Part chef, part mad scientist, James Briscione is a Jersey-born, Pensacola, Florida transplant who has experienced practically every facet of the restaurant industry and knows more than almost anyone how to make your food taste better.
You might be familiar with Briscione as the sous chef from world-famous restaurant Daniel in New York City. Or perhaps you know him as the first two-time champion of the hit TV show “Chopped.” Maybe you studied under him during his 10 years as the culinary director for the Institute of Culinary Education (ICE) in New York. And you might have purchased his invaluable cookbook “The Flavor Matrix,” which delves into the science behind your food pairings.
Chef James Briscione
“I spent two years researching all the compounds in 56 major ingredient groupings and put together pairing charts for all those ingredients. A lot of people in cooking know about “The Flavor Bible” and that book gives you the ‘how’ and the ‘what’ for pairings, “The Flavor Matrix” gives you the ‘why’ your food goes well together.”
No matter your relation to Briscione, at heart, he’s an Italian American chef who simply loves food, and more so, Italian food, and especially so, pasta. At his restaurant, Angelena’s in Pensacola, Florida, Briscione takes the uninitiated on a veritable tour of Italy, serving up authentic handmade pastas and pairing them with scientifically perfect pizzas, antipasti, and Vermentinos that range from Emilia Romagna to Campania and the many regions in between.
Briscione attributes his love of Italian food to his grandparents and big Italian feasts in New Jersey over holidays, but also from traveling to Italy every year with his wife to explore the country, its culture, and of course the food.
When it comes to out-of-the-box pairings on the Italian side, Briscione does not disappoint. “Italian black tea in your tomato sauce. You would never think of it and it doesn't sound quite right but it's really the tannins in there that pairs incredibly well with the tomato and gives it this really great earthiness that couldn't come from anything else. When done properly it’s fantastic.”
Watermelon Caprese (ph courtesy of Ristorante Italiano, Pensacola)
Or take his carbonara, in “The Flavor Matrix,” Briscione teaches readers how to cure egg yolks where “after you cure them and pull the water out, you can grate them like cheese. We do that for our Carbonara at Angelena’s where we finish the dish with a generous grating of dried egg yolk for that flavor.”
Pensacola may not realize that they have a master chef in their midst, but if they venture into Angelena’s, named after an Italian immigrant who opened the first produce market a block from the restaurant, they will be treated to food combinations they didn’t know even realize they needed.