Alfred Portale

Expert Interview: Alfred Portale

Behind the Chef

What were your favorite foods growing up?
Anything Italian; anything from the grill

What is your least favorite food?
Calves' liver

What is your beverage of choice?
White Burgundy

What was the most spectacular meal you have ever had?
Six hours and 52 courses at El Bulli in Spain

What do you eat when you are home?
My mother's spaghetti with meatballs, with a good Barolo

What is your best cooking tip for a home enthusiast?
Keep it simple

Where and when did your career in food begin?
In San Francisco, in the late 70's

When did you decide you wanted to be a chef?
My second year of college

If you didn't become a chef, what would you be?
A jewelry designer

Who/what has shaped your cooking the most over the years?
Art, architecture and artisanal ingredients

What influences your cooking style?
A passion for clean, bold flavors

Which foreign country inspires your style most?
Definitely Italy

What are your favorite culinary weapons in the kitchen?
A Glestain 9" Hollow Ground Chef's Knife

What is your favorite secret ingredient?
Smoked sea salt

If I'm trying to watch my weight and I'm
eating at your restaurant, what am I ordering to eat?
Seared Nova Scotia halibut with quinoa, haricots verts, picholine olives and speck ham in a cherry tomato vinaigrette.

When you are not eating at your own
restaurant...you are eating at?
The bar at Gilt. I love Chris Lee's food.

What are some recent dining and culinary
trends you have been observing?
Pop Rocks seem to be making a come back in 3 star restaurants. Twice I have had them on a plate recently.

What was the most challenging meal
you had to make? Why?
When I was responsible for the menu of a wedding in Missouri with 550 guests.

What is the one rule or value you try to instill in all of your staff?
Passion and integrity

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Expert Profile

Chef Alfred Portale is a true rarity in 21st century dining: a culinary master whose heart belongs to the very restaurant where he launched his career 24 years ago, Gotham Bar and Grill. In 1985, Portale was a young chef with a vision that went well beyond his job to rescue the struggling Greenwich Village restaurant. Portale created a menu based on classic French technique and the science of flavor combinations. Today, Portale has garnered a total of four three-star reviews by The New York Times, the James Beard Foundation Award's Outstanding Restaurant in 2002 and the James Beard Foundation Award's Outstanding Chef in 2006. Upon learning of the Culinary Institute of America (CIA), he was intrigued by a professional but creative two-year college. When he was rejected for lack of restaurant experience, he found a position behind the lines of an Italian restaurant in his hometown in upstate New York and then in a renowned French restaurant in San Francisco. Armed with experience, he reapplied to the CIA where he "devoured cookbooks" Portale graduated first in his class two years later and went on to work with Michel Guérard in both New York and France. Portale is known for mentoring many of these now stars, including Tom Colicchio and Christopher Lee. Portale has also channeled his teaching acumen into three different cookbooks: The Gotham Bar and Grill Cookbook, the 12 Seasons Cookbook, and most recently, Simple Pleasures. Portale's enthusiasm and ambition are as strong in 2008 as they were in 1985.