Via Carota Chefs Jody Williams And Rita Sodi Transcript
Kerry Diamond:
Hi everyone. You are listening to Radio Cherry Bombe, and I'm your host, Kerry Diamond, coming to you from Newsstand Studios at Rockefeller Center in New York City. Each week we feature interviews with the coolest culinary personalities around. I'm thrilled because we have restaurant royalty with us today. Chefs and life partners, Jody Williams and Rita Sodi, two of Manhattan's most beloved chef restaurateurs. I've long admired these two for the intention they put into everything they do. Jody is the force behind Buvette and Rita helms I Sodi. Together they oversee Bar Pisellino, The Commerce Inn, and Via Carota. Fans of Via Carota, and there are a lot of you out there, will be thrilled to know they have written the cookbook titled Via Carota: A Celebration of Seasonal Cooking from the Beloved Greenwich Village Restaurant. And it captures the spirit of Via Carota beautifully. I'll let Rita and Jody tell you more in just a minute.
Speaking of team Via Carota, Rita and Jody will be at our second annual Cooks in Books Festival at the Ace Hotel Brooklyn. On the weekend of November 5th and 6th, Rita and Jody will be in conversation with the one and only Ruth Reichl. How's that for a power trio?
Tickets go on sale for the general public on Tuesday at 9:00 AM EST at cherrybombe.com. Snag a ticket and pre-order a signed and personalized copy of the Via Carota cookbook. It's going to be one of the best sellers of the season, but you know us. That's not all. We have so many incredible chefs and writers joining us for panels, talks and demos all weekend long. Erin French, Tanya Holland, Claudia Flemming, Grace Young, Dawn Davis, Hetty McKinnon, Jessie Sheehan, Adrienne Cheatham, and many others. You can buy an individual ticket or an all access pass for Saturday and Sunday. Come and hang out in Brooklyn with Team Cherry Bombe and other book lovers. I would love to see you. We can all be bookish together. Cooks and Books is presented by our friends at Kerrygold.
Now, let's welcome today's guests.
Kerry Diamond:
Rita Sodi, Jody Williams, welcome to Radio Cherry Bombe.
Jody Williams:
Thank you Kerry, we are so pleased.
Rita Sodi:
Thank you for having us.
Kerry Diamond:
Congratulations on your beautiful book. First off, long time coming. You opened Via Carota in 2014. Why is now the right time for a cookbook? All right, so this is Rita. I'm going to tell everybody who's who, so you know who's speaking.
Rita Sodi:
There is never a good time. You just decide to do it. That's it. You know.
Kerry Diamond:
Jody.
Jody Williams:
Well, I think there's a moment of maturity in your restaurant where you have a cannon of recipes or key stones or things and they sort of come together and they're their own book and people start to ask, they sort of represent the character, that soul of the restaurant. So that's what's in this book between these pages are these recipes that Via Carota make up the book.
Kerry Diamond:
For those who've never been to Via Carota. Can you explain what the restaurant is all about?
Rita Sodi:
It's about eating, relaxing, chatting with your friend or whatever, and eat good food and environment that is friendly.
Kerry Diamond:
You've been on everyone's favorite restaurant lists for years. The New Yorker even called you "New York's most perfect restaurant." No pressure.
Jody Williams:
Ouch. Ouch.
Kerry Diamond:
This might be hard for you to answer, but why do so many folks seem to have an emotional attachment to this restaurant?
Jody Williams:
I think that when you eat something, you take inside, internally, the soul, the culture, all of it, the chaos, and it literally feeds you, nourishes you. It gives you something emotionally and that's really unique. All restaurants. At Via Carota, it's the people that make it up. It's the people working in there and just this thing. I mean we built a place, right Rita, that we want to be in every day and we want to feel comfortable in and that we can relate to. And I guess it's transmitted to a lot of people.
Kerry Diamond:
You've created so many beautiful dishes over the years. How in the world did you decide which ones would be included in the book?
Rita Sodi:
The ones we love most. The ones we would like to eat every day. That's how the recipe goes to the book.
Kerry Diamond:
I'm going to guess you had hundreds to choose from.
Rita Sodi:
Yeah. Not a hundred but a nice amount of numbers, of old recipes.
Kerry Diamond:
Jody, which recipe would you say is a great gateway into the world of Via Carota?
Jody Williams:
Well, I think there's a handful of recipes that have stories and a lot of attachment to them, so I could pick one of those. Or there are those iconic dishes that we make that are must-haves and that we eat and enjoy. So I could go that route. So I'll, I'm going to give you two, of course it's the Insalata Verde, but a dish that's close to my heart and I would pick would be the fried rabbit.
Kerry Diamond:
Ooh.
Jody Williams:
And that's because there's this little piece of fried bread in with the fried rabbit that was actually Rita's mother's habit when they would chop up to fry the rabbit for their lunches and the table grew and it went from five to 10. Somebody got bread, somebody got rabbit. But it's the most delicious part on the plate is the fried bread with the fried rabbit around it.
Kerry Diamond:
The rabbit habit.
Jody Williams:
Rabbit habit. The other one, it would be the green monster. The beautiful, delicious salad.
Kerry Diamond:
I was just going to say, you two can't escape that salad.
Rita Sodi:
No.
Kerry Diamond:
Did you have any idea when you put some pieces of lettuce on a plate that the world would lose their minds?
Rita Sodi:
Nope. Absolutely not.
Kerry Diamond:
I read the recipe to that last night because I love that salad like everybody else. And you rinse the shallots in the dressing. I didn't know that was a thing. Is that to take a little bit of the bite out of the shallot?
Jody Williams:
Yes.
Rita Sodi:
Yes.
Kerry Diamond:
Okay, so if you don't know what I'm talking about, there's the recipe for the greens and preparing the greens and then there's the salad dressing recipe and there's shallots in it and a few other things.
Jody Williams:
Shallots, any raw onion, that's going to go near a salad will give it a quick little rinse or into an ice bath and out. So it stays.
Kerry Diamond:
Do you do that for red onion too?
Jody Williams:
Yeah. Red onion.
Kerry Diamond:
And there's a little hint of sugar in the vinaigrette, is that the secret?
Jody Williams:
Sugar, or some people like prefer honey with the mustard or people leave it out. You taste it and you see what it needs so that it sort of feels really delicious in your mouth. Comfortable.
Kerry Diamond:
And do you two really eat the salad every day?
Jody Williams:
Pretty much.
Rita Sodi:
Pretty much, yes.
Jody Williams:
Yeah, we eat it with our hands too.
Kerry Diamond:
I love that you say that in the recipe. Yeah, feel free to eat with your hands. Rita, which recipe is the most personal to you?
Rita Sodi:
I would say, maybe the Svizzerina.
Kerry Diamond:
Yeah, tell us about it.
Rita Sodi:
Yeah, the chop steak. I don't really know how the name is coming from, but my mother used to say, Oh, you don't want to eat meat. I would make a Svizzerina for you. So that's the way she makes me eat meat.
Kerry Diamond:
By pretending it was not meat?
Rita Sodi:
Something like that. I think so.
Kerry Diamond:
Tell us how you prepare it.
Rita Sodi:
Oh, we chop a steak.
Kerry Diamond:
But it's not quite a tartar.
Rita Sodi:
No, but it is sear on both sides. So the inside is very... It's rare but it's crunchy and has a garlic and rosemary. Yeah, it's a great dish.
Kerry Diamond:
It's a beautiful dish. It's so flavorful.
Rita Sodi:
Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
Via Carota has such a specific aesthetic both in the decor and the plating. How did you carry that over to the book? In other words, it feels like Via Carota when you look at that book.
Jody Williams:
I think because the way we work creating the cookbook or creating the menu or creating the dining room, they all share similarities. We do something and we step back and we ask, how does that make us feel? And it's the only way we know how to work. So we're not working from renderings or... You know, it's just sort of move that there little there. So when we were doing the cookbook with an awesome team, we would remove one thing, add one thing. So it's this guiding philosophy that we tend to take away at Via Carota until nothing else can be taken away. And we feel like that's the point. And so I guess that's how the book feels a little bit like Via Carota.
Kerry Diamond:
Rita, how did you come to work with Gentl & Hyers on the photography?
Rita Sodi:
We know them and we know they understand us. So that's was the most easy way to have somebody do and take from what we do the best. We know them for a long time and we have a good relationship and we know that they like what we do.
Kerry Diamond:
And they don't do everybody's books, but everybody wants them to do their books.
Jody Williams:
They're very talented and we are just really blessed to have Andrea [Gentl], Marty [Martin Hyers], Gentl & Hyers and all their team. We didn't even really have to speak to each other. Everybody just gets into their creative mode. And we had stylists that we bring, Asia and Anna Kovel involved in writing and involved in helping us with the photo shoot. It felt like a big family and we all were taking care of Via Carota. So...
Kerry Diamond:
I love that you almost didn't have to communicate with words that you all just knew what needed to be done to do this book.
Rita Sodi:
And we finish and we say, “Oh, everything is done? Already?” It was so kind of easy with people so well and they know you so it's natural everything you do.
Jody Williams:
And everybody's crazy good at what they do. I mean if you need a branch of blueberries flown in or you need someone to go out and find the last two porcini that could be forage on the east coast, here they come.
Kerry Diamond:
So it was a real team of superstars working on this book.
Jody Williams:
Super, super impressive people and great publisher too with support.
Kerry Diamond:
How did you work with Anna Kovel?
Jody Williams:
We would tell stories and she would ask questions and she would research us and we'd get in the kitchen and look over the dishes and our notes. And a lot of what we do in the kitchen, Rita is like this verbal tradition or even with our... We have an excellent team, we talk through things and that's not really helpful to putting together a cookbook.
Rita Sodi:
She loves food, so it's easy to work with. People love food, it's great.
Kerry Diamond:
How is it for you having to tell all those stories?
Rita Sodi:
I'm not really a person to put out all my stories, but I think it's good for people to know what the food is coming from and the story behind and the culture behind all the food. So I think it's good.
Kerry Diamond:
I know you like to let your food do the talking for you.
Rita Sodi:
Yes, that's true.
Kerry Diamond:
We are so excited that you two are coming to our Cooks and Books festival in November. Ruth Reichl will be interviewing you. I know you're both big fans of Ruth's. Would love to know what you admire about Ruth. I think I've heard you've read her in multiple languages.
Rita Sodi:
I read one of her books a while ago in Italian and the name of the book, La Parte Più Tenera, and is a story of her since I think she was nine and go through all the food with her mother and after with herself. And yeah, it was a fun reading.
Kerry Diamond:
Was that Tender At The Bone? That book?
Rita Sodi:
Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
Okay, so that's the Italian...
Rita Sodi:
Yeah, the Italian version. Yeah, the Italian title. Yeah. It's very personal. So it's really not very comparable about anything I know, anything I read, it's very, it's there. It's there. I think it's, I don't know very well her, but it's impressive. It's really impressive. And I think if she has a phrase there, then if she say something, observe the people to eat is you learn who they are... They or something like that. Yeah, something I don't remember, but it got me because I do the same thing sometimes. I look at people eating and especially different bites and see the reaction and trying to understand what they think about. So it is like, yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
You could relate to that.
Rita Sodi:
Yeah, I do. Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
Jody, were you a chef when Ruth was a restaurant critic?
Jody Williams:
I was a chef, I was a cook certainly when Ruth was editor-in-chief of Gourmet. And back in those days there wasn't a lot out there and if you were looking for food information, you would find something in the New York Sunday Times or you would find, and then I remember Saveur Magazine came out, but Gourmet Magazine and Ruth and then as a New York Times critic and understanding as a young cook go, oh, what does that mean? She's iconic and just has added so much in so many different ways from journalism to writing and just collecting all this parts of history through her tenure of American food or whatnot.
Kerry Diamond:
I still have some of those copies of Gourmet Magazine and I treasure them. I just feel like they're as relevant today as they were back when Ruth was in charge of that magazine.
Jody Williams:
Yeah, definitely iconic.
Kerry Diamond:
Are you doing any special cookbook events that your fans should know about? Any dinners, a tour?
Jody Williams:
Well we're going to be... I think we're go.... We're so terrible.
Kerry Diamond:
In addition to Cooks and Books. Which you're doing.
Jody Williams:
We're doing Cooks and Books and very excited...
Kerry Diamond:
You're so terrible, you two aren't terrible.
Jody Williams:
And intimidated and to be up there. But we'll be at Union Square signing books. We have a pop-up bookstore in front of Via Carota that we'll start in the middle of October and we'll have some friends and people join in on the little pop-up. So maybe there'll be black truffles available and we just try mix it up and have some fun on Grove Street and we might be upstate for some things and yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
Stay tuned. How can folks find out about these?
Jody Williams:
We'll release information on Instagram and we'll start to share things. I have to say we are really bad at promoting, but we can't wait to get out and celebrate Via Carota, Via Carota community, and the cookbook. So we'll post some things on Instagram so everybody knows.
Kerry Diamond:
I would love to talk about how you two met because it's a sweet story.
Jody Williams:
Well I kept hearing from one group of friends, "You got to meet somebody, you got to meet this woman. Have you met this woman?" And then I kept hearing from another group of friends, "You've got to go eat in this restaurant. Have you seen this restaurant? You got to go eat in this restaurant." And I didn't realize that they were the same person in same place. So I finally got over to eat at I Sodi and fell in love. And I...
Kerry Diamond:
Was it love at first sight?
Jody Williams:
It was love at first sight and bite...
Kerry Diamond:
Love at first bite.
Jody Williams:
And bite. And I'm looking at this beautiful handwritten menu that probably had three or four asparagus dishes and the energy. And I had worked in Italy for probably over five years. And the energy and the smells and the sounds and the light, everything was, this isn't New York.
Kerry Diamond:
Wow.
Jody Williams:
Who has the courage to do this? Who's doing this? And then I looked down the end of the bar, that long 15-seat bar or whatever at I Sodi there was Rita. And I thought, "Oh, okay." And I put it all together and then I had to build up some courage so I could introduce myself and try to get her attention.
Kerry Diamond:
And you were a fellow restaurateur/chef?
Jody Williams:
Yeah, I was a chef. I was around the corner.
Kerry Diamond:
Had you opened Buvette yet?
Jody Williams:
I was probably just on the cusp of getting fired from everywhere and opening Buvette and comes with the territory.
Kerry Diamond:
Right.
Jody Williams:
But yeah, I was just on the cusp of opening Buvette and had been working in the neighborhood and living in the neighborhood. I mean we always lived blocks away and never knew each other.
Kerry Diamond:
And you started to frequent the restaurant.
Jody Williams:
I was a regular. Boom. And I loved that moment at the bar bottles of wine, antipasto, Toscana, I mean fried artichokes. She had a list of Negronis at that time and it was my place and the relationship. We were beginning this relationship and my friends would come. We loved eating there together. Hasn't changed.
Kerry Diamond:
Rita, did you notice the chef who kept coming into the restaurant? Or were you too busy?
Rita Sodi:
Yeah, I was seeing this woman, this blonde woman and she was coming sometime when the restaurant was not open and she was bringing beautiful...
Jody Williams:
Strawberries.
Rita Sodi:
Strawberries. And she was asking to come in and asking me where you take your napkins, where you buy this? And I didn't know her at that time. And after I say, okay, so you would just ask me things just to ask things, you knew much more than me so...
Kerry Diamond:
Did you think she was spying?
Rita Sodi:
No, absolutely. She was just asking things, help, I think if she was asking for help, but she was not she was just asking.
Jody Williams:
There we were like one block from each other working so hard to do our restaurants and to build them and success doesn't come overnight. And we would run from one corner to the next to help each other out. There's so many stories. And then one day we realized what, well if we want to see each other, maybe we should open up one together. And we looked down Grove Street and Grove Streets where I think where we met, where we started dating. And the significance of that now is like, "Wow, it's sort of our world." And so we looked down and we thought, "Okay, let's do something together." And that's where Via Carota was beginning to be formed and out of smiling and real naive, like, sure, let's do it. Everybody else does this, we can do it. We figured it out.
Kerry Diamond:
Why the name Via Carota?
Rita Sodi:
It's the street that I used to live in Florence.
Jody Williams:
Right? So it means Carrot Street, but Via Carota in Florence is really the name of an architect. But it was great because we knew in this restaurant we wanted to take all those vegetable sides and all those things that we really want to live in and eat and move them to the heart of the menu. And so what would be different about this Italian restaurant is that in the middle of Via Carota's menu, there's about 12 to 20 dishes that rotate seasonally, that you can eat and you don't have to commit to a meat or a fish and you could just do what you want. So we were excited about that.
Kerry Diamond:
Rita, what is the key to a good working relationship with your partner?
Rita Sodi:
Be passionate. Work together.
Kerry Diamond:
Jody, how about you?
Jody Williams:
Sometimes I win by losing, so I know I don't have to always be right. It's not about right. It's about taking that moment and stepping back and both of us saying, yes, that's it. That feels good. Or listening and trying to find an idea. I mean even the Svizzerina, that hand chop steak, that the perfect salt and pepper crust on top, I thought add some caramelized onions, put a piece of focaccia near it and I was destroying it and then we'd just like, okay, that garlic confete and rosemary and drenching it in more olive oil. Perfect. So there's this give and take or this grind and you get something you didn't expect.
Kerry Diamond:
It's been so interesting listening to you both talk about your food and approach because there's such a minimalism to what you do. But I think when you hear the term minimalism, it feels so cold. But I think you two have kind of trademarked this warm minimalism in a sense.
Jody Williams:
Well thank you.
Rita Sodi:
Thanks so much, thank you.
Kerry Diamond:
Just an observation. Would love to talk about how you each became chefs because you took very different routes to get there. Jody, you mentioned being a chef, you mentioned being fired, you become a cook. Let's start with that.
Jody Williams:
Well, I think as a child in private schools, we would have our tuition subsidized by working in the cafeteria. So you would leave reading or math, go early and put the carton of milk and the cling peaches on the tray.
Kerry Diamond:
So you worked through private school to afford tuition.
Jody Williams:
As a kid...
Kerry Diamond:
That had to have been tough.
Jody Williams:
It's what you did. So I would be there with all the old ladies in the hair nets and we're doing this. And so I could work with both hands. So I was always somewhere on the cusp of having little jobs, making sandwiches. And I remember this one moment where one of the cooks needed help because they were passed out and not doing their job. So I would jump in and I'd help get the job done. No, don't do it like that. You'll get me fired. Well, you're not even working. So it sort of evolved in all these part-time jobs and stuff, but I was good at it. And then I found a way where I could travel and learn language and I loved that. I loved that. All the cultures coming together and this adventure and it set something free in me. I loved being in new places and not knowing anything and conquering that. I got some lucky breaks and jobs where I probably shouldn't have been hired and I did my best and just traveled and knocked on doors.
Kerry Diamond:
You mentioned being in Italy for five years.
Jody Williams:
Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
Tell us about that experience.
Jody Williams:
Well I landed in some beautiful places just to be hired as a cook. And then eventually I stayed on and I found a way to get my libretto di lavoro. I didn't speak any Italian. I had The Joy of Cooking in my luggage and I had a dictionary. About three years in, one restaurant in Reggio Emilia, Caffè Arti e Mestieri, I learned a lot and I learned about Italian food and I got it. I understood. And I had been making a New York City tomato concasse and all these absurd things and very uncomfortable and I didn't really like it, but I learned where I am today. What I value about food.
Kerry Diamond:
Might be hard to explain, but when you say you got it, how did it all come together? What finally unlocked that for you?
Jody Williams:
It's a great question. What I found is in these small Italian kitchens where it's like a mom and a pop or in this kitchen it was Enzo [Bertelli] and his sister Anna [Bertelli]. Oh, it didn't have that formality, that French brigade, that sort of squashes creativity for me, and sets rules, and this was all about food. It was, we're making pumpkin ravioli, how good is the pumpkin this year, everybody gather around and taste and look at it and talk about it. And a neighbor would come and it was all food-focused and just busy hands making things and everything was handmade. And then the products outside the restaurant, whether there was somebody that had Balsamic or Parmigiano, I mean it was like being in a market every day and people were really kind and took me under their wing.
Kerry Diamond:
It's amazing to think that you two might have crossed paths over there and didn't even know it.
Rita Sodi:
Yeah, that's true. Yeah, that's true.
Jody Williams:
I mean she was eating in some of the restaurants I was cooking at in New York. I mean you used to go to the restaurant on Spring Street or...
Kerry Diamond:
Where'd you work on Spring Street?
Jody Williams:
Giorgione with Giorgio.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, Giorgio DeLuca.
Kerry Diamond:
So let's jump to the New York years. You worked for some colorful characters here at New York to put it mildly, right?
Jody Williams:
Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
Want to talk about some of your more interesting experiences before you struck out on your own?
Jody Williams:
Well I had to struck out on my own because I just kept getting fired. I'm just maybe that bad. No, I'm sort of joking. There's always something to learn. Both Rita and I share that we're self taught, so I would take jobs so I could learn and maybe I wanted to learn how to do volume. What's that about? Or there would be working with Giorgio DeLuca, it's great taste and a knowledge and opportunity.
Kerry Diamond:
The famous Dean of DeLuca.
Jody Williams:
Yeah, the Dean of DeLuca. And so different situations I learned different things and I would look to learn something else.
Kerry Diamond:
Did you ultimately learn your happiest working for yourself?
Jody Williams:
Yes, I learned that I want control. I want to execute vision. I want to put it out there and see, you know what I mean? I want all the pain and joy that goes with that.
Kerry Diamond:
That's a beautiful way to put it. Rita, your turn. You are the fashionista in the family.
Rita Sodi:
I'm a fashionista. Yeah. And I think it being in the fashion, it's not just a fashion, but I start to travel a lot. I find out that my mother's food was the best food.
Kerry Diamond:
Where did you grow up, Rita? Tell everybody.
Rita Sodi:
I grew up in a village north of Florence and I've been always, since I was little, my kind of a sous chef for my mother, she was telling me what to do and I was doing it and I had to do it her way. Not change anything or just say, Is this okay? Is that okay? So when I decide to change my life and that was a crazy thing I did, but I'm happy I did it.
Kerry Diamond:
What were you doing in fashion?
Rita Sodi:
I was product development for Calvin Klein. I was based in Florence, but we had the license for Europe and Asia. And was...
Kerry Diamond:
So I remember this correctly? It was Calvin Klein jeans, right?
Rita Sodi:
Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
Weren't you like super into denim and all of that?
Rita Sodi:
Yeah, I was a guru. Denim guru. So I was traveling between Europe and Asia a lot and I was missing my mother food. I was missing my food so when I arrive to the moment then I had to change my life because things change and everything. I was like, what do I do now? And I said, Let's go to New York and open an Italian restaurant
Kerry Diamond:
With no experience.
Rita Sodi:
Nothing.
Kerry Diamond:
No backers, no nothing.
Rita Sodi:
No, Nothing.
Jody Williams:
On Christopher Street.
Kerry Diamond:
That is bravery.
Rita Sodi:
Yes. It was hard, very hard. Also, because it was 2008, so it was not a really...
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, the recession. How did you just have the bravery to do that?
Rita Sodi:
Sometimes when you don't know what you're going through or what you have in front of you, it's easier. And so I did it and I suffer. I suffer a lot, I learned a lot. I suffer a lot. And Jody helped me since she was next door to Buvette. And I was going to cry. Once, I was doing chocolate cake in the morning and I warm up upstair and I was going downstairs and the guy just cleaned the stair and I was going down with my chocolate and I fell and all the chocolate, I was covering chocolate. So I went the bathroom, I changed all the clothing and everything, new pants. And after I went to Jody, then she was at Buvette and I go in the kitchen and she look at me, “what happened to you?” And she start to see chocolate around me. So it's like she took and she sat down, we sat down and it was just crazy. Oh, just crazy. Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
The folks who stand in line for a long time to get into your restaurants must be shock to hear these stories because I think a lot of folks do think you were overnight successes.
Rita Sodi:
Oh no. Oh no, no. There is not such a thing.
Jody Williams:
And we think we have so much work every day in front of us and we appreciate everybody coming, everything. It's like, but we're really hard critics and we want to keep working. I remember the first time I made coq au vin, Mimi Sheraton and told me, “Jody, this is goulash.” And I'm like, "Oh man, back to the kitchen." I'm like, "Thank you Mimi." And I go back and I remake and I remake it. And there's a lot of inspiration around us and there's a lot of history, but it's a lot of work. And I think anybody who's doing something they love and building something, it's busy hands, busy mind.
Kerry Diamond:
And Mimi Sheraton, the great New York Times restaurant critic. Better she told that to you than wrote it in the restaurant review, right?
Jody Williams:
Yeah, absolutely.
Kerry Diamond:
I have to say, one of the things I just admire about the two of you so much is you really seem to use the cliche march to the beat of your own drum. You're one of the rare examples in the restaurant industry of people who seem happy, satisfied, even though I'm sure you're never satisfied, you're always pushing yourselves to do more and do better, but who have succeeded on your own terms.
Jody Williams:
Oh, thank you.
Kerry Diamond:
Do you feel that?
Rita Sodi:
I don't know.
Kerry Diamond:
I know it's hard to look in the mirror and think that.
Rita Sodi:
Yeah, it's very hard. And I critic on myself, so I'm not sure about that. But we are trying every day to...
Jody Williams:
I mean we do rely on each other and all the people that we work with, our objective isn't necessary to be always bigger and bigger. It's like we're making dinner tonight and if we do that really well, maybe we can do something else. Low and behold, Bar Pisselino or so we like our little community. I don't know, we just march to the beat of our own drummer.
Kerry Diamond:
Let's talk about this community that you have down in the West Village. Buvette. Tell us about Buvette.
Jody Williams:
We're a little bit consequentialist. There's not a lot of big planning. It's like, oh, let's try that. And Buvette, well, I wanted to make tarte tatin and I wanted to make cassoulet and I wanted a place that did tradition untraditional where I didn't have 3:30, no more lunch. I just wanted this something to eat, something to drink. I wanted to have these, that kind of food and wine and in a very casual environment that was in a restaurant. I wanted a bar with really good food. And that sort of was the objective. And let's just see where we can go. And I didn't have a lot of funds or resources to build a big kitchen and do it the way restaurants do it. So I could steam some soups and some eggs on the espresso machine. I could have a little panini press and I could take big ideas and braise oxtail and put it on a piece of toast and some raclette and pinot noir. And that was okay. And I was hoping maybe 50 people would come or there you go...
Kerry Diamond:
And the world came to your doorstep.
Jody Williams:
We started squeezing orange juice and everything.
Kerry Diamond:
And then I Sodi we talked about and then Bar Pisellino, which you mentioned. Rita, tell us about the bar.
Rita Sodi:
There is always something that we miss. So we go and when we find the spot, we try to recreate what we are missing. And that was, the Bar Pisellino is something that I really missed in New York because you don't have the space where you go just for espresso for a small panino or something, any time of the day and go for a drink after dinner, before dinner, whatever. When you have friends, when you are in the mood to talk with people and everything. So that's Bar Pisellino.
Kerry Diamond:
And there is food there.
Rita Sodi:
There is some little food sandwich and some sweet things for the morning.
Jody Williams:
So what we love about Bar Pisellino is that now we live a few blocks from the restaurant. So now we have a place to have that Italian bar coffee experience. So, Bar Pisellino... We became obsessed with sort of this idea of the art of drinking Italian. So if it's aperitivo and Aperol spritz and that kind of feeling of being outside or inside and no takeout, no large, no small, you just stand up, enjoy the espresso or the cappuccino and go or enjoy your aperitivo and get into cocktails and continue making negronis and other things and mixology and just learning as chefs, just the opportunity to learn. Okay, so we got to travel more and drink a lot of cocktails.
Kerry Diamond:
It's such a perfect spot. It's also gorgeous.
Jody Williams:
Yes, thanks.
Kerry Diamond:
The design and the space is fantastic.
Rita Sodi:
Yeah. It's beautiful.
Kerry Diamond:
And The Commerce Inn, how's that going?
Jody Williams:
It's good, it's such a beautiful, unique spot. It's in that cul-de-sac on Commerce next to the Cherry Lane Theater. It's off Grove Street. So there's this quietness that's such The Village. So...
Kerry Diamond:
It's one of the prettiest spots in New York City.
Jody Williams:
Yeah.
Rita Sodi:
Yeah. It's very nice and it's very special.
Kerry Diamond:
Why did you want to do another restaurant?
Rita Sodi:
We didn't until we knew that it was up for lease. And we look at each other and we say, "Do we try it?" And we say, "Yeah, why not?" We try and now there is The Commerce Inn.
Kerry Diamond:
Think everyone breathed a sigh of relief when you took over that lease because it is such a special part of New York City, physically, geographically, all of that. So you would hate to see that spot fall into the wrong hands.
Jody Williams:
Well we feel like in many of our places, especially there, a stewardship to the historical nature of the village. And we wanted to create that New York tavern. We had a collection of really old cookbooks. Really old, some without covers. And this idea of creating that American New York tavern experience, we wanted a challenge. We wanted to challenge ourselves - get the better stoves and this and as chefs and there we go.
Kerry Diamond:
Is it the biggest kitchen?
Jody Williams:
No.
Kerry Diamond:
Okay. Which spot has the biggest kitchen?
Rita Sodi:
Via Carota.
Kerry Diamond:
Okay. Tell us about the menu at Commerce Inn because folks might be surprised. It's not pasta, right?
Rita Sodi:
Not pasta.
Jody Williams:
It's not Italian food. It's a lot of local ingredients. Right now we're doing a lot of oysters and we do cod in different kinds of way from house smoked cod cakes, pickled oysters. So we're in there and we're cooking and some times it's like, okay, that doesn't taste Italian. That's great.
Rita Sodi:
That's great.
Jody Williams:
That's great. Local flukes on the menu, we do a spoon bread that's done with corn meal and there's tongue so instead of the charcuterie at Buvette or antipasti that we do in the other restaurants, we sort have this kind of more of an American kind of feel with carving baked hams with some pickles or cheese we'll do a jugged rabbit that we're going to do for the weekend over here. And again, lots of veg too that comes out. We do some just a bowl of beans. Soups are coming up.
Kerry Diamond:
It's very much that warm minimalism that we were talking about. I loved the food I had there and I had those beautiful oysters you told me that's a female run oyster farm, right?
Jody Williams:
Yeah. Little Ram Oysters. Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
They're out in the North Fork.
Jody Williams:
Oh, North Fork.
Kerry Diamond:
Yeah. And the aesthetic is so interesting. It felt almost Shaker, am I correct in that?
Jody Williams:
Yeah, we've admire a lot of Shaker design and a lot of Shaker ethos and history. So we were able to incorporate that and work along with the Shaker museum upstate, look at manuscripts and learn about woodworking and put it all together.
Rita Sodi:
It's part of a little bit of our life together. We met and we knew then we have this love for this Shaker furniture, the shaker ethos, they look and the simplicity then... It's not really simplicity, it's more like it's so sophisticated. It's crazy. When you start to know that and see it there, realize it's very impressive for us.
Kerry Diamond:
Now this is a personal question, but you two seem to value your personal time and I feel like you do take weekends. You're not in your restaurants 24/7. That's not a criticism at all. I'm saying it because I feel like for a lot of young folks in the restaurant, they're wondering what the path is for them. And I look at you two and I feel like you've been able to carve out a life for yourselves. Am I wrong?
Jody Williams:
No, no, you're right. I mean 99% of.. and Rita jump in here… 99% of the life we carved out was working and building restaurants and we're passionate about it, we're committed. We couldn't stop. But we also now like, okay. We need time, we need balance. And everybody's thinking the same things. So we're understanding what that is. And we want more adventure. We want to do other things too. So it never stops. I think the restaurants get more seasoned and we have people that are involved and generations that we all work together.
Rita Sodi:
Yeah, we are lucky. We have good people. The people that we've been spent so much time and we trust and everything. So now we are able to take a few days off. Like everybody, more or less, not all the time, but quite often, quite often.
Jody Williams:
Watch the clouds go by.
Rita Sodi:
Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
That's nice.
Jody Williams:
Not underrated.
Kerry Diamond:
Absolutely. But like I said, I don't think there are a lot of role models for younger people in the industry to look to and think that's a life I'd like to model my career on. I think you two provide that for everybody.
Rita Sodi:
Yeah, it's hard work, but it's hard work everywhere. You know, if you want to arrive, you have to put your soul in everything. So it's the same. You just have to love what you're doing. That's it.
Kerry Diamond:
You mentioned there are some other things you two would like to do. What are some of those things?
Jody Williams:
Being motivated by what do we need? What do we need in this neighborhood? What would we like to learn next? Is there a possibility that we do a forno and we can make breads, focaccia and more pastry? That would be great. We'd jump to do that. And so how can we make that? Would we like to explore more upstate and hang out more in another environment? That's great. Would that be great for all of us. To our team like hey, let's do something out in the countryside. So that's a possibility. Taking care of all the restaurants and making sure their priority too. So maybe, I don't know. I'm very cryptic. I didn't really know.
Kerry Diamond:
I was like for all I know, they could be working on documentaries, they could be working on an art gallery.
Jody Williams:
We have a beautiful home upstate and we are thinking of doing a restaurant up there and we have a building and project in mind, but that would be like two years. We're doing a lot of stuff.
Rita Sodi:
Yeah, we've taken our time, but we have a lot of dreams. So then it's not done yet. We feel like it's not done, but I don't know in which way we'd be and we will make things up again. So I don't know, maybe it's not a restaurant. Maybe something similar to a restaurant. I don't know. We don't know yet. But for sure there is something there that would come.
Kerry Diamond:
You're open to where the world's going to take you.
Jody Williams:
Oh, yeah. Like I say, our planning, the way we plan. I remember in Reggio Emilia, the ivy was one foot high and there was a second story to this restaurant and I said, when the ivy grows to the second story, I'll move to Rome and three years later I move to Rome. So we make decisions like this all the time. And then like, okay, but when we decide we're all in and Rita is great that way. We do it. We do it.
Kerry Diamond:
And back to the present day, you've got plenty of projects right now, including this beautiful cookbook and I'm so excited for everybody to get to discover this book. And if you haven't been to any of these restaurants, if you come to New York or even if you live in New York and you haven't explored them yet, you’ve got to go check them out. They're all New York treasures. So thank you both.
Jody Williams:
Thank you. Thank you so much.
Rita Sodi:
Thank you for having us, thank you.
Kerry Diamond:
Thank you. It's always fun to talk to you too.
Jody Williams:
We appreciate it.
Kerry Diamond:
That's it for today's show. Thank you so much to Jody Williams and Rita Sodi for joining me today. I could really use a plate of pasta about right now. You can try their food IRL at Via Carota in Greenwich Village and immerse yourself in the world of Via Carota, their brand new cookbook. Buy a copy at your favorite bookstore or pick up a personalized copy at our Cooks and Books festival. Taking place November 5th and 6th at the Ace Hotel Brooklyn, Rita and Jody will be in conversation with Ruth Reichl. Like I told you earlier, those tickets will sell out fast, so don't delay. Learn more at cherrybombe.com. Radio Cherry Bombe is a production of Cherry Bomb Magazine. Our theme song is by the band Tra La La. Big thank you's to Joseph Hazan, studio engineer for Newsstand Studios at Rockefeller Center. Our friends at City Vox Recording Studio, and our assistant producer, Jenna Sadhu. And thanks to you for listening. You're are the Bombe.