265: Hillary Sterling

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0:32Listen, if you take the seeds out of a ghost pepper, the flavor profile of it is almost a dried tomato. Don't eat one of those things. Dry it and get rid of the seeds and use it wisely, but it adds a lot of flavor to it. This is Taste. I'm your host, Matt Rodbarg.

0:59Hillary Sterling is a longtime New York City chef who is currently the executive chef at Chisiamo, one of my favorite restaurants in all the land. I've known Hillary for years, and it was really fun to dig into her history to find out about her early food memories growing up deep in Brooklyn and her many cooking jobs in Chicago and New York City. We talk about traveling around Italy for research, and her friendly rivalry, more of a friendly meeting of the minds with Chef Missy Robbins. We also find out what she loves most about running one of New York City's hottest, literally its live fire, restaurants.

1:35I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Hilary Sterling.

1:46Hilary Sterling, welcome to This Is Taste. Thank you for having me, Matt. Really cool to see you. You cooked the launch party of taste. You were there. I did. You were in the building. I was. Joy Luck Palace, 2017, February. That was an amazing kitchen to work in, and I thank you, and I think about it all the time. We brought a bunch of chefs in to cook in this massive dim sum parlor. But first off, thank you. I'm bringing it up because that was really cool of you to do that because we were nothing at the time, and you just did it because that was very cool. What was the kitchen like? Oh, my God.

2:13The steamers and the dumplings, it blew my mind. There was also this vat of MSG. Like, I mean. You could, like, roll in it. It was, like, every crevice of that place had a story. And I learned so much about all the things that I never wanted to know, but I'm still not afraid to go back. In awe of the volume. That place closed, though, which was sad. It was sad. During the pandemic. But, yeah, go to any dim sum hall kitchen if you can, like, peek in. It's amazing. I mean, it was rotating. The wicker baskets, like, the bamboo baskets were, like, on a rotating thing in the steamer. And the speed racks were like triple the size of normal speed racks.

2:51I feel like it was a crazy space. But let's talk about your restaurant, Chisiamo. What was last night's service like? I mean, I want to get into it. It's like it's summer. Like it's hot outside. Everyone is super hot. Like people are like really coming together over food. What was last night like? It was insane. I mean, it was very busy. We did a lot of people in a short amount of time. And the patio was full. People are not afraid to sit outside still. I thought they were going to be – we have this conversation every day before service about the patio, what's going to happen. And people love sitting outside in that little, you know, what I call a piazza.

3:28Yeah. Generous term. It makes you feel like you're not in New York. And so I think that's what's also drawing people. I think the shed has something going on too. And there's just a lot of people in the neighborhood. But the High Line now ends at our front door, which is – thank you to all those people that put that together. So we're still cranking in July. I keep telling everyone to wait for it to slow down. So we're still waiting. We're being proactive. But, yeah, it was an insane evening. It was a hot night. And so we're recording this in July, and it's hot outside. Yes. And I got to believe that people are dining there because that's the only place they can dine because the inside is booked up, right?

4:14We are booked most nights, but we always leave room for walk-ins. It's a huge thing for me. I've always been a downtown chef where you can walk in, say hi, grab a drink or a meal at the bar any night of the week. So we probably did about 100-plus walk-ins last night. That's incredible. Well, we're framing this. The subtext of the bear is always in our minds, and I know we'll get to your kind of detachment from the show. apparently you've not watched it. But I want to just get into like, what is an insane, you know, night like in New York right now cooking? You know, for us, we plan our days, right?

4:49We know what's going to happen. And then all those wild cards, you know, for us, we try to do Italian style, you know, dining where like you have antipasti and a pair of TV, you know, you have a pasta course and an entree course. But that's the one thing in the summer that doesn't really happen. People come in, they want to order a bowl of pasta and they want to get going. So it's a little bit different than the winter where they're not settling in and ordering, you know, four courses and a big bottle of Barolo. We're drinking rosé, you know, having some gnocco frito and a salad or a fish. But there was a lot of pasta sales last night.

5:19And, you know, just judging by the cook's face by the end of the night, that usually tells us if it's insane or not. I love it. It's an open kitchen. You're seeing everyone who touches plates, like their faces, and there's lots of activity. It's a cool space. Who's coming in? You got some celebrities? Let's name drop. You got a name drop. I cannot. You know I cannot. I ask that every time and I feel like some of these people take the bait. But I have to ask, you know, you talk about the Piazza, but it's like the Peloton Piazza because Peloton HQ is right there. And we had Emma on the show recently.

5:50We talked about some of her restaurants. I think she mentioned yours. Who comes in from Peloton? There's got to be some. We definitely appreciate the business from the Peloton crew. We have a lot of instructors that come in. There's a few that I take that, you know, that I would want them to come in. I'd love to introduce myself and say hi and thank them for everything they do. A lot of people from HQ, they come in. A lot of the higher-ups come in as well. So we feed them, and they enjoy food, and they love being there. You're a cyclist yourself. You've done some Peloton bike, I hear. Who are your top three instructors?

6:21Toon Day, all day. Me too. I mean, her boot camp kicks my ass, and I love it. I did CrossFit for a very long time. And, you know, Chisiamo and, you know, my wife and I having a baby this year kind of put that on hold a little bit. So Tunde coming into, you know, our house really does help me. I back up into Cody. Yep. And then I run to Robin. Yeah. I do a lot of Peloton runs. I'm definitely Emma 1, Tunde 2, Dennis 3. That's my ranking. Okay. But I like your ranking. So you have had some interactions with some of these folks. I have, yes. I love that. It's cool that you're an active member of the community, but you also feed them.

7:01You carb load them. I do, and I love it when they order carbs. It makes me feel so special that they are willing to eat that that day. I mean, they also work out for a living, which, you know. But, yeah, when I feed them pasta and then just seeing their faces, it's really precious. I want to zoom out and talk about your upbringing in Brooklyn. You grew up in Brooklyn, and I love that. Our producer, Pat Stango, is now producing this segment. He also grew up in Brooklyn. So where was it? Where were you going? I love just to hear about Brooklyn. It's so crazy. I grew up in Sheepshead Bay. Yeah. So that's like two stops at Fort Coney Island for most people that do not know.

7:35I grew up in the same house my father grew up in. So we had my grandparents lived downstairs and we lived upstairs. You know, they were snowbirds, my grandparents. So they came back and forth. But we, you know, I lived on 27th between V and W. It is so far away. V. V. V. As in Victor. Wow. At V, you're like, at V, you're in these goods? No, at V. No, at V. You are like 17 blocks from the closest subway. I took the B44 to school. It was really definitely a different side of Brooklyn that most people don't think of when they think of Brooklyn. So, you know, my sister and I joke a lot that we got out and we appreciate it.

8:14Yeah. What was food like growing up? It was rough. It was rough. You say it was rough. You know, my parents, they grew up in that neighborhood. So they had a lot of – they were parceled to a lot of the neighborhood restaurants. We ate at a lot of the kosher delis. A lot of – we went to the kosher butcher because it was kosher downstairs and it was not kosher upstairs in my house. My mom wasn't that into cooking. My father liked to grill. But my grandparents fed us a lot. So we did eat a lot of traditional like that Eastern European style food downstairs, which that I long for still. Really? Oh, my God.

8:51Stuffed cabbage. Oh, yeah. I mean, there's nothing better. Let me ask you, were you doing Shabbat? Was it like a food? No, we were. No, no. You're not. We definitely celebrated the holidays, and my grandparents were the founding members of the temple out there. And my mother was always so bad about remembering to, like, shop before Yom Kippur fast. So she would, like, make us, like, take a really long walk so that no one would see us from the temple going shopping on Yom Kippur to get the food for the fast. She's totally going to kill me that I'm telling this story. That's a good story. But it's amazing.

9:21Yeah. Oh, my God. Yeah. Shame is powerful in a community like that. You don't want to get in on the other end of that. No, but it was it was definitely one of those things that my father was he was he was a little bit more of it was his parents. So we definitely celebrate that as my mom. My mom did not grow up in that kind of, you know, not definitely not practicing. What about slice joints down there? Do you have any memories of growing up? I mean, favorites take take a shot. You know, we definitely went for slices after school. Yeah. So that was, you know, we it was a treat. Italian ices, paper cups, cherry or chocolate.

9:55Now it would probably be lemon for me. Slices, Roma Pizzeria on Avenue U was a huge one for us. It was the closest one walking. And if we didn't go to Roma Pizzeria, we also, my other, my mom liked to treat us at Brennan and Carr, roast beef sandwiches and cheese fries. Yes, I remember that place. And that place is still around. It is still there. It is. And I got to do a photo shoot inside of it. It was probably, and it was like 95 degrees out. And I was like, I'm going to have one of those cold pictures of, Bud Light because I can now. They're still the same people in there. It's great. I love it.

10:27My old landlord, Danny Lazaro, ran Ice's Queen down in Sheepshead Bay. I don't know if you know those guys. They did Italian Ice's for all the pizzerias. Italian Ice is one of those things. I just went to Chicago and went to Mario's. Did you ever go to Mario's? I did not. It's across from Mr. Beef. Or just across from Al's, sorry. Across from Al's. I met Mario. Italian Ice is great. I think we should just bring it back. Paper cups, no need to reinvent the wheel. Definitely not. I mean, you can also just go, like they had a pog, like passion fruit, orange, and guava version of Italian ice. They called it a pog?

10:59Well, pog, like that Hawaiian blend. Oh, okay. And they had like lots of like really cool flavor combos. It was nice. Do you ever go to Queens and go to the Italian Ice King? What is it? Of Corona, right? Yeah, I definitely know the name. I've never been. We should go. I feel it's a good road trip to get Italian ice in the summer. Would you ever do it? Yeah. Yeah? What is your dream concept? Let's just go there. I feel like I want to ask you because you've worked at Vicks. You've worked with Bobby Flay. We'll get into that. You've worked at, like, big restaurants. You've worked Danny Meyer now.

11:30What about you? What do you want to do? You want to open up a small little thing somewhere? I mean, always deep down, right? I've always had this, like, you know, there's two ideas. The quintessential trattoria, right? Find that corner, you know, open up, you know, salads. Really, really, like, rustic style. pasta, you know, some entrees and call it a day. Or I want to go old school and opened up classic Italian-American bread sauce. Absolutely. There's nothing more that I enjoy than like eggplant parm, chicken parm, you know, meatball sauce. You know, even I'm a sucker for a baked ziti. It's so bad.

12:04Baked ziti can be very good. Yes. Like one out of 1 ,000 times. So. The other 999 are kind of bad. Yeah. Usually without the like really cheap pasta that doesn't have ridges. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But deep down, like those two and then throw in a pizza shop and I'd be happy. Oh, so a pizza shop with like maybe some baked pastas. What's the neighborhood? Or is it even in New York? I don't know. You haven't? I have not gotten that far yet. Okay. You've got a lot in front of you right now. Let's go back a little. You went to culinary school in Chicago. What was that like working in Chicago? And did you extern in Chicago too?

12:41I didn't. I worked actually. So my – at the time I was living in Chicago, I worked at a company called C.H. Robinson where I moved things from point A to point B. I was working in logistics. Yeah. Not food. Not food. Logistics. And at night there was – I would go to culinary school because I had this – so, you know, rewind. When I worked in Montauk in the summers, I had a place I called O'Murphy's Pub right in the circle. And a woman named Nancy Neff owned it. and she would, you know, drink her red wine on ice at the end of the night and sit there and eat, we'd feed her dinner and, you know, and she'd give you feedback.

13:19And, and I wanted to like learn more. And one day I came in and she was behind the line cooking. I was like, um, Nancy, is everything okay? And she looked at me and, you know, and she's like, ah, Shane called out or something like that. And I was like, do you need me to help you? Yeah. Because I was like doing some salad stuff for them and frying. And I'd also work in the front of the house there. And she's like, well, I have to know how to cook, right? I own this place. And it always stuck with me. And I was working in this logistics company after college, and I was like, I missed working in restaurants because I worked at a bar across from Wrigley, the Cubby Bear.

13:54Oh, you worked at the Cubby Bear? Are you kidding me? You worked at the Cubby Bear? I did. What year? 2000. Okay. They had not won the championship. So they were like really bad. Oh, they were so bad. But I had never seen, like, I'm a Mets fan, Right. So like I didn't like I'd never appreciated what like the Cubs fans were like and, you know, going to a stadium that was in the middle of a neighborhood. So I worked at the Cubby Bear my summer after I graduated college and I'd work at the rooftop bars and I've worked all around. I get to go to every Cubs game because people had extra tickets, of course, because they were terrible.

14:27And when I started my job, I kept the Cubby Bear job. And then, you know, one day I was like, if I'm going to own my own restaurant, I should learn how to cook professionally. So I went to culinary school at night. While you were working logistics. While I was working 6.30 to 4.30, and then I'd go to culinary school at night. And then I ended up doing my externship at the culinary school restaurant because back then it was either Charlie Bird, True, and I think a VEC just opened in Blackbird. So the options were pretty, pretty slim. And honestly, I couldn't afford it. So I had to keep my logistics job.

15:00Spiagio was probably doing some work then. They were open, yes. Yeah, maybe. That wasn't far. Yeah, it wasn't far. But still, The Bear, do you watch it? I've seen like a half of one episode. Why? Well, A, I don't have that much free time. And B, I just, I live that life. I live in that chaos every day and that intensity and that noise and that volume. You know, if I'm going to watch TV at the end of the night, I'm going to watch some like crazy apocalyptic end of the world disaster stuff. That totally takes you to a different place. Wow. That's interesting. That is the way you decompress. It's actually going more intense than actually watching some triggering.

15:39Yeah. I don't want to relive service. I just finished service. You just finished service. Let's put service to bed until the next day. Stefano Secchi said the same thing. He's not watching that shit. I mean, plenty of chefs have told me this. I mean, a server came in the other day and was like, I just want to say thank you. And I was like, well, thank you. And he must have watched episode six or seven that everyone's talking about, and I don't know anything about it. And he's like, did you watch The Bear? And I was like, no. I still haven't watched it. And he goes, I just want to say thank you.

16:07Holy shit. This was recently? It was like the other day. Season two is definitely even more in the back of the house and even more respecting high-level chefing. So I think that maybe there's a little bit of that happening. You're going to get more of that. I mean, maybe if I have nothing to do one day, but I'll let you know when that day comes. So you ended up in New York working with Bobby Flay. Now, you worked with Bobby Flay. I believe he was not as famous as he is now. Is that correct? That's correct. his office was still in the building. And you worked at Bolo, right? I worked at Mesa Grill first and then I went to Bolo.

16:38Okay. You worked at both. Oh, cool. And so tell me about Bobby. What's something that we don't know about him? You know, I think, I think people forget that he's actually a human being and he's an amazing chef. He is a good chef. You're right. You know, he really taught me how to balance flavors. Um, and you know, really was so passionate about Mexican chilies and the dried chilies and the fresh chilies and, you know, teaching us all how a taste. And I owe that to him, right? I wouldn't have understood. I had no idea what a dried chili was. There was no Mexican restaurants in Sheepshead Bay. I think there may be one now, you know, two now, but I didn't understand Mexican food.

17:12And now I love it and honor it. And I like love going to Mexico and finding that next best little corner spot. But he has an amazing palate. He is still in this business after all this time. So he has such great longevity and he appeals to the masses and overall he's a genuinely great person yeah um still someone that i could call uh if i needed a favor yeah it sounds like a lot of folks have said that about him that he's just a sick chef he's like got great skills and like this b bobby flag business is cool but ultimately when you're a line cook and working the line doesn't really matter you just have to like really have those instincts um and then you end up i'm like jumping around a little bit You worked with Missy Robbins for years, and as I met you when you were working with Missy, and I have to just ask you in a teasing way, do you guys have like a rivalry?

17:58No. You and Missy? Because you guys are both doing extremely high-level pasta, recognized by the New York Times with multiple stars. You're doing wood-burning wood grills and cooking. So you're like your styles are similar. No friendly rivalry. We actually still have menu meetings sometimes. We still share ideas, concepts. We, you know, one, you know, whatever, if each one of us is traveling, we'll, we'll share restaurants and pictures. And we actually live six blocks from each other. So she'll meet my son and I in the park and hang out. And, um, you know, no, there is, um, there's no rivalry.

18:34There's just a complete appreciation of someone else that cooks very similarly. I mean, I'm absolutely kidding. But totally, yeah. She's dope. Like Missy's the best and you are as well. And you guys are really, you just are so generous with your time and great chefs. And I love that you do menu meetings. What does that mean exactly? It's super fun. We did it like right before we opened Chisiamo and then occasionally we'll have coffee and be like, okay, it's summer. What do you have? What's inspiring you? What did you find? And I'll send me, you know, we'll send pictures of like menus like crossed out.

19:03We have a lot of that kind of like I can't take this anymore. It's time to change and this is what I'm working on. And, yeah, it's a lot of fun because sometimes when you're so in it, you can't see outside. And sometimes you need someone to tell you, right, just because we're all at this high level. you still need someone to be like, you're out of your mind. You know, every once in a while I'll send her a text like, is this really ridiculous? And she'll be like, yeah, that's actually ridiculous, but go for it. Or I think you're ridiculous, you know, going backwards. But yeah, sometimes you just need someone to tell you like, no, or that sounds delicious.

19:35Don't do that thing. Or like, what about COGS, like cost of goods? Are you guys like just completely complaining to each other about that shit? It's, you know, hey, do you know where to get this? Or hey, can you, where are you buying that so cheap or whatever? or can you help me introduce me to this person or that person or hey, I found this. But yeah, we exchanged definitely like I found this guanciale. You should hear some. I'll drop some off, you know. But you worked together at Avoce. For four years. Yeah, so you worked and was it the one at Time Warner or the one downtown? No, at Madison.

20:03At Madison, the 26th location. Yeah, what were those times like? I mean, Avoce, you guys were just putting out food like all the time. It was a very busy restaurant. It was very busy and we had a Michelin star, which was very important to our owners that we kept. which I don't even know what that means. Yeah, back then it meant. Back then in 2009, it meant something to our British owner. And we still joke about some of the things that we did there. I have this one dish that I – because we did these regional menus, so every three weeks we changed our lunch menu based on a different region. There's like 28 of them?

20:3620, 28. And so she would send an email out to myself and the chef of Columbus being like, next region is, you know, whatever, Tuscany, next region. And then we'd submit our menus and we'd do tastings. And, like, it was this constant cycle. And it was amazing because you were – you forgot how much you – that studying and that education was so important. You know, and our jobs were almost a stumper. We would, like – the chef Jeremy McMillan who was up at Columbus, we would be like, where did you find? Where did this? And this is in, you know, early 2000s where there still was not an influx of Italian cookbooks here.

21:10And I definitely was buying cookbooks in Italian because I couldn't find enough in English, you know. And we would just keep changing the menus. And then, you know, one day we're like, you know, now I'm like, I can't believe I put an apple hat on that gnocchi. Like why did I insist on making this dried apple tuile for this goat? It was a gorgonzola gnocchi with smoked apples and an apple tuile hat. Like a tuile. Like you call it a hat. Like a garnish. It was fucking ridiculous. I put a hat on every single gnocchi. Like what kind of hat? Like a baseball cap? A circle hat, essentially. Like a beanie, like yarmulke.

21:45It was totally an apple yarmulke. I mean, the food. Listen, to keep that star, you had to do a certain level of tweezer food back then. It was tweezer-y for sure. Before there were tweezers. Before tweezers. I mean, you were taking over for Carmelini. You had this reputation. Then Missy and you were just like made it even better in many ways. You made it different. Okay. My words. I mean, I'm not trying to shade Andrew. No, I mean, AC is great. And we made it different. It was very rustic. Andrew's food at Avoce back then was very rustic. Yeah, exactly. And we refined it. That's an interesting point because sometimes I do in my perception of food, sometimes when it becomes more fancified or cerebral or tweezery, it becomes better.