At first glance, chefs Mario Batali and Salvatore Tassa couldn’t be more different. American-born Batali has become a household name across the United States, known as much for his irreverent charm as for his critically acclaimed food. With his signature ponytail and bright orange clogs, Batali thrives in the spotlight—juggling eight New York restaurants (including the Michelin-starred Babbo and the elegant new Del Posto), opening two more in Las Vegas and one in Los Angeles this year, appearing regularly on three television shows and gathering a cult following through his five cookbooks.
On the other hand, the quiet and reserved Salvatore Tassa prefers to remain behind the scenes. After taking over his family's neighborhood trattoria in the rugged hills of Lazio, he spent every night behind his stove, teaching himself to cook and turning out recipes for his friends and neighbors. Slowly but surely, Tassa transformed his family's sleepy restaurant, Le Colline Ciociare, into one of the best in the region, earning it a coveted Michelin star in 1996.
When we chatted with these two men about their philosophies of cooking—and asked them to create their favorite tomato-based pastas—we expected to find their approaches as different as their personalities. In fact, both chefs share a startlingly similar philosophy and remain true to the elements of Italian cooking that transcend borders, cultures and personalities. Here, we talk to Batali and Tassa about what makes Italian food taste so good.
Mario Batali Interview
How did you get started?
I'm third-generation Italian, but more importantly, I grew up on the West Coast, which in terms of food is similar to Italy: Blackberries grow wild, green onions grow wild, morels grow wild, chanterelles grow wild. We shopped at farmers' markets; we were canners, jam makers, pie makers. We made a dish called "antipasto," which is tuna and small vegetables cooked in this tomatoey stuff, and then we spread it on crackers. It was one of the greatest things of my life.
So you came from a family of foodies?
All my relatives are good cooks. My grandfather hunted elk and moose. I remember the first time I saw packaged sausage in a friend's refrigerator. I was like, "You bought that? Where did you buy that?"
You'd make your own sausage?
Of course. Every New Year's Eve, my whole family would sit around and make two hundred pounds of sausage. I mean, like a mountain on the kitchen table.
When did you start cooking professionally?
My first job was at a pizzeria called Stuff Yer Face while I was in college in New Jersey. That's where I got the adrenaline addiction. I loved the pressure and excitement.
After college, you enrolled in the culinary school Le Cordon Bleu in London, but dropped out almost immediately. Why?
I didn't think it was intense enough. We would do two dishes in the morning and two dishes in the afternoon, and I thought that was just stupid. I thought, "Whatever, I'm going to go work in a real kitchen."
How was the "real kitchen"?
Well, I worked as an apprentice for [then-unknown, now legendary London chef] Marco Pierre White at a small pub. He didn't know how to manage people, but he could make very good food. Sometimes what you learn from people is what not to do.
What did you learn?
Let's just say that you can earn respect from hatred, as well as from love. I'd rather be loved.
Then you moved to Italy. What was it like to cook in the northern village of Borgo Capanne, population 200?
I worked for three years in a little trattoria with only four or five seats. Two amazing women ran the place; they weren't professionally trained, but had just fallen into it. We made the food of the region: pappardelle with ragu, roasted pork, game burgers, a lot of truffles. It was all about simplicity.
What about simplicity?
Sometimes the best food happens when no one thinks too much about it. When you have pappardelle with peas, it's pappardelle with butter and peas, and that's it. There's no smoked eggplant. There's no mascarpone. You have the confidence to accept that this pea is perfect. In nature, the pea is already perfect, and as long as we get really good peas, then we have a great taste.
So it's all about the ingredients.
Exactly. Shopping is paramount to the quality of the final product. In Italy there's the concept of nostrano. For example, you go to the beautiful shop in Pistoia, and they're selling porcini mushrooms. The sign says "porcini from under chestnut trees nostrane," meaning, "from those trees right up there."
Italians feel that they have the absolute birthright to the best ingredients in every store. They would never buy old mushrooms half-off to save money; they want to give their family the best they can get.
How do you view experimentation in the kitchen?
Love it. Cooking can't be stagnant. I love guys who work on the edge. Wylie Dufresne and Paul Liebrandt are creating crazy and provocative ways to make interesting dinners. But in the end it still has to be about exquisite ingredients. You might be making a cappuccino out of peas shot from a syringe, but the peas still have to be perfect.
How do you feel about fusion?
I don't feel the need to push Italian food to encompass all cultures of the world. Carne asada ravioli with cilantro butter? I'd rather have a taco.
You've put some daring Italian meats on your menus--lamb's brains, pigeon, tripe, pig's feet. Were you worried that your customers wouldn't be able to handle them?
If people couldn't handle them, I would have closed. I wasn't ever going to do a restaurant that served Veal Milanese, salmon with tomato sauce and tiramisu. Otherwise, I would have gone onto my next career.
And what was that?
Pool boy in Malibu.
That was your second dream?
I would have the cleanest little filters in town.
How does being a famous chef in the United States compare to being one in Italy?
In America, you can actually make money [laughs]. In Italy, everyone eats at once. The whole restaurant sits down at 7:30. And no one gets up.
In Italy, though, people are ready to eat the way you want—a full meal, not just an antipasto and pasta. Many Americans, in particular Upper East Siders in New York, don't see the menu as a list of things to order, but instead as a list of suggestions from which they may design their own food. We want to say, "Yes, we love you, please have whatever you want," but at the same time tell customers that they can't create their own dishes because that would stop the kitchen.
How do you teach your young sons—Benno and Leo—to approach food?
Don't make anything seem dramatic—just put it on the table. Last week, they brought one of their buddies into Del Posto, and we're back in the kitchen making cibreo, which is pasta with cocks' combs and duck balls and lizards and gizzards and livers. They said, "Duck balls? Where do you get them?" I said, "From a duck! Where else would you get them?" They tried them because it was fun, almost a little challenge. And now they're like, "We love duck balls! They're great!"
What advice would you give home cooks who want to make great Italian food?
You've got to get the best ingredients. That doesn't mean you need the most expensive thing available. Maybe you get the whole rack of veal, maybe you buy the brisket or tail, but whatever you do, shop at the place that has the best meat.
Buy food from your region, if you can. Go to farmers' markets; know the names of the people who grow your food. Shop seasonally. You eat asparagus in asparagus season, watermelon in watermelon season and tomatoes in September and October, not year-round.
But everything's available here year-round. You almost have to research what's in season.
Yeah, shopping seasonally is hard in America. In the middle of winter, strawberries are in every grocery store. Italians would be like, 'What the hell? I didn't know there were strawberries in December.' Not that a strawberry in December is evil; it's a funny little luxury. But if you want to taste something really good in the winter, you'll get a quince.
In the fall, you go apple picking, bring home the apples and make applesauce—and it's so much better than any applesauce you've ever bought. When you eat the first ears of locally grown corn in early August, it changes your life. That's what makes good Italian food. That's what makes good food anywhere.
Visit www.mariobatali.com to learn more about Mario Batali's rapidly expanding empire, including his restaurants, cookbooks, television shows and products.
Salvatore Tassa Interview
How did you get started?
I was working as an architect on off-shore projects in the middle of the Indian and Atlantic Oceans. But there was political unrest where I was living, so in 1988 I decided to go back to Acuto, where my parents lived. My mother, who owned the town's trattoria, decided she was going to close it, but I saved it by stepping into the kitchen, despite not having any formal training.
Had you ever cooked before?
No, I never cooked growing up. I taught myself by pouring over cookbooks and visiting great chefs around the world, usually as a paying customer.
What was it like to take over the restaurant?
The first few years were really difficult. People just weren't coming. After a while, though, word spread that I was cooking well and creatively, and people started coming in droves. I bought finer linen and better stemware, and we expanded the wine cellar. When I got my first Michelin star in 1996, things got much better. The star drew people in from all over the world, not just Italy.
Which chefs influenced you?
I read a book by Luigi Carnacina, a maitre d' who worked in some of Europe's most famous restaurants and was considered a gastronomic expert and a sybarite. Aside from containing recipes, the book described the inner workings of great restaurants, which made me want to be part of that world. It was a far different reality than the mom-and-pop country restaurant I was accustomed to, and I wanted to elevate my own place to a similar level.
I also met the Swiss chef Freddy Girardet—one of the greatest chefs of all time. I read his recipes in the late eighties and started going to his restaurant regularly. Eventually, we became friends. One thing that fascinated me about him was that he hadn't trained in a restaurant either.
Ever since I met Girardet, I've been in love with haute cuisine. I saw the research that goes into a truly creative and special dish. It's mind-blowing.
Why do you think Italian cuisine tends to be more casual?
The root of Italian cuisine is in the family. It was born in the home, not born, for example, in the princely palaces of the Sun King. In fact, it's a well-known fact that the nobles of Italy had bad eating habits and even worse cuisine. Few noble houses have gone down in history as having been gourmet.
Even today, the best restaurants in Rome and its environs are the everyday restaurants. Romans like the hustle and bustle of a more casual eatery; they like to talk loudly and have their waiter chat with them.
Do you leave room for experimentation?
I do innovate, but still stay anchored to tradition. I'm not shoving ginger anywhere. I'm not doing any kind of fusion. To me, fusion is uniting Ligurian basil with tomatoes from Campagna. We have extraordinary produce so we don't need to look for ingredients elsewhere.
What about using ingredients from other countries' cuisines?
If I use foreign ingredients for an innovative twist, I'll still interpret them in the spirit of my region. For example, I take spaghetti with tomato sauce—small ciliegino tomatoes that are grown locally—and pecorino, a sheep's milk cheese. But I'll infuse the tomato sauce with bourbon vanilla, a new ingredient for us. Although it doesn't come from the area, it works remarkably well and offers a modern take on a local dish. I also do a pumpkin ice cream with licorice root powder.
Are there any trends in Roman cuisine?
Because Roman cuisine is so rooted in tradition, it's not easy to change it. But some chefs have recently tried to lighten the cuisine because it's so hearty—for example, spaghetti carbonara becomes spaghettini carbonara, and is served as an appetizer. But these are really minimal changes.
Since Italian cuisine grew out of the family kitchen, we're still used to working our produce in a very artisanal fashion. We're not even sure ourselves about what will happen to the products once we start incorporating different techniques. It's a learning process.
How does being a famous chef in Italy compare to being one in the United States?
In Italy, chefs tend not to open multiple restaurants. The practice is looked down upon because we feel the chef needs to be there every night to cook. It makes no sense to go to a restaurant with some big guy's name on it if he's actually never there.
The real difference between Italian and Italian-American cooking comes down the ingredients. For example, ricotta cheese is all-important in Lazio, while in the United States it isn't used as often. You also have all kinds of produce in the United States all year long—such as watermelon. That would really influence my menu because I'd be able to put dishes on any time of the year.
How do you feel about the way American chefs are doing Italian food?
I like Batali. He brings his American sensibilities to the cuisine.
Do you think a worldly-fusion style could work in Italy?
In a way, this was done twenty years ago by Gualtiero Marchesi, the father of nouveau Italian cuisine. He recreated many standard Italian dishes quite successfully—for example, he invented the "open" ravioli and used ingredients typical of Asian cuisines.
Right now, no one has been able to recreate the cuisine as a whole. The country has recently opened its doors to an influx of immigrant groups; only in the past five years has immigration gotten a strong foothold. It's too early for someone to summarize this and to create a new cuisine. Give it another ten years.
What's your philosophy of cooking?
Creating a cuisine separate from fashion, based on the highest quality ingredients. I want to create dishes that are new takes on old standards, but in such a way that the old standards are always recognizable.
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