January 29, 2010

Written by: Vince McConeghy

It's only late January, and the Italian category in food service keeps chugging along, unstoppable, like Peyton Manning against the cover two zone.

Danny Meyer's Mailaino has vanquished last decade's  grinding Italosploitation of Tuscan cuisine, deploying a precision brigade of CIA grads pumping out plates of Bucatini all'Amatriciana and Coda alla Vaccinara.

The domestic pizza industry grew last year, climbing to a staggering 36 billion in market value. The global outlook for pizza is better than melted down, funky gold jewelry. The Chinese, Indians and Brazilians are just now whetting their whistles on pizza by the slice, and US cheese, tomato and pizza marketeers stand to make unprecedented gains in the international pizza market.

The Italians, themselves, are up to their dirty tricks. The Italian federal government disbanded the very organization formed to protect the purity of buffalo milk mozzarella after the scandalous detection of cow's milk in many of the DOC Mozzarella di Bufala products.

So, who is the big man on the Italian campus these days? 

Why it's none other than Scott Conant, Italian-American, who can trace his puritanical lineage back to Roger Conant, founder of Salem, Massachusetts.

This isn't about personality. It's about numbers. His  brand of cooking is consistently one of most sought after reservations in New York and Miami. Conant will soon debut a new casual restaurant in a luxurious hotel where another food service pro took a tumble. He will open in Las Vegas. And for some reason, we don't see him scampering up on a rocky slope in Puglia, sipping olive oil and staring into the camera with Anthony Bourdain's 'I'm really cool and you really suck', shit-eating-grin.

No, Conant appears to be the  genuine article , a chef whose very nature is part of the reason why he is a great chef, and why Bourdain writes stoner food stories. Bourdain is not an A-hole. He knows what's what, and who can cook what.

Charles DeGaulle, the father of all A-holes, once let slip that France could not be her true self unless engaged in grand designs. Conant can cook on a grand scale. He is in the weeds now, building his empire, but  poised to strike in 2010. 

Why does any of this matter, other than to fill the pregnant pause of so many swooning food websites?

It's because of the Italian category and its significance to the overall industry. How much of an industry-wide effect super chefs have depends on what audience their food is ultimately identified with by other chefs, other sous chefs and the public. Italian food is something that almost everyone in the professional kitchen can approach and understand. So too, the customers of these professionals.

Trickle down theory may not work in government, but in the food service kitchen it is the oil that greases the squeaky wheel (...ordering two specials and can you make the kid some buttered noodles....). 

 It's why we should all start getting to know the bella figura and the faccia brutta of one Scott Conant.