KEEPING IT SIMPLE
“Fundamentally, the greatest challenge with the chefs I work with is getting them to understand that less is more”
my life. It wasn’t even on my bucket list, as cooking at The White House was until now, an impossible dream,” he shares, sobering up quickly when he began describing his four-course menu in mouthwatering detail— sweet potato agnolotti with butter and sage, warm butternut squash salad with frisee and pecorino di New York, beef braciola pinwheel with horseradish gremolata and broccoli rabe, and a green apple crostata with thyme caramel and buttermilk gelato. Almost all the ingredients used were sourced locally, a decision that reflects his personal cooking philosophy: simple food that reflects both product and place. “I want to capture the way the wind smells when it blows through town during harvest season, and bring that across to the people who eat it.”
“Simple food is more interesting to me than complicated stuff,” he elaborates. “Simplicity, despite its challenges, is most understated. Fundamentally, the greatest challenge with the chefs I work with is getting them to understand that less is more.” However, he has nothing but praise for Osteria Mozza’s executive chef Peter Birks. “Pete gets it! I only fly in once a year because he gets that Mozza is about the experience of the Italian soul in local specifics. We don’t pretend to be in Parma or Rome. We are here in Marina Bay Sands, and we can create a sense of place with the ingredients we use, in this case a mix of Italian imports such as extra virgin olive oil with what the local markets bring in,” he explains, his tone brightening as the topic shifts to fresh produce. On top of the many hats he already wears, chef Batali is very enthusiastic of his current role as ingredient purveyor. “One of my lessons in life is to teach people how to cook. I’m not saying don’t visit my restaurants, but when they are not dining at one of them or somewhere else good, I want them to cook instead of relying on convenient, fast-food options,” he explains. He shares that he cooks and eats dinner at home almost daily, and he wants to encourage and empower Americans to do the same. “Cook and be at home with