Marc Forgione

Expert Interview: Marc Forgione

Behind the Chef

What were your favorite foods growing up?
Peekytoe crabcakes and my mom's meatballs

What is your least favorite food?
Monkfish liver

What is your beverage of choice?
Ketel One on the rocks with lime

What was the most spectacular meal you have ever had?
Michel Trama in the South of France, in the middle of a hurricane-like storm, by candlelight!

What do you eat when you are home?
Cured meats and fresh bread

What is your best cooking tip for a home enthusiast?
Salt, pepper & patience

Where and when did your career in food begin?
An American Place, 1995

When did you decide you wanted to be a chef?
Still haven't

If you didn’t become a chef, what would you be?
Relaxed

Who/what has shaped your cooking the most over the years?
The opportunities to work with so many different chefs and combine their philosophies to my own.

What influences your cooking style?
The season and what kind of mood I’m in; I try not to get too caught up in what’s considered “trendy.”

Which foreign country inspires your style most?
Italy and France

What are your favorite culinary weapons in the kitchen?
My peeler--I’ve had it for 6 years!

What is your favorite secret ingredient?
Rosemary & ginger together

If I’m trying to watch my weight and I’m
eating at your restaurant, what am I ordering to eat?
Basil Crusted Halibut, Marinated Eckerton Farms Cherry Tomatoes, Sorrento Oil

When you are not eating at your own restaurant… you are eating at?
Casa Mono, 11 Allen St. and Kuma Inn

What are some recent dining and culinary trends you have been observing?
For some reason one restaurant isn’t enough these days?

What was the most challenging meal you had to make? Why?
Doing a dinner and trying to raise a couple hundred thousand dollars for my restaurant. It was difficult to choose which dishes represented me and what I wanted to be.

What was your worst restaurant disaster?
Opening my first restaurant from a hospital bed!

What is the one rule or value you try to instill in all of your staff?
Every dish should be made for your favorite person in the world. I started that with “for your mother” but apparently not everyone likes their mother!

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Prime Hanger Steak with Crispy Hash Browns and Pierre Poivre Sauce by Chef Marc Forgione >

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Expert Profile

The son of culinary legend Larry Forgione, who revolutionized American-style cooking in the 70’s and 80’s, Forgione embraced his father’s livelihood completely and is currently on track to establish himself as a star in his own right. Forgione began his career at the tender age of 16, joining his father in the kitchen at An American Place. When it came time for college, he opted for a traditional four-year education at University of Massachusetts at Amherst, where he graduated from the School of Hotel and Restaurant Management. He later worked under Patricia Yeo at AZ, and when Yeo and celebrated chef Pino Maffeo opened Pazo, they took Forgione along to serve as Sous Chef at the short-lived eatery. When Laurent Tourondel set out to develop his flagship, BLT Steak, he recruited Forgione as his Sous Chef. In an effort to diversify his experience, Forgione left for France where he secured a series of humble posts under Michel Guérard in Eugénie les Bains. When he returned to New York, he promptly reunited with Tourondel, who invited the now seasoned chef to serve as chef de cuisine at BLT Prime. Following his role as Chef de Cuisine, Forgione was named Corporate Chef for the BLT Restaurant Group, a position that enabled him to develop recipes and maintain the quality of the BLT brand. With Marc Forgione, his first restaurant, he plans to create an approachable place that people will walk by and be compelled to enter and where the “ingredients are the star.”