Missy Robbins, story of the American queen of handmade pasta

Missy Robbins was a student in Washington DC at one of America’s most prestigious universities, Georgetown, when she realized that the place where she passionately wanted to live was a restaurant kitchen. She comes from a small town near New Haven, a rich white province of Connecticut. Blonde, from a Jewish family and without any Italian blood in her body, today she is the queen chef of pasta in New York.

On the tables of his restaurants, Misi and Lilia, both based in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, neighborhood considered the new Soho over the bridgedishes of mafaldine and ravioli, tortellini and tagliatelle, malloreddus and ziti abound. Close to the pandemic, Missy interpreted one of the needs of New Yorkers, an abundance of “rich” dishes and homemade pasta, the quintessence of comfort food. No attempt to copy the Italian regional cuisine, rather, to adapt it to a moment. Rooms with minimal and industrial architecture, a list of sensual cocktails, and the times for a booking of about a week. A success. “When I told my parents that I wanted to become a chef, they didn’t object,” she says, a Vanity Fair. “My father was also from Georgetown, but even though both my parents had had important careers, they were very open-minded. For my family, getting educated in any field is an opportunity for wealth. It was not a quick and easy journey: I worked in restaurants, and studied in a cooking school. I lowered my head and realized if this was the job I really wanted to do, I would have to work hard. When I started, as a very young cook, my friends earned better money and had more holidays available but I was happy to show up at work ».

History

The passion for Italian dishes came from a family who loved going to restaurants. «We frequented some famous places of Italian-American cuisine, it was noisy and crowded with people and they served dishes that were decidedly” rich “in ingredients and flavor. From Alfredo sauce to A.ragosta fra ‘devil, recipes that I then included in my book – he says -. My first trip to Italy was a revelation: I discovered that the heart of that cuisine was simplicity ». After the university years and the cooking school in New York, the first landing in an important restaurant was Beach, in Chicago, together with chef Tony Mantuano – an institution in America, which closed after 37 years last July. “It was he who taught me the art of whipping and in general a series of notions on Italian cuisine that I treasured”. After working for the legendary Orally on Madison Avenue, New York, where chef Robbins – at the time one of the very few women who ran a kitchen – took and kept the Michelin star for years, in 2016 he understood that it was his time to try to open his own place . His book Pasta written together with Talia Baiocchi, it is a tribute to those who love the infinite fans of regional cuisine, with many details on how to start and knead any type of format from scratch.

The kitchen

In his dishes, few ingredients and many vegetarian options. Missy loves to indulge in the use of garlic, lemon, saffron, chillies. Some of his dishes: i bucatini with ‘ndujathe ricotta gnocchi with broccoli and pistachio pesto. “With the first restaurant, Lilia, I had the opportunity to present what I had in mind by focusing on some dishes and ingredients from the Italian regional cuisine and celebrating their simplicity”. The New York Times gave her three stars and in 2018 she was pinned as the best chef in New York City by the James Beard Foundation. “The response of those who loved our pasta was so strong that it pushed me to take a step further and open second place, Misi, with a smaller menu where we only serve appetizers and homemade pasta, from pappardelle to Sardinian gnocchetti. . It was a bet, let’s say it worked ».