Eric, please tell us a little about yourself.
I am the chef and operating partner at Inatteso Pizza Bar and Inatteso Café, alongside my lovely wife, Elizabeth. We live in Brooklyn, where we have raised our three children, ages 19, 16, and 13. I’ve had the great fortune of working for and being mentored by many talented chefs, restaurateurs, and co-workers in NYC, New Orleans, and Italy over the past couple of decades.
What’s your favorite thing about owning a restaurant?
Oddly enough, I like the responsibility. You have no choice but to be the leader and be motivated every day.
What is your favorite menu item at Inatteso Pizzabar? What’s your personal favorite?
Our most popular item, other than pizza, is our tagliatelle Bolognese. Handmade pasta, slow-braised beef and pork ragu butchered and ground in-house, parmesan cheese, easy customer favorite. My personal favorite currently is our pappardelle with red wine braised boar with olives and rosemary.
What’s your favorite ingredient? And your least favorite one.
The one ingredient I probably use more than most chefs is fennel and its derivatives. I’ll add a little fennel seed to soups and stocks, fennel pollen to marinades and salts, and raw fennel to wake up lettuce greens, cut through fatty and pickled foods. My least favorite is so easy, and of course, it's absolute sacrilege working in an Italian restaurant, but I can’t stand eggplant. I can deal with Thai and Japanese eggplant, but I can’t love purple eggplant. I’ve tried, I can’t do it.
What’s your favorite tool in the kitchen?
I know it’s boring, but my chef knife is my favorite tool. I always tell young cooks who don’t respect their knives “a chef with-out a knife is like a truck driver with-out a truck”. Some get it, some don’t.
Which is your favorite wine, and favorite cheese?
I love wine, it’s easy to say Barolo or Brunello (I’m a big fan of both), but I really love when a wine expresses time and place perfectly. An example would be when you have a very terroir-driven natural Sangiovese that is totally funky while outside fire roasting some wild game, and garden-fresh vegetables, it just tastes right for the time and place. These are my favorite wines, when you take in the whole experience and can recall the flavors when the memory of the moment comes to you. I’m a big cheese guy also, I love all Alpine cheeses, tangy bufala cheese, aged goudas, stinky soft cheese, blue cheese, you name it and I love it.
When you are not busy with work, what can we find you doing?
Away from work I enjoy skateboarding and bicycle riding with the kids, gardening, watching baseball and hockey, movies, hanging on the stoop with my wife, relaxing over long dinners with the family.
Can our readers order online?
Absolutely. Customers can order directly from our website inatteso.com, by phone, or through GrubHub/Seamless.
Thank you!
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