Reunions

Craft’s Ten-Year Reunion Featured Sassy Canora, Cursing Chang

He's not a mechanic, you know.
He’s not a mechanic, you know.

The New Yorker serves up a laconic account of the ten-year anniversary party at Craft, which went down recently and served as a de facto reunion for a dozen chefs who’d all worked for and learned valuable lessons from Tom Colicchio. It’s a fun, fly-on-the-kitchen-wall read about a restaurant that has bred its fair share of talent: At the pass, there’s Marco Canora with the Sevruga; a few feet away is Damon Wise with a panful of pappardelle and rabbit; over there is David Chang with the sass. “Oh, that’s awesome,” Chang tells Canora, spotting an extra-generous serving of caviar leaving the kitchen, “I didn’t know your mom was coming.”

He’s not a mechanic, you know.

While the chefs were all esteemed guests at the party (other attendees included Jonathan Benno of Lincoln and Akhtar Nawab of La Esquina), they also commandeered individual courses. Unsurprisingly, the article (subscription required) makes the kitchen seem like it was the place to be, where the chefs seemed most comfortable, and also where the best war stories were told. Wise recalled one busy Saturday night when an oven door would not close. Colicchio was summoned from the dining room above, looked at the broken equipment, and essentially told the future Monkey Bar chef to grow up and get back to work already. “I’m not a mechanic,” recalls Wise. “What do you want me to do about it?” Also worth keeping an eye out for is what it means when the chefs call each other “Ricky.” (It’s not nice.)

Cooks’ Reunion [NYer]
Earlier: Tom Colicchio Tells Future Chefs to Please Get to Work Already
Related: Five Chef Families

Craft’s Ten-Year Reunion Featured Sassy Canora, Cursing Chang