-smoked Colorado lamb saddle, potato panetière and leeks enjoyed the tang of a typically Catalonian Romesco sauce.
“It all came together naturally,” says Lombardi of the chefs’ collaboration. “I don't think we had to adapt to each other at all.” “That's a testament to how our styles are similar,” agrees O’Donnell, who, together with Lombardi, reconnected with Jeun and Valle Lobo for the first time in nearly a decade in April, when all four chefs were cooking at Pebble Beach Food & Wine. The ease of the partnership owes much to that shared Mark Ladner-instilled philosophy, to be sure, but also to the fact that they were able to pick right back up where they’d left off. As Lombardi quipped when introducing one of the SRV dishes during the dinner itself, “Eduardo was a sous chef at Del Posto, and I learned a lot from him — and Kelly, she was the first chef to put me in my place.”