![]() Or the grilled Spanish octopus, served on a thick smear of black garlic purée, with peanut potatoes & tomato-olive vinaigrette. There are non-pasta dishes at Scarpetta, too, like the soft-scrambled eggs served with truffle. The combination of earthy, perfectly chewy, al dente pasta with just the right amount of salt and fat from the Pecorino and veal sausage is absolutely wonderful combined with the bright, sweet zing of cherry tomatoes. It’s dressed up with house-made veal sausage, cherry tomatoes, and Pecorino Romano. On this occasion of pasta enlightenment, Vargas cooks up a brown-tinged pasta, which we learn is Porcini Tagliatelle. Everything plays off one another, and it’s really, really simple.” The noodles, when you eat them, you’ll taste it, they were really swimming together and really getting to know each other. We’ll put about 2 oz of the pasta water with the sauce, and as the pasta’s cooking, it releases starch. ![]() “It emulsifies together, and we cook the spaghetti with the sauce. “The process is just making basil-infused oil, putting it into the tomatoes,” Vargas explains. What elevates the spaghetti with tomato and basil, though deceptively barebones in description, is sourcing the best tomatoes. The focus on ingredients is what makes the food at Scarpetta special. It’s something I think is to be cherished and respected at the same time.” Especially being in California and having this great produce. As Vargas reasons, it’s about “always going with what mother nature’s giving you. And the more simple the dish, the more important the quality of the ingredient. And the two are reconciled in a cooking philosophy that emphasizes seasonal ingredients and simplicity. Although Scarpetta is distinctly Italian-influenced, Vargas tells us that the heart is Latin. “Even in the middle of August in New york, one hundred degrees outside, you’ll still see him in the kitchen, shirt off and eating a bowl of soup.”Īnd that’s the root of where Vargas’ cooking lies. He recounts growing up eating “rice and beans, pork chops that were cooked ‘til they were dead, roasted chicken-really simple things.” His father, in part due to his Ecuadorian heritage, could always be found eating soups. He grew up in Staten Island, New York, an area heavily populated with Italian-Americans, and though his wife is Italian-American, and father-in-law is from Bari, Vargas grew up with a Puerto Rican mother and Ecuadorian father. With its Italian-inspired cuisine, you might be surprised to find chef Freddy Vargas hasn’t an inkling of Italian in him. Housed inside the Beverly Hills Montage, Scarpetta is where Vargas dishes out the restaurant’s signature dish: spaghetti with tomato and basil. ![]() Enter Freddy Vargas, chef de cuisine at Scarpetta. You’ve officially transformed that jar of Prego into spicy spaghetti.īut that moment when you’ve tried a pasta dish that’s made from scratch? No, not just the sauce, but the pasta noodles itself. Ground beef, sliced mushrooms, chopped jalapenos, and presto! Congratulations. But unlike with the latter, even the most novice of cooks could feel great about their pasta by simply adding a few extra ingredients. Is there anyone who doesn’t love pasta? With countless jarred-sauce concoctions being served in homes across the country, pasta in its most unpolished form is almost as American as hot dogs and burgers.
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