The James Beard House Welcomes Chefs from Southern Italy

Two chefs in pressed uniforms shout orders, leading a team of assistants in the bright basement kitchen of the James Beard House. They advance down the countertops of the open room, garnishing 55 salad plates with swirls of tomato sauce and inspecting each to ensure the right proportion of ingredients.

“Remember less is more!” yells Chef Pasquale Rinaldo, before laughing at the plate beneath him. “In this case,” he says with a thick Italian accent, “more is less.”

Neapolitan chefs Rinaldo of Capri’s Ristorante d’Amore and Pizzaiolo Antonio Fusco of Naples’ Ristorante del Pino have not stopped for hours. They’ve been roasting a beef cheek braised in Taurasi wine on low heat (150 degrees) and preparing pizza dough. This dinner, held two days before Valentine’s day, was planned for months.

They flew to the US from Southern Italy–their first visit to America– to share the food of their restaurants. As they work, 55 guests fill the building, the brick townhouse that was once the home of chef and educator James Beard in Manhattan. They have come to taste a multi-course menu with the traditional recipes and ingredients from the Amalfi Coast and Vesuvian countryside. The James Beard Foundation hosted the sold-out event, appropriately named “Under the Capri Sun,” with the sponsorship of several organizations. This marked the first of two stops on a culinary tour, organized by author and culinary expert Amy Riolo, that concludes in Washington, DC.

“Our goal was to bring the heart of Capri and the Mediterranean to you,” said a smiling Chef Rinaldo as he explained the preparation behind the elaborate menu to guests. “Everything I cook is born out of the memories of childhood, then reinterpreted with modern technology and the tools we have now."

When chefs pass through the doors of the James Beard Foundation, they are not just preparing a meal, but joining a legacy of illustrious chefs of the past and present, from Jacques Pepin to Massimo Bottura. Since the 1980s, the James Beard Foundation has been one of the most celebrated institutions for the culinary arts in the world. Every dinner is an opportunity for chefs to orchestrate their own performance in an intimate setting. Guests walk through the kitchen to see where the magic happens, and chefs can even decide the music playlist for the evening.

The foundation’s affinity for Italian chefs and Italian cooking goes back decades and continues. For 15 years, they hosted a weekend of Tuscan food with Apicius, the International School of Hospitality in Florence, Italy. Last year, they helped to select the top pizzeria and pizzaiolo in the US for the 50 Top Pizza Awards, an initiative from Naples, Italy. And this January, they moderated discussions with Gruppo Italiano, an education non-profit focused on preserving the products and culture of Italian food.

The evening started off in the atrium, with a tasting of Neapolitan street food dishes, like warm pizza fritta, and pours of chilled Vesuvian white wine. After a reception, guests were seated upstairs to experience the procession of courses. For the antipasto, a “mistaken” Caprese salad was served, followed by plump ravioli of bitter marjoram and three distinctly aged kinds of cheese: caciotta, Grana Padano and provolone. For the secondo, came the tender slow-cooked beef and a crisp fennel salad with slices of orange. The five courses required a team of ingredient hunters on the ground in Italy and in New York. Every detail was painstakingly calculated, from the lemons that decorated the table to the fresh mozzarella that shared their 4,000+mile journey.

Chef Rinaldo was accompanied by his boss, owner, and sommelier Marco d'Amore, (yes, his last name has love in it), who told guests about his restaurant, located in the center of Capri, where they serve these same dishes. The restaurant was founded in 1996 by his father, who came from the province of Avellino. Perhaps as an homage to his father, the wines selected for the event came exclusively from that area.

For the final course, the beaming chefs answered questions while guests finished their panettone and Passito dessert wine. When it seemed the discussion was winding down, the topic of pizza came up, and a spontaneous demonstration began–Pizzaiolo Fusco simply could not resist. Flour, water, and salt were ordered from the kitchen and brought up to the dining room. Guests watched as he mixed the dough with his bare hands in a pine box that he built, forgetting that it was nearly 11 pm. As he worked, the master revealed the secret to all great cooking: love.