He Is The Third Generation To Run One Of NYC's Oldest Italian Restaurants Matthew Cutolo Ep. 216

Matthew Cutolo is a third-generation chef at Gargiulo's, the Coney Island restaurant his family has run since 1965 and that has fed Brooklyn since 1907. In 1977, The New York Times gave it three stars, unheard of at the time for a restaurant outside Manhattan.He learned to bake from Mike the Bake, the restaurant's pastry chef of over forty years, who refused to write down a single recipe, including for family. Matthew asked to learn anyway. Mike's answer was, "If you want to learn, you have to watch." For the first two months, Matthew stood at the mixing bowl and watched Mike add ingredients with no measurements at all, a scoop of this, a lap around the kitchen, a conversation with someone else, back to the bowl. Only after two months did Mike start telling him what was actually going in.Why the same holiday recipe came out different every year, because it was never really written down, it was feelWhy Matthew never uses a thermometer frying cannoli, and the one thing his uncle said that changed his mind about tradition versus evolutionHow a summer internship on The Chew turned into a decision to go all in on content, and why cooking videos never worked for him but talking to the camera didAndré Natera and Matthew Cutolo cover the difference between Italian food and Italian American food and why that argument goes back to Ellis Island, the family's daily 2:30 lunch that nobody is allowed to skip, guys' night and the right way to make a negroni, the meatball debate settled once and for all, sauce versus gravy, dried pasta versus fresh, Parmigiano versus Pecorino, what actually makes a video do well on YouTube versus Instagram, and why toxic kitchens exist in family restaurants too.It ends where every episode ends, with the Mount Rushmore, and the correct cannoli filling.Guest@matthewcutolohttps://www.matthewcutolo.com/Gargiulo's on Instagram → https://www.instagram.com/gargiulosrestaurant/LinksLead Like a Chef App → https://studio.com/apps/andre/leadlikeachefGet the Books → https://chefspsa.com/booksShop Chef's PSA Merch → https://shop.chefspsa.com/Get Episodes Early on Substack → https://chefspsa.substack.com/Follow Chef's PSA on Instagram → https://www.instagram.com/chefspsa/