Stanley Tucci and Nikita Richardson Transcript
Kerry Diamond:
Hi, everyone. You are listening to Radio Cherry Bombe. I'm your host, Kerry Diamond, coming to you from Rockefeller Center in the heart of New York City. Each week, we talk to the coolest culinary personalities around, the folks shaping, and shaking up the food scene.
Joining me in the studio today is New York Times Food and Cooking Editor, Nikita Richardson. I haven't seen Nikita in person since before the pandemic. So, I am excited to catch up with her. We'll talk about her gig at the Times, as well as her newsletter, Where To Eat: New York City. Nikita is also very good at work-life balance. So, we will talk about that too.
Then, later in the show, back by popular demand is honorary Bombesquad member, Stanley Tucci. He's the author of the memoir Taste: My Life and Food. And he's the host of Stanley Tucci searching for Italy. If you haven't watched that yet, I highly recommend, it's in its second season. Stanley chats with us from London about his summer plans, his summer reading list, and his fun partnership with San Pellegrino.
He and San Pellegrino are giving one lucky person, $10,000 and a summer supply of San Pellegrino to help them summer like an Italian. The link to enter is in our show notes and the sweepstakes ends June 27th, so don't delay. Thank you to Costa Brazil for supporting this episode of Radio Cherry Bombe founded by the designer Francisco Costa.
Costa Brazil is skincare and aroma for the body, the spirit and the earth. Costa Brazil just opened a popup shop in Soho in New York City at 146 Green Street. You can visit and explore the world of Costa Brazil now through Sunday, June 26th. Check out the Costa Brazil Instagram for a link to the schedule of events from special spa appointments to talks with Francisco, and even a pride celebration. We'll also have that link in our show notes.
Can't make it to the popup? Visit the Costa Brazil website at livecostabrazil.com for a virtual visit. Now, let's check in with Nikita.
Nikita Richardson, welcome to Radio Cherry Bombe.
Nikita Richardson:
Hi, happy to be here.
Kerry Diamond:
It's good to see you. It has been a while.
Nikita Richardson:
Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
We haven't had a meal in a while. And now, all you do is eat out. So, yeah, which we are going to talk about. Let's jump right in. I would love to know what your job is at the New York Times.
Nikita Richardson:
So, I joined in December 2020 as a senior staff editor.
Kerry Diamond:
Of the food section.
Nikita Richardson:
Of the food section, yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
Got it.
Nikita Richardson:
So, after being a writer for, I don't know, two and a half years at Grub Street or a little over two years, I wanted to get back to editing because I always like that much better. I like being a decision maker. And so, I went to the Times to do editing. And of course, ended up still writing because you can't escape it.
Kerry Diamond:
Do you get to make more decisions though?
Nikita Richardson:
Yes.
Kerry Diamond:
Good.
Nikita Richardson:
100%.
Kerry Diamond:
I'm happy to hear that.
Nikita Richardson:
Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
So, one of the big things you're doing at the Times is a newsletter called Where to Eat New York City.
Nikita Richardson:
Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
I would love to know how did the newsletter come about?
Nikita Richardson:
So, the idea came to me really last summer in July. I was talking with my coworkers. I was like, "We should have a restaurant's newsletter," because the times has three cooking newsletters, one that Sam Sifton writes, one that Emily Weinstein writes, and one that Tejal Rao writes about vegetarian cooking. And I was like, "We have all these cooking newsletters and nothing around restaurant coverage and 2020 and 2021 were very..." I mean, even now still rough time for restaurants. But you could see the seedlings starting to sprout again, in terms of new restaurants, opening.
And also, I think over the last two years, there's this idea of like, what happened? What opened? What's new? And/or like what closed? So, and I think also a lot of restaurant coverage started disappearing over the course of the pandemic because people weren't really going out as much. And then, on top of that, what restaurant coverage there is, there's a lot of lists. There's a lot of, here's 20 places to go, try this. And it can be frankly overwhelming.
And so, the idea was to have something that was small and digestible, that if you just get this in your inbox once a week, then you'll know more than the average person, but still not be overwhelmed by the amount of information being thrown at you.
Kerry Diamond:
It is so easy to be overwhelmed.
Nikita Richardson:
Oh, there's so many new things. And then, also not being too attached to what's new though, at the same time. There's places that need to be rediscovered. I felt like this was an opportunity to do that. So, it's June and July 2021 when you're moving around within as large of an institution as the time, it's going to take a while, which I was thankful for because I was like, this is an opportunity for me to start getting ahead of it, and going out to restaurants before the newsletter starts. We launched it at the end of March of this year.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, that was a long window.
Nikita Richardson:
We should do it. But I was like, I don't want to write it. I was like, I'll edit it, but I don't want to write it. And then, I went to...
Kerry Diamond:
It was your baby. You didn't want to write it?
Nikita Richardson:
No, I just wanted to edit it. I find writing on demand, very stressful. Even after having done it for multiple years. I don't want to get back into that because working at someplace like New York Magazine and at Grub Street, the metabolism is so much faster. And I was like, "I don't want to go back into that." I don't want to go back into the stress of doing that.
Adam Platt, who's a critic at New York Magazine, the restaurant critic. He invited me to his NYU class. He has one that he runs in the fall about food writing. And every year, he asks me to come talk to his students.
Kerry Diamond:
I didn't know, Platt has a food writing class.
Nikita Richardson:
And I think his students are obsessed with him. I mean, he's...
Kerry Diamond:
I can imagine.
Nikita Richardson:
He's like such a...
Kerry Diamond:
He's like a character out of a movie.
Nikita Richardson:
He really is.
Kerry Diamond:
Yeah.
Nikita Richardson:
He always has them read this article that you and I literally, talked about four years ago, about where all the black restaurant critics. I was talking to the students about that. And then, afterwards I was like, I always have to reread it before because I wrote that in 2018. When I wrote that article, there were no black people covering restaurants at a high-level at any publication as far as I'm pretty sure. Yeah, I don't think anyone came after me and was like, "Wait, what about me?" So, yeah, that was true. That hasn't really changed since.
One, the critic rules are shrinking and you have to be the change you want to see in the world. And I was like, "Okay, I'll write it." And it turned out to be way easier than I thought, not easy, easy, but it's always going to be difficult in certain ways, trying to satisfy a lot of people.
But it also came more easily to me than I thought, because it's not about reporting. It's not about tracking down leads. It's more about going out to eat, looking for connections between the restaurants and all these things. And then, also just 600 words and I can like 600 words in my sleep.
Kerry Diamond:
And it's fun, you get to be a taste maker and a bit of a curator, and...
Nikita Richardson:
Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
... turn the readers of the New York Times onto your favorite places.
Nikita Richardson:
Yeah. At the same time, I'm like, I don't call this a critic's role at all. I am not in the business of criticism. I'm not, if a place is bad, I'm just not going to write about it. You know what I mean? And we have two critics at the Times already. I think a music review site can say, this album is good or it's not, but people are going to like, what they're going to like. The best you can do is direct people towards what you think is just better and good, still know that people are going to go where they want to go.
Kerry Diamond:
So, that period between July and January, when things really started going, did you hit the ground running? Did you start eating in a lot of different places?
Nikita Richardson:
I started eating in a lot of places in January more so, because that's when for the first few months we're just trying to make the case internally for it, and to their credit, Sam Sifton, who is, used to be that food editor, but is now an Assistant Managing Editor for the Culture Desk. And Emily Weinstein, who's the new Food Editor. They sold it for me.
And then, my editor Mark Josephson, who, is an unsung hero of our team. He and I started cobbling together our formatting, like what would it look like? What would we be doing? And how often would it run? All those different things. And then, January, I started going out for like two and a half months being very, very like three or four places a week. Then, this latest wave has slowed me down again because I just don't want to get COVID for a third time. I got it in December.
Kerry Diamond:
You had it twice.
Nikita Richardson:
And I got it in March 2020.
Kerry Diamond:
Wow.
Nikita Richardson:
And I also just felt this contraction, I think around everyone else. I don't like to go to dine out alone. I like to go with friends and especially because that enables me to eat more food. I think, for me, it was a matter of making sure other people want to go and what corners need to be covered, going out to Junction Boulevard and twice that's out in Queens.
And I did an article about how that's a really good place to go get very good Latin American food before a baseball game. And then, also just like general malaise around the continued that this has gone on for so long. This pandemic is still dragging on, that has slowed me down a lot.
Kerry Diamond:
Before we get into some specifics, how can folks get the newsletter?
Nikita Richardson:
You have to subscribe to New York Times Cooking, but the newsletters are free. The Times has been pushing more into subscriber only newsletters. When you're looking at the landscape of Substack, and everyone starting their own. It's an added-on bonus.
And also, I, in a way, appreciate that because means my following is smaller, but I also feel like it's community building. It gives me a chance to build this community with this smaller group of people than a newsletter that's going to have millions of subscribers, because it's free. As somebody said, when we announced it, it makes the subscription more worth it, I would hope. And obviously, that subscription gets you access to way more than just that newsletter.
This is also a place where a large goal of this was to also put all of our restaurant coverage in one place. So, every week, at the end of the newsletter, I spotlight that week's review from Pete Wells, Florence Fabricant's Off column, which is all about new restaurant openings and closings. And it's an invaluable resource to me as is. And I will say, she and Pete have been nothing but helpful to me.
And then, also whatever stories we've had come out in the last week about restaurants, and that's not even just restaurants here. It can be a restaurant this week, Tejal Rao did. She's our Californian critic. She did a whole critic's notebook about frozen treats in LA. So...
Kerry Diamond:
Oh.
Nikita Richardson:
One knowing that my... I've gotten emails from subscribers in Canada, in North Carolina, on the West Coast. So, I know that not all the subscribers to this newsletter are even living in New York, which is insane. But then, on top of that, New Yorkers travel. So, and they're going to travel to LA. They're going to travel to these other places. So, I think it's a good policy to share other restaurant coverage we have in the Times because New York is our travelers by the very nature.
Kerry Diamond:
I am a longtime subscriber and lifetime reader, and I just subscribed. And I'm very excited to read the newsletter to help me know where I need to go. Tell us about a few places you've spotlighted that you love and why?
Nikita Richardson:
I think one of my favorite newsletters I've written so far was about vegan eating in New York. When I first started at really covering New York City restaurants at Grub Street, it's not that there weren't many, but it was more about the culture around vegan dining, which is that people who aren't vegan or weren't vegan, weren't really interested in going out to eat in vegan restaurants. Vegan dining has come so, so far. And a really big contribution to that is my best friend, Sarah, became vegan and was living in the New York City area.
And so, whenever we go out to dine, we just ended up going to vegan places just because I knew she could eat things there and I needed somebody who was going to be interested in it. And in that newsletter, I got to spotlight so many places that have really opened in the last couple of years where it really is not just good vegan dining. It's good dining period.
So, like Shenarri Freeman's Cadence and Fat Choy, which is on the lower east side, and it's Chinese, and vegan, and raw's plant-based, which is Ethiopian in Crown Heights. And then, also a lot of restaurants have started putting vegan options on their menus on Musket Room. And I think NoHo, they have...
Kerry Diamond:
I love Musket Room.
Nikita Richardson:
Yeah, they have two menus. And one menu is for omnivores and the other is vegan. This is like a very mainstream restaurant. So, vegan dining is just...
Kerry Diamond:
Shout out to chef Mary, and Pastry Chef Camari down there. We love them.
Nikita Richardson:
And it's just showing that vegan dining isn't underground, isn't alternative anymore. Never really should have been. It's a very innovative form of dining. And I loved highlighting that. I loved highlighting that. And the responses we got where people were like, "Wow, the times covering vegan food. This is amazing." It really demonstrates how widely ignored this has been. If people feel like they haven't been seen by the New York Times on this scale.
Kerry Diamond:
You know where I went the other day, that I believe is mostly vegan Superiority Burger.
Nikita Richardson:
Yeah, of course.
Kerry Diamond:
So, they are opening a bigger location. They have this popup right now called Salad Days.
Nikita Richardson:
Salad Days, yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, my gosh, so good. It's down in the East Village I think on ninth.
Nikita Richardson:
Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
And it's only open certain days, so definitely check out the Instagram before you go. But if you're in the city and you love vegan. See, I was just about to say, if you love vegan eating. If you just love food...
Nikita Richardson:
Eating, exactly.
Kerry Diamond:
... you can go because I had some of the best sorbet and gelato I have ever had. One of the things you do in the newsletter is answer people's questions...
Nikita Richardson:
Yes.
Kerry Diamond:
... about very specific needs they have in terms of the dining scene. I'm so curious, are there any trends you've noticed from those emails that you get or the questions that you get or are a lot of the questions, the same? What are people asking you?
Nikita Richardson:
When the newsletter first came out, we have an email. You can always email us at where to eat at nytimes.com. And the first thing that happened was our inbox was flooded. It could have been 10, 15 emails about where to eat in the Theater District.
A lot of people were coming back to the city for the first time in years. And during the pandemic, a lot of restaurants around the Theater District either closed permanently or were still closed. And I think, people just didn't know what to do. And so, the very first reader questions, email that I did, which we do it once a month. It was just all theater district edition. It wasn't even answering specific questions. It was just like, here's what's in the neighborhood.
And I divided it up according to where you can go, if you want to sit down, where you can go, if you help only have a few minutes to go grab some food. And in the subsequent reader question emails, I'm answering specific questions. But I'm also keeping, making sure there are questions that are a lot of people will have because only one person asked it. But it's a question that maybe 20,000 people have.
So, I got a lot of emails about where should we go for a postgraduation dinner or lunch? And this woman who's like, "My daughter's graduating. She's allergic to two kinds of nuts. She's gluten-free. And we are not adventurous eaters." And...
Kerry Diamond:
Yikes.
Nikita Richardson:
... this is what happens. And I did all this research and ended up recommending bar Preemie, which involved me texting with their concierge to figure out like, do you have outdoor dining for eight? Can you confirm that you have gluten-free POS options? Can you confirm that only two of these menu items have nuts in them? I really did call and ask about this because I want to make sure that I'm giving you good guidance.
Kerry Diamond:
This is the New York Times high standard.
Nikita Richardson:
Yeah. And I think it's also like, I can't answer everything. And to their credit, people will be like, "I understand you're probably busy, and it's and the likelihood of you personally answering my email is very, very low." If I know the answer right off the top of my head, I will email somebody back and be like...
This woman was like, "My husband's German and we're coming to New York and he loves rabbit. Where should we go get rabbit?" And I was like, "Le Coucou, they literally have a dish called, Tout le lapin." I knew that one right off the top of my head. And she was like, "I can't believe you got back to me." I was like, "You gave me a question I could easily answer."
Kerry Diamond:
You know this, but a lot of people feel very proprietary about the New York Times. And I'm sure they tell you their opinion about everything you do, what are some of those emails that you're getting?
Nikita Richardson:
I'm going to caveat this, that of the many subscribers I have, the people who are going to email to complaint are a tiny percentage. The complaints I am mostly getting, or one people on the Upper East Side and Upper West Side feel very invisible, which is, ask mean like, "I guess, there's nothing good to eat on the Upper East Side or Upper West Side." And I, and I have to be like, "My sister lives up there. So, I know somebody who's personally living through this."
It's hard to explain that a lot of restaurants open downtown, it's just say in one year, maybe a handful of new restaurants are going to open on the Upper East Side and Upper West Side together.
Kerry Diamond:
You can't write historic wrongs.
Nikita Richardson:
Exactly.
Kerry Diamond:
There just have not been a lot of restaurants.
Nikita Richardson:
I can't up. And also, I really think, I have to really be conscientious that there are other parts of New York that are less covered. The Bronx is barely covered. Staten Island barely covered. Queens has more coverage, but it's still huge. It's a gigantic borough. And up until recently, how many critics were actively reviewing any of those boroughs?
Kerry Diamond:
Yeah.
Nikita Richardson:
I will get the occasional email from somebody on Staten Island being like, "What about Staten Island?" I have to be realistic about who my subscribers are as well.
Kerry Diamond:
I love that the email. Definitely, encourages that sense of discovery in the city. Tell us a favorite restaurant you discovered. Well, you personally discovered. Meaning, you had never been there before.
Nikita Richardson:
Yeah. One of the things I was really, really happy about was when I was doing the Theater District questions. There's this place called Warcop that had just opened. And it's like an Indonesian restaurant. They serve food like really quickly. And they do these Indonesian noodles. It's almost like a ramen, but slightly different. And you can put popcorn chicken on it and all these different things.
And I loved it because it was, one, it's right in the Theater District, and really just opened a few weeks ago. I also just think that I definitely give off this air of being more enthusiastic than the average person about eating. I order so much food because I go with people and I really am trying to go to a place once. Right now, it's really important that I am trying to go to new places as often as I can.
And then, I'll order 90% of the menu. And then, the waiter will be like, "This is too much food." Honestly, at this point it offends me because one, you don't know my appetite. I actually, can eat a lot of food. If I'm going out to a restaurant, I usually don't even eat that much for the whole day just because I know I'm about to go hangout at dinner. And then, two, I always think like, "Is my money not good?"
Kerry Diamond:
I bet these servers and restaurant employees see so much food waste.
Nikita Richardson:
Most of the time, we have nothing leftover or I take home the leftovers, and eat them the next day.
Kerry Diamond:
I'm a big leftover person.
Nikita Richardson:
I love leftovers.
Kerry Diamond:
But I can't stand all the packaging. So, I was thinking about doing an experiment where I bring my own foil and Tupperware to different restaurants and see what the reaction is, from the diners around me and from the servers. I wonder like, could I go into 11 Madison Park with my Tupperware and just scrape my plate into the Tupperware? Would Daniel hum run out from the kitchen that I was ruining the vibe?"
Nikita Richardson:
Oh, no. I think he would just take it on the chin. You could eat fine dining in casual settings. It's rare, rare, rare, rare that I go to a restaurant where I'm like, "Oh, I need to look nice to be here." Most places I go, you get this amazingly trained chef and they do not care if you show up in jeans, which is why it was awesome that Priya Krishna recently wrote a whole story about dress codes coming back. But that's still really, not what I'm experiencing. And I just think that the restaurant environment has become so relaxed that you could get away with a Tupperware. I really think you could.
Kerry Diamond:
Okay. I'm going to let you know what happens when I break out my role of Reynolds Wrap for my tote bag. Okay. Let's talk popups because we've had a lot of folks on the show who are doing popups now. I think it's changed the dining scene. Some of the most exciting food you can get right now is from a popup.
Nikita Richardson:
I think a lot of chefs who'd been working in restaurants pre-pandemic really, had a come to Jesus' moment about whether they want to keep working for people. And not even just that, but whether they want to even run a restaurant. Because restaurants, yeah, it's great to have a brick-and-mortar place where you're set up. But at the same time, so many costs come with that. And it's really hard to sustain that. And running things on your own can be like so much more efficient. And obviously, money saving.
Yeah, at one point, Daniel Skurnick who was, I don't know if he still is the pastry chef at Le Coucou was quite literally, selling French patisserie out of his Crown Heights apartment. I would drive up and get a tart to 10, like that is insane. This man is a very highly trained chef at one of the best restaurants, one of the most classy and nice restaurants in the city. And he was doing a popup.
Kerry Diamond:
That's what's so exciting. Like you can go, I mean, I know it's not a popup, but like Fanny Gerson, a Fan-Fan Doughnuts, when she does all those collabs, which are popups in a sense. It's like a fine dining donut. She has a fine dining background. And for however many dollars, you can get this really special treat.
Nikita Richardson:
There was the Hostock Vietnamese. And hopefully, I said that correctly, popup, which was very, very big for a while. They're now going on an extended vacation, which they're so lucky. I'm really sad to have missed the popup. Like you said, Salad Days is currently basically, a popup until Superiority Burger 2.0 opens. I am obsessed with Dacha, which is the...
Kerry Diamond:
Right. We did their kick-starter, yeah.
Nikita Richardson:
Latvian and it's queer-owned and they are amazing. They'll do Palmini. And one of them is a pastry chef. So, they were actually, at first right down the block from where I currently live. And I went there and got a delicious slice of honey cake. Oh, no, the hours are always crazy.
Kerry Diamond:
That's the thing about the popups, yeah...
Nikita Richardson:
But it's also like...
Kerry Diamond:
... link and sometimes, you miss them.
Nikita Richardson:
Yeah. It's always that thing of like, it allows it more rest and I'm fine with that. And I think with the Dacha, people have said like, they don't really have an interest in opening a restaurant. They don't want to do that. And that's like perfectly fine. I think if anything has come out of the pandemic, it's like really learning to guard your energy into take time to rest. Because I know that pre-pandemic, I was running a million miles of an hour and just never slowing down. Almost never getting home until 9:00 at night, every day of the week.
And then, life was brought to a halting stop. And I had to sit down and be like, "Why are you doing so much? Who's this for? You need to stop." And that's how we're getting all these incredible popups. People saying, "I still want to cook, but I do not want to cook at the rate I was cooking before."
Kerry Diamond:
A few other popups of note, I went to a great popup that Chef Lay Alston did in Williamsburg. She specializes in Caribbean flavored seafood and her popup was fantastic. And we had Chef Lana Lagomarsini and Chef Nana Wilmont. And they did a fantastic popup back in February based on lots of travels that they had done.
And what I really love about it is, the chefs are right there. They're talking to you. They're walking you through each dish. And you really, get to participate in the storytelling that you don't in a regular restaurant.
Nikita Richardson:
I have to shout out Big Chune up and Chune as in C-H-U-N-E, which is like a Jamaican Caribbean popup. And my mom is Jamaican. I grew up eating a lot of Jamaican food. So, I was thoroughly impressed. And he's been doing like popups around the city. Some of them through, what's the wine bar? It used to be called Mettā. It's no longer called Mettā, it's in Fort Greene. Just looking up Big Chune up. I love them. I think the food is fantastic, yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
And I'll give one more shout out to our friend Pooja Bavishi, who's also been on the show. She has Malai Ice Cream parlor in, I think it's basically, Caroll Gardens where I live. And she's doing a whole series of guest ice cream chefs all summer long, and Dorie Greenspan folks like that.
You mentioned guarding your time and taking care of yourself. And you are someone who I have always admired because you seem, I thought you did. Now, you're telling us you didn't have great work life balance. But I always looked at you as someone who did, because you had a lot of hobbies, you had your ceramics and you'd be like, "Oh, I can't do something that night. I have my ceramics class." You are a trained violinist. And you play with the, or you played with...
Nikita Richardson:
Brooklyn Conservatory Community Orchestra. I mean, honestly, I think I did have good work life balance. I was just also doing a million hobbies and there's like a running joke that you'll start a hobby. And you're like, "I'm doing it for pleasure." And then, you're like, "How can I monetize this?"
So, especially like in ceramics, you make all this stuff. You make so much stuff. And then, you have all this pottery in your house. And you're like, "The only solution is to sell it." Right now, I have so much pottery in the trunk of my car. Did I start weaving during the pandemic? I absolutely, did because it was less messy. And I started out on a very small lap loom, and then, earlier. And then, last year I got a larger loom. I get over it once winter's over, but I've done two winters in a row, where I just turn on a show and I just weave for hours.
Kerry Diamond:
What have you woven?
Nikita Richardson:
I've woven like 18 to 20. They're like the size of a very large coffee table book.
Kerry Diamond:
Are they art pieces?
Nikita Richardson:
Kind...
Kerry Diamond:
Little rugs?
Nikita Richardson:
There's tapestries.
Kerry Diamond:
Tapestries, got it.
Nikita Richardson:
So, you can hang them up. I had to go to Home Depot and get dowels, and then hand cut the dowels. And it was the whole thing. Really the lesson there is like, and one that I'm obsessed with is, one, I think there's nothing better than learning something new. When you feel like a student again, it just is so humbling. The first things I ever made it to the ceramicist and as a weaver were so bad.
And so, getting to see yourself become better at something. I've been a journalist for almost a decade now, and you get really good at something. And then, you forget what it was like when you were learning how to do it. And I think that's why it's great. At any time, you can just start something new and become a student at any time. And it's so refreshing. And really, I feel like it changes your brain chemistry.
And it doesn't matter what it is. Go learn to sew, learn to like weave, learn to play the instrument. Is it harder to learn something new when you get older? Sure. But it's worth it. That's why I'm like deep into dual lingo Spanish right now. My goal for 2022 is to complete dual lingo Spanish, and I'm halfway through, so.
Kerry Diamond:
I love it. You're always doing something.
Nikita Richardson:
Got it.
Kerry Diamond:
That's great advice, Nikita. Thank you for that. Speaking of advice, one last thing I want to ask you about is restaurant reservations. It is so hard to get into restaurants today, in the hot restaurants in New York.
Nikita Richardson:
Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
It's almost like you have to come up with some like gamification of resi.
Nikita Richardson:
Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
And I know people who have.
Nikita Richardson:
It's so funny because a few weeks ago, of course, this is in April and March. This is the question, everyone's like, "I can't get into such and such restaurant. I can't get into this place." I mean, I think going out to eat is one of the highest forms of entertainment right now. Yeah, you can go to bars and clubs and all that, but it's like, people only have so much energy. And a lot of the energy they have right now is to go out to eat, and then go right home.
I was preparing to write an entire newsletter about, here's how to get those hot reservations. And then, actually, the Wall Street Journal beat me to it. They wrote a very similar story to what I was looking at. And so, I sat down with myself and I was like, "Okay, it was fine." I was like, actually, I thought it was the best thing that could have happened. Because it made me sit down and think, "Okay, then what is my approach to this?" And I ended up writing a newsletter.
One of the newsletters was called Resisting the Hot Reservation Economy. It was basically, the idea that stop trying to get into all these hot... The analogy I made was that, if everyone tried to get into Harvard, Columbia, and Yale, then a lot of people wouldn't be going to college. I went to state school, I'm in the same place I am regardless. You know what I mean? I still ended up where I ended up.
And I think that it's the same thing with these restaurant reservations. These hot restaurants are going to be around in two or three years. Hopefully, let the hype cool down. And my advice was to go look at those restaurant lists of hot restaurant lists from like four years ago. A lot of those places, a lot of places that opened in 2019 had the air completely sucked out of the balloons there because of the pandemic. It just put a stop.
And I have been trying to go to those restaurants were big a few years ago or restaurants that have been around forever, people aren't fighting for reservations to go to them, you know what I mean?
Kerry Diamond:
That's great advice. Another thing people don't really think about is when a restaurant opens, it's not necessarily the best time...
Nikita Richardson:
It actually, is not.
Kerry Diamond:
... to go to the restaurant.
Nikita Richardson:
That's when they're really ironing out the kinks.
Kerry Diamond:
Yeah, because it's not like Broadway, it's not like they did the tryout in Boston...
Nikita Richardson:
Exactly.
Kerry Diamond:
... or some other city and worked all the kinks out. They are working out the kinks, the second they opened door.
Nikita Richardson:
And also, chefs and restaurant teams actually, are very nervous when anybody who they recognize from food or something like that comes in that early. It's out of deference to not only yourself, but deference to them to give them time to work out those kinks, especially because restaurants are still experiencing a massive labor shortage. It's very hard to find the level of talent that existed pre-pandemic.
A lot of chef programs actually close in the middle section, not like your CIAs. But a lot of ones in the middle closed during the pandemic. The New England school, I think of cuisine. A lot of these places close, and there is a talent shortage. So, it's harder right now to even be at the level of quality that people used to be at. And so, giving them that space is really important.
To go to that place that's been open for like 10 years, they're still doing pretty well. And I think it's also a chance to really explore another version of eating in New York, places that aren't being written about all the time.
Kerry Diamond:
And going to a place right after a review is probably, not a great time either because...
Nikita Richardson:
Oh, my God, yes.
Kerry Diamond:
... that's so overwhelming for a restaurant, especially if it's a Rave.
Nikita Richardson:
Yeah, exactly, exactly. And I mean, whenever I've people visit me, that is what drives me to go try something new and do something different. One of my coworkers, Tanya, she just moved up here from DC. She and I were hired at the exact same time in the same roles. And she was like, "Let's go to the Grand Bazaar on the Upper West Side." Without her, I would've never gone to the Grand Bazaar on the Upper West Side. It's a huge antiques market. It was awesome. And I was like, "I've lived here for a decade almost."
Kerry Diamond:
All right. Nikita, you are awesome. It was so much fun talking to you and what a cool thing you're doing. I mean, I think you have one of the most fun jobs in New York City. So...
Nikita Richardson:
Thank you so much.
Kerry Diamond:
... hats off to you.
Nikita Richardson:
Thanks for having me.
Kerry Diamond:
Thank you so much to Nikita for stopping by. If you're a New York Times subscriber, be sure to sign up for Nikita's newsletter, Where to Eat New York City. The link is in our show notes, which you can find on our website, or on our show page of whatever podcast platform you're using. Now, let's check in with Stanley Tucci.
Stanley Tucci:
Hi. How are you?
Kerry Diamond:
Good. Long time no see.
Stanley Tucci:
Yeah, how are you doing? All right?
Kerry Diamond:
Pretty good. Pretty good. Yeah, it's fully summer in New York City. So, I was curious what your summer vacations were like as a child. I know your dad was a school teacher, so they must have been different for you than kids whose dads worked full-time during the summer.
Stanley Tucci:
Yeah, it was great. My dad, he taught summer school for, I think that was probably about a month or so, maybe six weeks or something like that. But it was not a full day. It was more like a half day from what I can remember. So, I would often go with him to summer school. I'd do whatever. I learned how to silk screen. I learned how to make jewelry, how to... I took photography classes, which I was terrible.
Kerry Diamond:
And we should clarify that when you say summer school, you don't mean school for the kids who were in danger of being left back. This was...
Stanley Tucci:
No, no, no. These were art classes.
Kerry Diamond:
Completely, different.
Stanley Tucci:
And yeah, these were art classes, and they weren't because you didn't pass art, they were because it was something to do. I did have to go to summer school when I got older because I failed math so often, that I did have to take a course...
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, no.
Stanley Tucci:
... one summer. Those were great summers. You keep going and teach and then, you come back. And we were mostly, at home. We really didn't travel very much. I remember one summer; we went to Cape Cod when we were young. But other than that, we stayed home and it was really nice because you hangout with your friends, you ran around in the woods. There were woods all around us. We had sleepovers and all that stuff. And it was great.
Stanley Tucci:
And we'd get together with family or for holidays. And but, also on the weekends and it was really quite, quite fun. And I think, the meals my parents used to make in the summer were just barbecues and all that great stuff, but always with Italian food.
Kerry Diamond:
Did your parents make you go find a summer job? I remember that was my reality most summers.
Stanley Tucci:
Oh, yeah. You'd mow somebody's lawn. As I got older, yes, I did landscaping and I worked for a landscaper for two summers. I built a tennis court one summer with a friend. Our neighbor was building in tennis court and he hired us $2 an hour in the sweltering, the sweltering summer. And he built a clay court. Have you ever shoveled clay?
Kerry Diamond:
No.
Stanley Tucci:
Like shoveling clay, and it was horrible, but it was great, fun. You just did that, you did odd jobs for people, you did whatever. What did you do?
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, gosh, I did everything. I worked in bookstores. I had a paper route. I had an awful job and an early food truck that sold hot dogs. So, all those character building jobs.
Stanley Tucci:
Yes, yes.
Kerry Diamond:
All right. Let's talk about food. I'm curious what foods signal the start of summer for you?
Stanley Tucci:
Yeah, tomatoes, beans, flour beans, string beans, any kind of bean. Basil, parsley, all that sort of stuff just...
Kerry Diamond:
It's so fun to go to the farmer's market when summer really hits and it just, it's an explosion.
Stanley Tucci:
Yeah, and spring onions too, the big ones. When you get a big spring onion, that's the greatest, just grilled. Oh, my God, I love that.
Kerry Diamond:
So, tell me what does it mean to savor summer like an Italian? Since I'm not Italian, you can tell me.
Stanley Tucci:
It means to take your time. It means to just put your energy into doing something that you really want to do. And what most Italians want to do is cook and eat and drink wine and sparkling water.
Kerry Diamond:
I drink a lot of sparkling water.
Stanley Tucci:
Yeah, yeah, me too. And let's face it, it's good for you.
Kerry Diamond:
Tell me about the San Pellegrino summer. I love this idea that you can actually, win a prize.
Stanley Tucci:
I know.
Kerry Diamond:
And live like an Italian for a month. I might have to apply.
Stanley Tucci:
I know, I love that. When they talked to me about this and I was very excited about it because I thought, "So..."
Kerry Diamond:
That's great.
Stanley Tucci:
I thought it was great. And you can take the money if you win, right? Take the money, go to Italy if you want to go. Most people are very hard pressed to take a month off. That's hard, but you can go for a little bit, use the rest of the money for a staycation. And on the weekends, make a nice big... Make a few feasts. It just plants the idea too, that we need to slow down a little bit.
And I think that the pandemic taught us that in a way. It showed us that, "Oh, wait, I don't actually, have to commute in everyday. I can do all." I'm commuting in an hour or more to go sit at a desk at my computer and I could just stay home and sit at a desk at my computer. And then, you go in a few days a week. I mean, that's what people are starting to do now. And it's fantastic. So, my wife is doing it. If you can do it, if you have that kind of job that allows you to do it. It's great.
Kerry Diamond:
So, tell me about being an actor though. I would imagine your relationship with vacations is a little different from the rest of us because when you get apart, you could probably dictate when things start at this point. But as an actor, you can't always dictate when a project starts.
Stanley Tucci:
No, it's only in the last few years that I've been able to go, "Okay, I'm really not going to work at this point." So, I'm really bad at planning vacations because the old adage is, if you want to get a job as an actor, plan a vacation. That's right. It's true.
Kerry Diamond:
I never heard them.
Stanley Tucci:
I never planned them. I'm still in that mindset where I'm not allowed to plan anything. I didn't plan, I mean, my whole adult life. I've never planned maybe one or two vacations.
Kerry Diamond:
Wow. Okay.
Stanley Tucci:
I was in Italy filming for three weeks. I flew home for one day. I flew to Atlanta to do re-shoots or something. I flew home and went directly to Cornwall, which was a five-hour drive to go to a hotel with Felicity and the kids by the beach for two, three nights. But that's the only way you can do it. You're constantly doing this. So, it is quite nerve-wracking. But then, again, I do, I am lucky enough to have those extended periods of time off.
Kerry Diamond:
Let's talk about visiting Italy. If one of our listeners was going to visit Italy in the summer and wanted to go somewhere, not too touristy, what would you recommend?
Stanley Tucci:
I think, Le Marche is really beautiful, and the food is really good. And you also have the shore.
Kerry Diamond:
What part is that in?
Stanley Tucci:
It's to the East of Umbria. So, Umbria is landlocked. You have Tuscany, you have Umbria, and then you have Le Marche. And it's really, beautiful. I shouldn't tell people this. You go there and there aren't that many tourists there. But it really, really is a lovely area.
Kerry Diamond:
What would you eat there, Stanley?
Stanley Tucci:
I had a lot of different options, black truffle, great lamb, great fish on the coast and a variety of pastas. More vegetables than you sometimes see in some regions.
Kerry Diamond:
Are you a gelato or a sorbeto fan?
Stanley Tucci:
I really, I'm not very good with creamy things.
Kerry Diamond:
Okay.
Stanley Tucci:
So, really more sorbeto.
Kerry Diamond:
Do you have a favorite flavor?
Stanley Tucci:
I like lemon.
Kerry Diamond:
Okay. My goal this summer is to recreate that Zucchini dish, you love so much.
Stanley Tucci:
Do it. Make sure you have enough oil. This is the key thing. I mean, it'll still be good, but it's better if you have enough oil. They use sunflower oil, I think.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, okay. I don't have that. I'll have to get some.
Stanley Tucci:
Yeah. I think that's what they used. And you could use olive oil. It's a little heavier, I suppose you could do a mix of both really. But you just have to make sure that you have a substantial amount. Because otherwise, the Zucchini will soak up too much oil.
Kerry Diamond:
Okay.
Stanley Tucci:
Right? So, the less oil you have, the more oil the thing takes on. It's weird. So, then you're just going to slice them, drop them in. It takes a little while slowly, slowly, slowly. Have your basil chopped up. There's no garlic. There's no nothing. And you can put a drop of butter in, if you want, salt, parmesan. It really is nice, if you leave it overnight in the fridge and just let it sit. And then, reconstitute it the next day.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, okay.
Stanley Tucci:
It's quite nice.
Kerry Diamond:
So, I guess, the theme of this chat is all about, take your time, take your time summer and take your time cooking.
Stanley Tucci:
Take your time. Coming, coming from a very hyperactive person, yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
What's on your summer reading list?
Stanley Tucci:
Oh, I just finished reading Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus. It's absolutely, brilliant. She's a client of my wife's. And it is really, really a wonderful, funny, charming, touching, unusual book. And I'm now reading, A Visit from the Goon Squad...
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, love.
Stanley Tucci:
... with Jennifer Egan, which I'm loving. And then, I'm going to read the... The next one.
Kerry Diamond:
I'm reading Candy House right now. It's great.
Stanley Tucci:
Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
Yeah, it's fantastic. Yeah, it's smart to read Goon Squad first.
Stanley Tucci:
Right.
Kerry Diamond:
I read that years ago. I need to go back and reread it.
Stanley Tucci:
Yeah, and she's also my wife's client. So...
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, great.
Stanley Tucci:
... I'm famously promoting.
Kerry Diamond:
I'm just going to read your wife's clients' books all summer.
Stanley Tucci:
Please. I mean, she has an incredible list.
Kerry Diamond:
All right. Stanley, it's always a pleasure. Thank you so much for your time.
Stanley Tucci:
Thank you. Likewise, for me too. Nice to talk to you again.
Kerry Diamond:
That's it for today's show. Thank you so much to Stanley. It's always fun chatting with him. You should all enter the San Pellegrino Summer Sweepstakes. You could win $10,000 end a summer supply of Pellegrino. Who doesn't want that? Try your luck and DM me if you win. The link to the sweepstakes is in our show notes. If you enjoy today's show, check out our past interviews with Stanley.
Thank you to Costa Brazil for supporting today's show. Visit their popup in Soho, if you are in New York City or pay them a virtual visit at livecostabrazil.com. Radio Cherry Bombe is a production of Cherry Bombe Magazine. Signup for our newsletter cherrybombe.com. Our theme song is by the band Tralala. Thank you, Joseph Hazan, studio engineer for Newsstand Studios at Rockefeller Center. And thank you to our assistant producer, Jenna Sadhu. And thanks to you for listening. You are the Bombe.