INTRODUCTION
OUR FOOD
Ori: I can’t really explain it, but Italian food has always had a hold on me. I’m not Italian, but I’ve long identified with the festive, loud, communal style of eating that’s particular to the Italian table. And since my earliest days as a chef, I’ve somehow had an instinctual understanding of how to work with Italian flavors. They just feel familiar. Not that I haven’t wanted to try other things. During the ten years I spent working in Italian restaurants, I had many opportunities to cook with acclaimed chefs from France and Japan. But somehow, in every case, Italian food drew me back in and it has never let me go.
Bestia’s food has its roots in the flavors of Italy. Most of our dishes draw inspiration from some traditional recipe, and we share the very Italian approach of showcasing the best of what’s local, fresh, and seasonal. From there, though, the Italian influence stops. Instead, we look beyond any formal culinary style—to our own life experiences, our travels, and daily influences—to create dishes that are wholly original and wholly us.
For example, the Pineapple Mostarda alongside our Grilled Pork Porterhouse is a salute to the
al pastor trucks cruising LA after midnight. Our Charred Shishito Peppers with Squid Ink Aioli derives its flavor profile from Spain, one of our favorite places to travel. If you pick up the aroma of fig leaves in our lamb ragu, look to the giant fig tree shading Bestia’s front patio to know why. And the base of creamy yogurt beneath our lamb belly confit reminds me a little of the kebabs I grew up eating in Israel. More than any geographic region or culinary canon, the foods of Bestia are a reflection of our combined life experiences and, more important, our desire to extract the most flavor we can from the highest-quality ingredients.
Everything we serve at Bestia is designed to achieve maximum “craveability.” I want you to take one bite of a dish and then feel compelled to have another one. And then another one. I think, “How can I make you to want to taste this again and again and again, no matter how full you are?” It’s the same kind of trick that MSG pulls on your brain, but I achieve it organically, through building layer upon layer of natural umami. That’s the reason behind our emphasis on dehydrated ingredients, reduced sauces, cured meats, and aged cheeses. Processes like smoking, dehydrating, aging, and fermenting all bring out an ingredient’s inherent savoriness. Put one or two—or even five—elements like that into a dish and you can create something that’s completely addictive.
Genevieve: Our pastry program has the same goal. It’s why I love to add savory ingredients like saffron and bay leaves and herbs and cheeses to my desserts. A generous use of salt and bitter elements further help to round out the flavor profile, creating something that’s balanced, delicious, and so much more than “just sweet.”
But as much as we’re about enhancing flavors, we don’t want to amplify every ingredient or dish; that can become too much. Instead, we pick one or two key elements to highlight—just enough to intrigue the palate but not exhaust it. In the end, it’s all about extracting the very best flavor from the very best ingredients. If you want something that’s chocolatey, it should be the creamiest chocolatey flavor. Strawberry ice cream should taste like real strawberries.
Ori: People always ask us, “What kind of food is Bestia?” But it’s so much more about our philosophy and our approach to flavor than any particular style of cooking. We think our recipes included here reflect that.
Copyright © 2018 by Ori Menashe and Genevieve Gergis with Lesley Suter. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
