Tag: Libro

Categories
Food & Wine Food & Drink

Local Chefs Do BBQ: Part 2

Italian barbecue pasta at Tamboli’s (Photo: Miles Tamboli)

Since May is the month of the big “B” in Memphis, more area chefs share their thoughts on barbecuing. After all, this is Memphis. Barbecuing is sort of second nature. Right?

Miles Tamboli, owner of Tamboli’s Pasta & Pizza: “I made a barbecue pasta sauce that I’m really proud of to this day. I broke down barbecue sauce to its basic flavors and recreated it from scratch using Italian ingredients. Tomato base, caramelized onions, garlic confit, red wine, balsamic vinegar, smoked paprika, anchovy, and some more stuff. Tasted just like barbecue sauce. We tossed bucatini in it and topped it with seared sous vide pork belly from Home Place Pastures and nasturtium micros. It was excellent.”

Karen Carrier, chef/owner of restaurants, including The Beauty Shop: “Applewood smoked barbecued char siu salmon with crystallized ginger, candied lemon zest, and an avocado, watermelon, radish, and orange supreme relish.”

Joseph Michael Garibaldi Jr., Garibaldi’s Pizza owner: “We use a combination of fine- and medium-chopped hickory smoked pork shoulder and combine it with just the right amount of our sweet and sour sauce for it to caramelize the brown sugar on top and keep the pork moist and tender. … Our fresh, hand-tossed crust, signature fresh-packed tomato pizza sauce, and shredded mozzarella cheese provide a perfect base for the perfect barbecue pizza.”

Andy Knight, chef at Fleming’s Prime Steakhouse & Wine Bar: “Opening Loflin Yard and Carolina Watershed — both on Carolina Avenue — I attempted Carolina barbecue with a Memphis twist. I would cook the butts Carolina style — vinegar-based — then lather them up later with a rich Memphis-style sauce. Both locations were successful, but could never beat Memphis-style. From vinegar-based pork butts to 12-hour smoked beef brisket, nothing beats the dry rub and a rich barbecue sauce of Memphis-style barbecue.”

Betty Joyce “B.J.” Chester-Tamayo, chef-owner of Alcenia’s: “Barbecued chicken. I bake it first if I’m doing it at the restaurant. Sometimes I marinate it overnight with my Italian dressing.”

She also uses her eight seasonings, including Italian dressing, fresh rosemary, and even some of her homemade apple butter. She adds her barbecue sauce when serving. “I take barbecue sauce from the store and add my own ingredients: lemon juice, ketchup, Lipton onion soup mix, and other seasonings.”

Jonathan Mah, chef/owner SideStreet Burgers in Olive Branch, Mississippi: “My signature is the Korean barbecue — Le Fat Panda. My favorite cut is the pork steak marinated in Korean flavors and grilled. It’s a soy-based marinade with honey and mirin, green onions, and sugar, as well as sesame oil. Red pepper flakes for a little spice. Chargrilling is my favorite so that you burn that sugar a little bit on the grill. That’s the best part, to me.”

Jeffrey Zepatos, owner of The Arcade Restaurant: “We used to do barbecue at the Arcade. And we had a barbecued grilled cheese sandwich. So, I’d stick to something along those lines. Smoked pulled pork barbecue on Texas toast with a smoked cheddar cheese to top it off. Now we obviously don’t have smokers at the Arcade, so I was buying a great pork shoulder from a local vendor that we could heat up on our griddle. I think that was fun because it added flavor from our griddle to the barbecue, which gave it a unique taste from all the bacon and sausage we cook on it.”

Mario Gagliano, Libro chef/owner: “I’m from Memphis and I only know pork ribs with that classic vinegary Memphis sauce. All I’d do is take some baby backs and massage them with a nice dry rub, lightly sear it on low heat so as not to burn the sugars in the rub. Flip them and render some of that flavor off the bone. Then halfway submerge the ribs in boiling pork stock. Cover in foil and cook in the oven for a couple hours on 400 degrees. Remove them, brush some Memphis barbecue sauce and broil for a few minutes. Essentially, braising the pork, but it falls off the bone, super tender and moist. And you can find it cooked just like this at Libro at Laurelwood all through the month of May, baby.”

Categories
Food & Drink Hungry Memphis

Tonica to Open in Early February

Tonica, a new Midtown restaurant, will open in early February. (Credit: Sabine Bachmann)

Tonica will open in early February at the location of the old Marena’s restaurant at 1545 Overton Park, two doors down from Ecco on Overton Park.

Tonica is a new bar/restaurant from the people who brought you Ecco and Libro: Sabine Bachmann and her sons, chefs Armando and Mario Gagliano, and John-Paul Gagliano, who is general manager for all the restaurants.

“January 31st to February 3rd is kind of our target date,” John-Paul says. “We’re only going to be starting off Thursday through Sunday for service — 4:30 till right now.”

Describing Tonica, John-Paul says, “We’re trying to get as close to a Mediterranean Spanish style. Kind of a European style. Real flowers. Upscale. We’ve redone the whole building. Completely remodeled building. All hand-made cabinetry. We’re renovated our entire kitchen. We have a back dining room, another private room.”

At the rear of the restaurant is “a New Orleans alleyway. When the weather gets better, we can put tables back there for outdoor seating.”

Ecco diners will be able to take advantage of Tonica. “Summertime, springtime when we have additional seating outside, any overflow, you can grab a drink and we can bring you back to Ecco when your table is open. Or you can stay there and eat. I think they will compete with each other.”

Ditto for when people finish eating at Ecco. “After you finish at Ecco — last call is at 10 — you can go to the other restaurant and enjoy the same kind of atmosphere, same craft cocktails you can get at Ecco for a later service.”

As Armando said in an earlier Memphis Flyer interview, “It’s going to be a bar, but a bar that serves food.” It will be a “neighborhood bar,” where people can get small plates and more substantial dishes. But, he said, “I don’t want that to be considered a tapas bar or anything like that, but it will be more focused on the cocktails. We’re going to put more focus on the cocktails and the wine list.”

And, he says, “The food is not going to be an afterthought. It will be really good — a Spanish influence with a little bit of Italian-Mediterranean twist.”

John-Paul says: “We’re going to have a selection of paellas. We’ll have traditional Serrano ham croquettes. We will have different ceviches. Fried chicken wings made with Spanish chiles. Spanish spice chicharróns, among other things.”

Bachmann, who visited Spain last July to research the lifestyle, food and drinks, and atmosphere, came up with the name “Tonica” to pay tribute to the country. “The Spanish national drink, believe it or not, is gin tonics, which in Spain is ‘gin tonica,’” Bachmann told the Flyer.

“They are very known for their different types of gin tonics,” Armando said. “They do a lot of tonics with gin and different spirits and herbs and liqueurs.”

Customers will be able to order plenty of Spanish-inspired gin and tonics and house gins imported from Spain, as well as European and South American wines.

“We’re going to have an extensive gin list,” John-Paul says. “Mary Connor Jones is our beverage director. She’s creating the cocktail list.”

Categories
Food & Wine Food & Drink

Ecco and Libro Executive Chef Armando Gagliano Pays Homage to Childhood Dishes

CREDIT: Armando Gagliano

Echoes of the past drift through Ecco on Overton Park in the form of tantalizing aromas. Executive chef Armando Gagliano occasionally features his take on Italian and German dishes his mom, Ecco owner Sabine Bachmann, served when he was growing up.

“I’ll do all the stuff she used to cook for me and my brothers,” Gagliano says. “Some of them have been on the menu as my take on the dish. I’ll change it up just a little bit, but I always try to incorporate things that I remember growing up that my mom fed us. Put it on there as close to what my mom used to serve us.”

Rouladen, a German dish his mother, who is German, made for them, will be a special January 8th and 9th at Ecco. The family-inspired dish also will be available throughout January at Libro, where Gagliano is executive chef and his brother, Mario Gagliano, is head chef.

Armando Gagliano

Rouladen

Growing up, Gagliano and his brothers ate more pasta than potatoes. “My mom mainly cooked us Italian food ’cause German food is always braised meats and potatoes and onions.

“We didn’t have a lot of money growing up, so we probably ate pasta five nights a week. It’s so cheap. It’s one of the best things somebody can eat.”

They served Mama’s Pasta, a “spicy Southern bacon pasta,” as a springtime/summer special at Ecco. It’s “like a South American dish mixed with Italian pasta. It’s bacon that she rendered. She chopped up the rendered bacon with tomato sauce. And she’d usually put in a little hot sugar, hot sauce, and garlic. It was a spicy marinara, but instead of using ground pork or something like that, it was bacon.”

Spaghetti puttanesca is a childhood dish that also shows up at Ecco. “That’s a very old Southern coast recipe. There are different variations of it, but it primarily consists of garlic, capers, kalamata olives, anchovies, and then some sort of whole or diced-up tomatoes, or tomato purée. We use tomato purée. It’s what the fishermen would get to eat after they came back into the docks after being out in the Mediterranean fishing. They would use anchovies to make this dish.”

Rouladen, a Christmas tradition at their home, is “essentially a sirloin steak that you pound the hell out of with a mallet till it’s really thin. You brush Dijon mustard on it and line it with bacon and thinly sliced yellow onions. You roll the whole thing up like a fruit roll and either tie it off or use toothpicks, then sear that in a large pan. After it’s browned on all sides, take it out, and in the same pan put carrots, onions, celery and cook those down until they’re soft.

“Then you’re going to hit it with red wine. However much you want to use. You deglaze all those vegetables in chicken or beef stock. Preferably, beef stock since that’s what you’re cooking. Bring that to a boil. You return the seared rouladen that you set to the side back in the pot and reset the temperature to a very low simmer. Then after about two hours, they’re done. And you can let them go longer if you want them more tender.

“You take them out. And all the vegetables and wines and juices it was cooking in, throw that in a blender. Blend it up really well and then press it through a sieve or a colander. Those juices are the gravy. With the vegetables, it’s already thick enough. My mom would always boil some potatoes to go with them. You over-boil them till they’re really soft. [We use] baby new potatoes. Put them whole on the plate and mash them. Put the rouladen on top of those mashed potatoes, and the gravy goes over all of it.

“It’s a very rustic dish. Rouladen and gravy. It’s a German pot roast kind of deal.”

Ecco on Overton Park is at 1585 Overton Park; (901) 410-8200. Libro is at Novel bookstore at 387 Perkins Extended; (901) 922-5526.

Categories
Food & Wine Food & Drink

My Favorite Burger …

Since it’s Burger Week and many Memphis restaurants are selling great burgers at a great price (see page 17 for details), we decided to ask a few local notables to tell us about their favorite burger. They gave us some very mouthwatering choices. Enjoy.

Fredric Koeppel, Writer

“Our favorite burger in town is the WJ Burger at Acre, a re-enactment of the original burger sold at Wally Joe restaurant that closed in 2007. Acre now offers these on Thursday nights. Beef dry-aged and ground in-house, confit tomato, roasted garlic mayo, truffle cheese, frisée on a house-baked horseradish bun — it’s just the best. Get it medium rare.”

The Office @ Uptown’s black bean burger

Jared “Jay B.” Boyd, Program Manager, WYXR

“My favorite? The black bean burger at The Office @ Uptown. I’m a new vegan, and having veggie options around town is helpful. With more Impossible and Beyond options popping up around town, this particular take on a black bean patty stands out for its taste and texture. Not quite like meat, but still flavorful enough to hold its own.”

LBOE garlic burger

Pat Mitchell-Worley, Executive Director, Stax Music Academy

“LBOE has a garlic burger. It’s no longer on the menu, but if you ask for it, they’ll make it. It has so much garlic, I can’t be around people after I eat it. But it is just divine. Not only is it flavorful, I love the smell of garlic. It’s just so relaxing. In another life, I would be a garlic farmer. Sometimes I get it as a turkey burger, too. And it’s consistently good.”

Marjorie Hass, President of Rhodes College

“I don’t eat hamburgers very often, but I am partial to the one served at Libro, the restaurant attached to Novel. A chance to browse at an actual brick-and-mortar bookstore is an increasingly rare treat. And then, to sit down to lunch over a new book and a delicious burger — perfectly cooked and covered in caramelized onions and melted cheese — makes for a perfect afternoon.”

Al Kapone

Al Kapone, Hip-Hop Artist

Al Kapone’s favorite hamburger is a toss-up between a Tops and a Dixie Queen cheeseburger. In both cases, he says, “There’s something about their cooked-to-order burgers. They both have that same almost diner burger thing about them. It’s the type burger you find in any mom-and-pop store that cooks burgers. And I want my onions grilled. Something about the grilled onion flavor I can’t explain. When they grill the onions, it gives a flavor the raw onions don’t give. I love that flavor. I think raw onions sometimes can be too strong.” And make sure and toast those buns. “If they toast the fresh bun and brush some butter on it as they toast it — oh, my God. I’m getting hungry. I want one right now.”

Mike McCarthy, Director, Sculptor, Preservationist

“I have to admit, my favorite burger is generally my most recent burger. Take last night, for instance. It was 9:30 p.m. and I was starving. Tops BBQ and Steak & Shake were closed, and the golden arches were as dark as burnt french fries. I found myself in the drive-through at Krystal on Poplar. I soon realized that I was having, perhaps not a favorite burger, but rather a most-ironic burger, a burger based in deep-rooted Memphis memories — yet no different than any other Krystal burger in any other American town. As I waited in line, I saw Krystal’s large poster advertising ‘The Hangover’ burger, which, naturally in these trying times, is now served 24-7.

“But I chose the No. 1 combo. I pulled into a parking space and began the time-honored process of getting shades of red and yellow all over my pants. I thought about how my parents would always eat at this particular Krystal when they would visit from Mississippi and how we process memories through physical shapes. But those dang Krystal marketing folks kept interrupting my thoughts with their class-struggle advertising: Each individual box containing my four burgers boasted the phrase ‘IF IT AIN’T BROKE …’ — which might really mean ‘If only we weren’t so bankrupt (in all meanings of the word), we could be eating somewhere else or enjoying a better life.’ If only Krystal restaurants looked as cool as they did in the 1950s, then I’d be feasting on Memphis history and I’d be doing it 24/7.”

Graham Winchester

Graham Winchester, Musician

Graham Winchester loves Memphis food as much as he loves Memphis music. His Instagram account has been his outlet for “Poor Man’s Food Reviews,” which he calls “30-second bursts of mania and sloppy eating. I love putting in my two cents about some food.”

Winchester won’t commit to naming an all-time winner but says his favorite burger “right now” is the B-Side Memphis Burger. “It’s new,” he says. “It’s kind of in that classic Soul Burger style, like Earnestine & Hazel’s, but it’s a little bit bigger. It’s a flat-top grilled burger. You get pickles and cheese and onions, and they give you mustard and mayonnaise on the side, so you can dabble with it as much as you want.

“It’s perfectly cooked, perfectly greasy so that the cheese and grease just kind of fill up the front of your mouth. It definitely reminds you of that Soul Burger flavor, but it’s really hardy. And it comes with fries, so you’re pretty fulfilled.”

Mark Greaney, Novelist

Memphis writer Mark Greaney (whose Bond-like Gray Man series of spy novels is now a staple on bookshelves everywhere), has two favorites: the house burger at Maximo’s on Broad for high-style days, and for everyday meals, the ever-popular Dyer’s burgers, famously marinated in their own ancient grease.

About the latter he says, “They are the perfect thickness, and the texture is amazing. (Anything fried is amazing!) They have an incredible beef flavor that blasts past the tanginess of the mustard and pickles.”

Categories
Food & Wine Food & Drink

Armando Gagliano’s path to becoming a chef

CREDIT: Michael Donahue

Porcini mushroom ravioli from Michael Donahue on Vimeo.

Armando Gagliano’s path to becoming a chef

Armando Gagliano’s mother blindfolded him when he was five or six years old, but it wasn’t to play Blind Man’s Seek.

“She would blindfold me and give me different things to eat and taste, and I’d have to tell her what it was,” Gagliano says. “She’d even let me taste wine — just a little sip — and she’d ask, ‘What nuance of the wine do you see? What do you taste?’ She was training my palate. Not on purpose, but because she saw that I took an interest in food and flavors.”

Gagliano loved hanging out in the kitchen. “When my mom would be cooking when we were younger, I would be the only one in the kitchen just staring at her. Like ‘What are you doing? What is that?’ I guess she picked up on my interest.”

The tables have turned — literally. Now when Gagliano is in the kitchen cooking at Libro or Ecco on Overton Park, his mother, Sabine Bachmann, who owns both restaurants, often stands by asking similar questions.

Gagliano, 28, is executive chef of Libro, the restaurant in the new Novel bookstore in Laurelwood, and at Ecco.

Growing up, Gagliano was interested in architecture. He loved drawing, sketching, and painting. When he was 8 years old, he told his mother he wanted to own a restaurant named Silly Wolf’s. He remembers “drawing plans of the building. So, there was a little bit of the artistry, then some of the architecture, then the food, all in one deal. I was like, ‘I want to design my own kitchen and the front of the building, then the menu.'”

His first job was making sandwiches and pasta salad when he was 13 at his mom’s former restaurant, Fratelli’s. “It was long hours, but it was fun.”

Gagliano thought of becoming a nurse practitioner, but before the final day to register, he told his mom, “I’m not going to register for class. I’m going to save that money and go buy a knife set, then go get a job at a restaurant.”

He got a job as a prep cook at Sweet Grass. His idea was to work his way up in different kitchens and one day become a chef de cuisine. But six months later, Bachmann opened Ecco and asked Gagliano if he could run the kitchen. “She said, ‘I’ve always eaten your food and loved it. You just come up with the menu. Do whatever you want back there.'”

Gagliano decided on a Mediterranean menu, but he uses ingredients from all over — Italy, southern Spain, Germany, Israel, North Africa, Asia. “I like the flavors that just punch you in the face. We used to do this steak dish that was marinated in guajillo chiles and soy sauce. So, it was like an American steak with a Mexican and Asian marinade. With French beans. Why omit all the other ingredients and flavors that you can zest up your food with or expand upon by trying to keep it a set cuisine when you can be global? Global cuisine.”

Gagliano spent four months last year in Italy at the Italian Culinary Institute. He came back with “more of an appreciation for how much time and effort people will put into food. In the type of food that I love, which is mainly Italian.”

Two weeks after returning to Memphis, Bachmann was asked by his mom to become the chef at Libro.

Trying to get him to keep the same menu as Ecco, a family friend told Gagliano, “Don’t fix something unless it’s broken.”

“I say, ‘I like to break things purposely so I can fix them in a different way.'”

“My mom says, ‘We’re not trying to do fancy Michelin-style food here, okay? We want to do a nice lunch with some dinner items, homemade bread. We use clean, fresh ingredients. And then, every once in a while, if you want to to a special with your little crazy crap on it, do that.'”

Says Gagliano: “I didn’t want to do any super-eclectic stuff here in East Memphis. We have some typical American items, like a BLT. Chicken salad.”

But he also serves Mediterranean-influenced items, including porcini mushroom ravioli.

And, he says, “We do our own house-made Italian sausage here with baked beans. But it’s not like American-style baked beans. It is and it isn’t. They have some sweetness. We put balsamic vinegar in with the beans and molasses and some honey and brown sugar. So, it’s got a little twist in there with the Italian sausage and the balsamic. Then, also, with my roots in the South, the baked beans.”