from his wisconsin kitchen to big city restaurants - new york times chinese restaurant review hot dish

In the cold winter of Wisconsin, the smell of freshly baked bread brings famous chef Michael White into the kitchen. His Italian-
The creation of inspiration left him there.
The Midwest has tasted Norwegian traditional food since childhood, but is known for his luxurious dishes that blend Italian flavors, including fresh pasta, seafood and tomatoes.
After traveling to the acclaimed New York restaurant Fiamma, White teamed up with his current business partner, Chris Cannon, to continue to the current Michelin restaurant --
Rated as L'Impero Restaurant in Alto and Tudor City.
White, 37, is now the head chef of the new kitchen at Conway (
Previous L'Impero)
This summer, the Italian restaurant he opened was well received, including three stars from the New York Times.
White's relationship with food began when he was a boy, and he studied cooking when he went swimming on weekends.
"I grew up in Beloit in the Midwest.
As a young man, food is always important to us.
We have been cooking.
"You know, you don't run around when it's cold outside in winter," he said . ".
"I mean, you know, it's cold and cold in Wisconsin, so we're always toast stuff like that.
"His family has a small garden where they grow food in the summer.
He said: "Beloit is really not a food destination in the United States.
But as we grow up, the food, produce, corn, sweet tomatoes we eat are really great.
"I remember my family taking me to Chicago for dinner at a great restaurant.
So my brother and I were exposed to delicious food when we were very young, "White said.
"Food is very important.
Food bugs came from families in Norway and I found them very early.
Rice, vegetables, cream sauce, fish-you name it.
"Although they are from Norway, white families are still very interested in Italian food.
I live near the Windy City. There are many places here.
"We like to go out after the football match on Friday night and the family go for pizza together," he said . ".
"It's really special.
He said: "White's career has begun to take shape and he will hang out in the kitchen of Italian restaurants and watch the chefs act. "It's so cool.
I learned something from watching and infiltrating, which was before cooking became popular.
It used to be considered blue. collar job.
As you know, cooking now is a completely different story.
"This is something that people think is very cool and trendy," he said . ".
It was still a surprising career when he was young, especially his father's.
"My dad is a banker. I told my dad I was going to be a cook.
He said, 'What?
Remember White.
"I think he saw me sleeping in the basement of my home and then turning over eggs and stuff like that in a local restaurant.
But I think I have done more now.
He stayed outside the basement all the time. -
And local dinner on this issue.
His parents followed his career and even traveled to Europe with him, when he lived in Italy for more than seven years and often traveled to and from southern France.
"Everything I do revolves around food, and it may not be a good thing," he said . ".
"I don't have so many hobbies.
My hobby is cooking.
White said he was asked if he would compete on a reality TV show.
He replied that there are 26,000 restaurants in New York, from premium restaurants to hot dog stands, where he competes every day.
"It's hard for you to reinvent yourself.
"Going to an Italian restaurant, the food press has this idea about the whole content of Italian food," he continued . ".
"You know, the rolling hills of Tuscany, the Piemont wine.
It doesn't matter, I ate these flavors and I put them in a box and mixed them up.
I might take something from Sardinia and mix it with the things from Puglia and have a dish together.
To really cook Italian food, White says, it takes time to absorb Italian culture. But the U. S.
It also has its unique advantages.
White attributed everything from the farmer's market to the Food Network to the delicious food he brought to American families.
He said people were just cooking before the TV broadcast.
Now they know the food.
"You can't fool anyone anymore.
18 years ago, I started working with chef Paul Bartolotta at a restaurant in Chicago called Spiaggia and I remember cooking so rice for the first time, "he said.
"It seems that no one knows what it is, we are making basil pesto, we are making potatoes --leek raviolis.
No one has seen these things before.
If you want to do a food demonstration, people say, 'Oh, I'm making risotto at home now.
I had potato dumplings.
So, it's hard.
Mr. White said he did not consider competition from other restaurants or food networks, but relied on what he called "Total Immersion ".
"I have been competing all my life," he said . "
"I am a very competitive person.
"If the chef wants to participate in a series of culinary professional baseball games, he or she must have that drive and be competitive," White said . ".
"When all your friends have a good time, you will work and take a vacation.
"It's hot and hot," he said.
"When people say 'Oh, I want to be a chef!
"You know, you 'd better have a look first," he said . "
"Before you spend £ 50 on cooking school, you 'd better hang out in the kitchen.
Because if you go to the cooking school first, you come out and you decide you don't want to do it, then you throw your 50,000 dollars on the table.
White said: "Professional cooking also brings the benefits of instant gratification, which is much better than getting a commission for six months as a salesman.
If I had 200 people at night-
You know, you eat pasta, you eat pasta. -
"I can get 600 instant gratification every night," he said . ".
He can make people happy.
"It must be lighter: New Yorkers eat outside every night of the week in my restaurant.
I have customers coming two or three times a week and in order to have approachable food, with full impact, taste, you can't kill someone at night with a lot of butter or something like that.
That's why the Italian kitchen is so important, using things like olive oil and light broth.
"It's really great for people who eat out every day," he said . ".
It is possible to train a person's taste, but the passion for food must be within people's hearts, White said.
They have to grow up on delicious food and cultivate what he calls "taste memories ".
He tasted one of his earliest tomato "taste memories --
Grandpa grew up with corn and watermelon.
What people see in him, White says, is the real deal, and there is no smoke or mirror in his work.
"I am very much like my grandfather," he said . "
"Testona" is a very difficult person, you know. headed person.
If I want something, I will go and get it, which is also my performance in New York City.
This is something you have to have an incredible drive.
"However, when he is at the table with his wife and daughter, sometimes simple things go far.
They had carefully prepared meals over the weekend, but at other times they might have tomatoes and bacon on toast.
"The last thing the chef wants to do on a day off is something complicated," he said . ".
If he wants to leave the kitchen, there are a lot of options in his backyard.
"Whether you're going to line 7 queens or Chinatown or South Korea city, we're lucky enough in New York City to have incredible ethnic food," he said: "These are the things we are so lucky to have, and that's what we found on our day off. ".
"My daughter likes Asian food.
"Dad, can we have general Gao's chicken? " she thought ? "?
You know, I never did that when I grew up in Wisconsin.
It is clear that general Gao's chicken is something that Chinese people like, but she eats pea leaves and Sichuan food there and she loves it! Octopus!
You're right. children like everything!
"Does this have anything to do with Dad?
That may be the case, he says, but it's more about the fact that his daughter is exposed to a variety of different foods.
"If they see you eat it and see the joy you eat it, they will do the same," he said . ".
For him, the food means spending time at the table with his friends and family, White said.
He says the name of his new restaurant, Convivio, means "the fact that at the table, the banquet, the joy, the sharing with others ".
But he likes Italian food very much.
"You know, I went to Italy for the first time and as early as 1993 I had the idea of staying for six months and suddenly I got there ---
I mean, let me tell you that when you see these beautiful and beautiful Italian chicks with curly hair, it's not all about food, it's about food as well.
"Because you know, I'm 20 years old, but it's really about food," he added.
Italian food is the foundation of many other ethnic foods, White said.
"If you make Italian or French, you can make anything afterwards.
"You can make Turkish food, you can make Russian food, because it's the method and the technology, it's the process," he said . ".
"You know, working for me in Italy is a great eye --
Open experience.
This is about working with cheese that has just been extracted from dairy products. . . .
When we make chicken nuggets, I buy chicken bones.
You can't pick out your chicken bones in New York, Chicago and San Francisco, at least I don't.
White said: "While many chefs were just messing around in the kitchen at first, it was very important to go to school.
Future chefs need to learn their skills, even the sound of the kitchen.
"I mean, you have to start at the grass-roots level and cook and clean the vegetables below.
If I take 10 men and 10 girls from the cooking school and bring them to the kitchen ,[and if]
"I told them, 'This is the thistle, you wash it clean, 'and I bet none of the six or seven people knows what to do," he said . ".
In the end, they will do enough to learn, he said.
Then have a better understanding of their kitchen.
"I might cut vegetables with those guys and suddenly heard something behind me and I knew it was wrong.
"I mean, I like to say that I can hear the fire and I can hear anything," he said . ".
"When you're in the kitchen, the sound of cooking is like music.
It sounds strange, but it is true. That's how in-
I am cooking.
"Even the famous chef has some edge items in his cupboard.
When asked about his favorite junk food, White called potato chips because "it's a squeaky sound, it's salt. . .
As a young man, I don't have much junk food.
When I was young, I like to go to my friend's house to buy junk food.
White went on to have a cheeseburger and then 11 pence. m. special --high-
Top quality Italian tuna with oil, celery and Sea man mayonnaise and whole wheat toast.
"This is what Michael White eats late at night," he said . "