Chef Sound Off

Chef Nick DiCostanzo 

Owner of Mamma Francesca, New Rochelle

I’m not a fan of the fusion of cuisines, because each cuisine mixed in the fusion loses its point of origin. Whatever they may call the new cuisine, it is, to me, a cuisine without denomination, without identity. I believe classic cuisine is like a black suit: It’s never out of style.

Chef Jean Le Bris 

Owner of Vox, North Salem

I think the term farm-to-table has been abused and should not be used lightly. Sometime it seems as if before the farm-to-table movement, fruits and vegetables didn’t come from the ground and that meat, poultry, fish were actually born on supermarket shelves! I am of course being sarcastic, but any restaurateur who takes their job seriously always tries to use the best ingredients, and, ultimately, the dish speaks for itself.

Chef Sal Cucullo 

Owner of The 808 Bistro and 808 Social, Scarsdale 

The trend I am most sick of is, in essence, not even culinary-related. It’s the fact that social media has taken over mostly everything in life. It seems these days that taking better pictures, or having cunning phrases, all of a sudden makes a person qualified to be a chef or makes any specific dish taste better. Now if we can only taste the food through our phones.

Executive Chef Leo Pablo 

The Inn at Pound Ridge

When a beautiful plate of food hits a diner’s table, it can be a stunning, aromatic, well-plated, and romantic thing. But the scene behind closed doors is often quite different from what you’d imagine. For me, cooking is a pleasure, a test of patience, and, occasionally, a pain in the ass. For these reasons, I personally hate all food trends. The fact that they’re trends means they’ll eventually disappear. 

However, unless you have an allergy, I’m over gluten-free. We should go back to just eating what the chef picks daily from the farmers’ market and what he wants to cook that day—if you don’t have allergies of course!