Why Larry Forgione is the godfather of American cuisine: Since mid-1980, the name of Larry Forgione has rarely been mentioned in the press without "The Godfather of American Cuisine" added at the end of it. The Italian American Forgione has not acquired his title by sending Mafioso-like bleeding heads of dead animals heads competitors, unless you count an occasional delivery generous free-range chickens at a few close friends of the chef. Twenty years ago food wraiter John Mariani wrote that if James Beard was the father of American cuisine, Forgione was certainly the godfather. It was catchy and truthful, and the name stuck forever. But the chief is not the only Forgione became legendary for having the word "father" as part of its name. His great-uncle Francesco Forgione in Pietrelcina Italy, otherwise known to Catholics as "Padre Pio" - or since Pope Paul canonized him in 2002, "Saint Pio." Padre Pio was known as a healer and an evil-hunting is supposed to have led real physical battle with Satan himself, maintaining extensive bruising in the process. It is also said to have possessed the ability to communicate with guardian angels, to read minds, levitate, and heal by touch. He was a talented padre, for sure. On September 20, 1918, kneeling before a cross, Padre Pio is said to have been his first appearance of stigmata - bodily marks, pain and bleeding in locations corresponding to the crucifixion wounds of Jesus Christ. This phenomenon continued for fifty years until the end of his life when they mysteriously disappeared. This is not exactly a common occurrence to find a New York City chef who is a descendant of a saint, but Larry Forgione is in many respects unusual, not only in the direction of his career has taken, but also in the food he prepared for nearly 40 years.
Forgione was originally intended to be a physical education teacher, a desire which was confirmed to his days as a Golden Gloves boxer, while attending high school and college. But his training regimen boxing eventually pushed too far, and an episode of pneumonia caused him to miss enough school during his first year in college he was told not to return the following semester. After recovery and waiting to return to college, he took a job with his cousin, who was a Brooklyn company catered to the Catholic Church. Padre Pio would have certainly approved. Forgione enjoyed his introduction to the world as much food as he changed schools, moving from Concord University in West Virginia to the CIA in upstate New York, which he attended from 1972 to 1974. He was a member of the first class at the CIA who spent two years at the facility, then nine Hyde Park.
After a passage of one year post-graduation in a restaurant in Worcester, Massachusetts, he contacted a French chef, he had heard, Michel Bourdin at Maxim's in Paris. Bourdin then wrote back and Forgione said he would be happy to give him a job, but he was not in Paris more - he had just moved to London and was the new chef at the Hotel Connaught . Forgione being planned in London for six months, but he ended up staying for two wonderful years. There he gained experience not yet available in the States, and the food and ingredients that he saw reminded him in many ways from the farm of his grandmother on Long Island. When he returned to New York only because the French government had begun an aggressive crackdown on hiring foreigners. He had a job with Michel Guerard in Paris, but because of the climate in France, he was sent instead to America to work in Regina, the new restaurant in New York Guerard. This may be a rare case where the actions of a government had a positive effect.
"It was Regina, where I started doing research, and I followed through with the ingredients that I felt were not available in the States, and do not understand why they were not. It occurred to me when I worked in London, all produce beautiful, fresh meat and butchered in the kitchen and would not it make sense to me that in America it has been reversed. In Europe, farmers and producers have produced for restaurants and chefs daily had to use the same ingredients, then everyone in America was produced for the masses and the leaders also had to use what was produced. Then When I came back I thought it was time we started to reverse the wheel a bit and I started working with many farmers and producers. The first recognition was when Michel Guérard came to visit the site and was very impressed by the ingredients that I found here. "
After a year in Regina, he was hired by Buzzy O'Keefe to run the kitchen at the River Cafe in Brooklyn in 1979. Forgione would soon gain a reputation for finding seasonal produce from local farmers and forge these ingredients in classic American dishes, and his new boss was 100% behind him. "Buzzy has all the principles of American cuisine," said Forgione, "and I wanted it to be as American as we could. We may have different versions, but we both share the same vision." The menu at the time was "sort of Italian, a menu contradictory message, trying to be everything to everybody," recalls Forgione, and he promised that O'Keefe in a year he would make the River Café one of the best restaurants in New York, a lofty aspiration for a cafe in Brooklyn that was lacking a culinary direction.
An interesting character is entered in The River Cafe was Paul Keyser, a microbiologist-turned farmer who had a basket filled with colorful eggs. They have been produced naturally, but artistically rendered like Easter eggs. "I thought if these guys from a kiosk on the farm were serious enough to supply the eggs," said Forgione, "then they might be serious about raising a chicken the way I wanted them high. "After three or four groups and about one year of trial and experimentation, Forgione got what he wanted, chicken first commercially produced naturally reared and fattened for his restaurant. He called the" free-range "and now 25 years later the world still calls those. To date Forgione poultry producer uses the same for restaurants.
Other relationships with farmers, some but not all premises, quickly followed. Griggstown Quail farm just outside Princeton, New Jersey. Beef St. Louis. A buffalo farmer from Michigan helped the River Café became the first restaurant to serve fresh buffalo in New York in 70 years. The River Café has also become the first restaurant that thought in the name of the farm, the grapes and the region of all the specific ingredients on their actual menu. Today it is commonplace for most fine restaurants. But a drawback in the new innovative leader was the need to deal with a lot of specialists singular, as opposed to a handful of suppliers in general.
"Basically, we all buy meat from someone else. We do not buy meat from a provider, and each had to apply the principles of sustainable agriculture. So we had our pig of a guy and our lamb from another guy. We get our beef from a guy just outside of St. Louis. Chickens from another person, just another duck. So it really commitment, because instead of a provider you can call and for all your meat and have them all delivered at once, you have to work with 10 to 15 different people. "
One of the most successful relationships that the leader began during this time was a wild food forager named Justin Rashid of Northern Michigan, with whom Forgione would create a partnership in a food company based Midwest.
"At that time, I'm interested in seeing the vendors I had met only on the phone. So I went to meet with Justin, and he exposed me to this incredible fruit belt of America, where the fruit has a short season, and it has the flavor of incredible intensity. It was one of the best fruit I ever tasted. We decided that I would start purchasing, ask ship it to me, and I wish to make the preserves in New York. "
Their initial plan did not work too well. In the early 1980s, shipping large quantities of fresh fruit was not only expensive, it caused a lot of beat-up and bruised produce. Forgione then brought the recipe to Detroit, Michigan, partners installed two copper kettles in the basement of a candy store, and American Spoon (www.spoon.com) was born.
"We had the idea of 50 cases or 100 cases for me, then another hundred to sell them." More than 350,000 cases of product later, the company recently celebrated its 25th anniversary, and they now operate from six stores.
Forgione his passion for food and American food has led to a wonderful friendship with America's first culinary authority James Beard. He asked how long to contact him, before a friend made an obvious suggestion to look inside a directory. To his surprise number Beard was there, and he immediately invited to the River Cafe. "I think at that time, he thought it was a publicity stunt, so he has not really responded to the invitation. And then I started to do was up small baskets and I had them delivered to his house in the village. By the fourth or the fifth basket of goodies, he called and said he wanted to come to the restaurant. "
Beard became a regular customer and a source of new ideas, inspiration and culinary information. "If you talk about butter, it will give you a list of people you should try to butter, then we sent in butter in Iowa from a farmer in particular, and cheese from other places at that time were not very well known. "But it was also a symbiotic relationship:" His end of the negotiation was, he spoke of wild blueberries, which region it comes from, and what they taste. When I have them in, he got a basket of them. "
When the chief was ready to open a place of his, a mutual friend told him that Barbara had an idea for a name. "There was a gallery in New York, The American Place, which was started by Alfred Stieglitz to depict young American artists, including Georgia O'Keeffe and John Marin," said Forgione. "Jim thought it was a good connection, so he suggested I call it" An American Place. The restaurant was small and had room for only 45 seats, was in a building that the chief had bought on the Upper East Side on Lexington and 70th. Forgione has been awarded three stars by The New York Times writer Bryan Miller, the same number of stars he had won at the River Cafe, where Charlie Palmer had taken her place as leader.
Forgione said that what he remembers most of his early days as a restaurateur are the memories of the fascinating people who came to Jackie Onassis was a regular customer. Dan Rather and Warren Beatty had their own tables. James Beard ate there every week. "I remember Danny Meyer entering the restaurant, and this new generation of restaurateurs who come to see what was happening. We had 28 tables, and one night we had 26 out of 28 tables full of food critics, writers, food, or heads. "
His friend Jim Beard, who Forgione went from 10 to 15 hours each week rummaging through cookbooks in his library and test recipes in his restaurant, soon to become very sick. He had a big party for his close friend turned out instead to be a tribute at Beard died. In 1985 he became co-founder of American Chefs Tribute to James Beard, "which has now become an annual event of twenty-two consecutive years and is one of the charity events the busiest of the year. The event benefited Citymeals-On-Wheels, which was founded by Beard and Gael Greene.
"Charity is the queen of virtues," Saint Pio once said. "As pearls are held together by wire, so the virtues are held together by love, like pearls fall when the thread breaks, so virtues are lost if charity diminishes." Tribute of the head would be the first of several charitable Forgione beads, and even his great-uncle would be happy with $ 13 million the organization has contributed to the elderly homebound since it began.
Meanwhile, at An American Place, Forgione was a bit agitated. In 1989, Michael Weinstein of Ark Restaurant Group approached him about establishing a restaurant at the Hotel Morgan. He agreed, thinking he was going to open something entirely new, but the deal fell through when the hotel was unable to obtain a liquor license for the restaurant. Weinstein succeeded another restaurant called the Ritz Cafe in Midtown Manhattan, which was not very good, so Forgione took a look. "I was looking for more space. Weinstein thought it would be a great space for me, but this time it was a very bad neighborhood. "
Rather than creating a completely new restaurant, Forgione decided to sell the site of his restaurant and move An American Place in midtown New Entry, Two Park Avenue. The move allowed him to triple the number of seats, adding a breakfast service, and lower its cost ratio of food. Although the location has not been a formidable when he moved in, things have gradually improved.
"The lunch was incredible. The dinner was a bit of a challenge but after six or seven months, it was a great restaurant," recalls Forgione.
Over the next ten years, the Ark and Forgione opened a number restaurants in and around New York City, one of the most elegant being the Beekman 1776 Tavern in Rhinebeck, New York. He brought his talented sous chef Melissa Kelly of An American Place to run the kitchen. Kelly would later win in 1999 the James Beard Foundation Award for Best Chef Northeast, and is now the executive chef and owner of three "Primo" restaurants in Maine, Florida and Arizona. Beckman and Kelly Forgione operated for six years with success, the New York Times named as owners in 2002, sold the property and contract Forgione was sold with her "Top Ten Destination Restaurant.."
Other restaurants, he opened Restaurant included above the Hilton Times Square, The Grill Room at the World Financial Center, and The Coach House Hotel Avalon. In 1998, Forgione Ark and separated, and their divorce settlement gave An American Place and Beekman to Forgione, and The Grill Room of the Ark in 1999, he moved to An American Place in its third location, the Hotel on the Benjamin 50th Street and Lexington. I asked him what his advice might be in the creation of all these restaurants, which required a carefully drafted legal contract, and if it was difficult to walk to a restaurant once that partnership was not working.
"It's just a job. Usually, if I make a contract with someone and if they asked me to come, I will make a one-year contract that I have the right to renew. If I achieve which were set out in the first year, then they should continue. I'm trying to set up my contacts to be based on performance. So while I am performing, you can not terminate the contract. "
Not all restaurants turned as he wished. In 2002, a restaurant, he returned seemed doomed from the start, his primary responsibility is that it was owned by Britney Spears. Forgione has been involved with Nyla by accepting a contract for nine months to try to save what was essentially a failing restaurant, a place that had reached a point where the only people coming in were people who somehow thought that 'they went to see Britney. "It was 14, 15 and 16 years, children who dragged their parents there, and wanted 14 or 15 years old food," said Forgione. There were a number of things the chief said he suggested they change, but his ideas were not implemented. As soon as his contract was finished, he walked away. "I think they thought that by giving my name, it would be helpful. It is obvious that food has become much better, but it did not help the restaurant. "
Forgione in 2003, which closed its flagship restaurant after running in three different locations over a period of twenty years, it reopened in an unusual location - on the sixth floor of Lord and Taylor on Fifth Avenue. The food was similar to the original restaurant, but since Lord & Taylor covered most of the overheads such as rent and utilities, prices were much lower, and the restaurant was only open for the crowds shopping noon. Also included in the agreement was "Operation Coffee Signature" which served more casual fare.
"Lord and Taylor came to me - that most companies that I get involved in doing so - six years ago and said:" We're trying to change our image and we want to improve our store. We were being enforcement in the cafes and have done a horrible job. "We would like you to come and take over." We did, and with great success. Over six years we have increased food sales by probably one hundred percent. Integer division is profitable today, where it has never been profitable before. "
The number of Signature Coffee oversees Forgione is now increased to eight in Manhattan, Manhasset, Westchester, and Garden City, New York, Stamford, Connecticut, Washington DC, Paramus NJ and Westfield, and a Macy's in Philadelphia. Forgione is now developing a new concept for the new owners of Lord and Taylor - Federated recently sold to a private investment firm - which would change the face of every restaurant he oversees for them. "Once the holidays are over," Forgione said, "we set up the storyboards for a new concept more upscale."
gourmet chef that night school is currently in St. Louis, where once again the people who owned the building asked him to take a look to see if he would be interested in An American Place is set.
"They wanted a restaurant that was on the side of the building, and they wanted that to be operated independently of the hotel," he said. "I understood the relationship and we wanted to their office. They made an offer I could not refuse, "said Forgione, sounding very Godfatherish.
"Forge" was the nickname of Larry Forgione grew up on Long Island. He was also the nickname of his son 29-year-old Mark, who is opening a new restaurant of his own in 2008, aptly named "Forge". The restaurant is now called The Dekka on Reade Street, and at the end of the year, it will be closed and converted, and it will reopen with new name in April. Forgione spoke as exciting as if it was his own opening first.
"The concept is to have quality food and very fine high that you do not feel obliged to dress up to eat. I think that Mark himself is the market where it goes after. He eats all the time when It is free but it just will not put a jacket or a tie each time they want a good meal. "
Anyone who follows the restaurant industry in New York knows that Mark Forgione has closely followed the footsteps of his father, first working for a year for Michel Guerard, and for years helping Laurent Tourondel opened almost all BLT restaurants, both in and outside New York. But Mark is not the only Forgione immersed in the restaurant industry. While Mark attended UMass and earned a bachelor of science degree in hotel management and restaurant, his brother Brian followed his father to the CIA, and now runs his own restaurant. Bryan place is one block from the ocean in Long Beach, New York, and is called Swing Bellies Beachside BBQ. Forgione daughter Cara works at An American Place in New York, but her youngest son Sean has decided to renounce the world of catering for a career in an area where there is far more qualified - playing poker Texas Holdem.
He is now 15 years that Forgione was named "Chef of the Year" at the James Beard Awards 1993, and in many respects, it may be just beginning. In addition to expanding its extraordinary cuisine in the malls of America, his future plans may include a restaurant restaurant / spa in upstate New York, near West Point. He also just finished shooting a TV pilot exciting cooking show for children that is now shopped at the major networks, and may be the next great culinary adventure Godfather.
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