Pasta

IN THE WORLD OF FOOD, PASTA MAY JUST be the ultimate survivor. From its arrival in Sicily around 800 A.D., courtesy of invading Greeks and Arabs, to its present place of honor in restaurants and home kitchens around the world, pasta has an enduring appeal that even the most flour-phobic dietary zealots cannot diminish.

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"Is the low-carb boom over?" asked Melanie Warner in the New York Times, and, happily, the evidence points to yes. Warner tells of manufacturers' warehouses full to bursting of low-carb soy pasta rejected by consumers, and of dieters "disillusioned with low-carb dieting ... because they missed eating traditional ice cream and pasta." As the year 2004 drew to a close, Kate Zernicke, also in the Times, declared, "It was probably inevitable that the year that started with a boom in low-carb diets would end in a bust in low-carb diets," noting that of its 110 low-carb products, one company has ceased manufacture of 75. While Art Culinaire harbors no ill will toward those who've devoted their resources to demonizing pasta--everyone must make a living--we can't help but celebrate the collective return to common sense that once again allows everyone to enjoy a steaming bowl of spaghetti, the kind made with flour and water.

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HE'S A GRADUATE OF THE CULINARY INSTITUTE of America, but Shea Gallante had already owned a restaurant before starting his education. At age 19, the Poughkeepsie, NY native, armed with a degree in accounting and five years' restaurant experience, secured investors and opened a pizzeria.

"I learned a lot," he says. "I took an empty white box, and I built everything, costed it out, and I really didn't know what I was doing." After a few years, Gallante chose to forgo the pizza business and go to school.

He explains, "I was working long hours and getting nothing out of it. Eventually it became more than I could handle, and I got rid of it." As a student, Gallante externed in New York, at Pino Luongo's now-defunct Coco Opera. He returned after graduation as line cook and was later made sous chef.

He says, "It was not a great restaurant. I was working in a no-star place, but I learned some valuable management skills. I was working with a German chef, and together we ran at a 26% food cost and 19% labor cost, and we did it very well."

His next stop was at Felidia, Lidia Bastianich's temple of Italian cuisine. He says being polite helped him land this job, explaining, "We met about a position in her Kansas City restaurant, and I sent her a follow-up letter, saying thank you, and I think that might have impressed her." Bastianich had executive chef Fortunato Nicotra offer Gallante a job at Felidia, with one caveat.

"[Nicotra] said, 'I don't even have a space for you in the kitchen, but I'm going to put you between this guy and that guy and hopefully it will work out." It did: he became sous chef after three months, and stayed for nearly three years, until a trail at Bouley opened his eyes to another world of possibility.

"As soon as I saw [the food] I thought, I have to work here," he says. Bouley warned him he'd take a pay cut and would start as an entremetier, but Gallante was undeterred. Just as at Felidia, he was named sous chef within a few months. After the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Bouley became a Red Cross sponsored kitchen, cooking for thousands of rescue workers from the nearby disaster site. When, in the midst of this, chef de cuisine Galen Zamarra left, Gallante took over.

He recalls, "That was hard. It was 24 hours a day. I was ordering pallets full of skirt steaks and chicken breasts. US Foodservice was pulling up, and I had a forklift ... It was an experience, something I'll probably never do in my life again. To order and coordinate in that quantity, for breakfast, lunch and dinner ... And it wasn't just chicken patties, it was real food, real desserts." Bouley re-opened for business in February 2002, and Gallante stayed until joining forces with sommelier Robert Bohr and oenophile/restaurateur Roy Welland to open Cru.

Welland's previous restaurant, Washington Park, opened with Chef Jonathan Waxman in the same Fifth Avenue space in 2002, and closed in 2003. Welland is an options trader and wine collector who has made his 65,000 bottle collection (about 3,500 bottles on the list at a time, with 50 poured by the glass) available to diners. The wine program has garnered a lot of attention, but Gallante isn't worried about playing second fiddle.

"The wine program is phenomenal and Robert is a great sommelier. There's no competition; there's no animosity. We have a great wine program and a great food program," he says. "How I see it is, '82 Bordeaux is available in 95 restaurants in New York City, but I'm the only one that cooks my food."

Described as 'modern European', Gallante's menu has a Gallic bent but reflects an affinity for techniques and ingredients from Italy. He offers six varieties of crudo, the Venetian-inspired take on sashimi that's currently ubiquitous on Manhattan menus. He acknowledges the debate over crudo's authenticity, saying, "Felidia's chef (Nicotra) is Sicilian, and from what he tells me, they'll do things in Italy that resemble our crudo. They'll take sliced fish, give it chopped olives and capers. They might not cure the fish like we do, though." Aside from Chef Moreno Cedroni, who creates what he calls 'susci' in his Marche restaurant Clandestino, Gallante says he hasn't seen much raw fish in Italy; he stops short of taking a firm stand, though, adding, "Whether or not they ever had [crudo] in classic Italian cooking, that would probably be an argument in itself."