Has anyone in NY been to the restaurant mentioned here, Barbuto?
Waxman JONATHAN WAXMAN wasn’t trying to channel Frank Sinatra with the title of his new cookbook, “Italian, My Way” (Simon & Schuster, $32).
“That was my editor’s idea,” Mr. Waxman said, “even though I love Frank Sinatra.”
But he insisted on writing the book himself, without relying on an experienced author as chefs usually do.
“There was a co-writer for my first book who kept putting in stuff that wasn’t me,” he said on a recent sunny afternoon after the lunch crowd had cleared out at Barbuto, his restaurant in the West Village. “I looked at those little blocks of text and I said to myself, ‘I can do that kind of thing.’ “
His refreshingly offhand, often irreverent voice is certainly there. Here’s how he introduces his recipe for gnocchi with spring vegetables and basil: “I’ve never liked the renditions of gnocchi that I’ve eaten in Italy and America. They were always gummy, covered with béchamel or another yucky sauce.”
Opinions like that back up the “My Way.” But how Italian food became his own, how he put aside beurre blanc for olive oil, that’s a longer story.
Mr. Waxman, a California native who recently turned 60, studied to be a chef at La Varenne in France after realizing he was unlikely to play the trombone professionally. He dreamed of working at Lutèce, but before he could knock on André Soltner’s door, he was sidetracked and became a standard-bearer for the new California cuisine. There were stints at Chez Panisse and Michael’s in Santa Monica, Calif., his first important showcase.
The turning point came in 1984 when he opened Jams in New York. It was a vividly memorable restaurant on East 79th Street with Frank Stella graphics on the walls, California vintages on the wine list, waiters in chinos and a menu that made New Yorkers pay attention to salad and chicken worth eating. With the demise of Jams in 1990, though, Mr. Waxman entered a culinary wilderness for a decade, with brief involvements here and there.
Then he heard the siren call of spaghetti. His friend Tom Colicchio notes in the foreword to the book that in the way Mr. Waxman handled ingredients, “Jonathan has always been, without talking about it and maybe without realizing it himself, an Italian chef.”
The literal transformation began one evening about 10 years ago. He invited a neighbor, Fabrizio Ferri, a fashion photographer, and his wife, Alessandra Ferri, who was a principal with American Ballet Theater, to come to his apartment on the Upper West Side for a bite to eat. Mr. Waxman made Italian food.
“Ferri told me I cooked like his Roman grandmother, simply and with spontaneity,” Mr. Waxman said.
He began to think of the Italian cooking that inspired him at Piero Selvaggio’s Valentino in Santa Monica, Tony May’s San Domenico in Manhattan, Mauro Vincenti’s Rex II in Los Angeles and even the less illustrious Little Joe’s in the Bay area, where he grew up. He would travel to Italy with his friend Jeff Salaway (the late owner of Nick & Toni’s in East Hampton, who once worked at Jams), and had his honeymoon in Venice in 1995.
“It was in my blood,” Mr. Waxman said. “This was the food I was comfortable with, especially the Italian food of Venice and Liguria.”
Finally, in 2003, after insistent coaxing, Mr. Ferri persuaded Mr. Waxman to open Barbuto in what had been the garage of his Industria Superstudio building on Washington Street. Mr. Ferri is a partner. (The name is Italian for “bearded,” which describes Mr. Waxman and Mr. Ferri.) ....
