Blamey, a chef who has held quite a few high-profile positions.
Picture: Daniel Krieger
Victoria Blamey is again on Bond Road. The chef, late of Blanca, has taken on the job of culinary director of Donna Lennard’s household of Il Buco eating places. Together with the unique namesake, this contains Il Buco Alimentari (a block north on Nice Jones), and Il Buco al Mare in Amagansett. (Lennard additionally runs a home-goods retailer, Il Buco Vita, the place you should buy the chicest pig-shaped casserole dishes anybody has ever seen.)
The unique Il Buco has been open for 31 years, and each of the Manhattan eating places stay well-liked locations that don’t should be messed with a lot, however the firm retains increasing: “Out East, we’re in our fifth summer season at al Mare, and final yr we took over a commissary kitchen and have a wholesale bakery,” Lennard says. “We’re seeking to broaden into doing one thing CPG with farmers, doing extra intensive occasions off-premise and on-premise.” She provides, “We discovered that we actually wanted extra assist and steerage.”
Il Buco is a change of tempo from Blanca, the place Blamey served a high-caliber tasting menu to only 25 folks an evening. (Final yr, that restaurant was named the second-best restaurant within the metropolis by former New York Instances critic Pete Wells; it closed within the spring.) Earlier than Blanca, Blamey opened the short-lived Mena in Tribeca and ran the kitchens at Gotham Bar & Grill and Chumley’s. It is a homecoming of types for Blamey, who labored at Il Buco a few decade in the past. And whereas the meals is rustic and easy, the Il Bucoverse has been house to a few of the metropolis’s high cooks — Justin Smillie, Ignacio Mattos, and Jody Williams, to call three — through the years.
For now, Il Buco’s kitchen will nonetheless be run by Rob Martinez, its chef of a decade, and Alimentari is headed by Amelia Kirk. Blamey’s job can be extra oversight, and creating deeper relationships with farmers greater than the cooks, who’re busy operating the kitchens, can. “I’m not going to be within the kitchen day-to-day. One of many issues I’ll be doing out east is engaged on the off-site occasions, creating the menus for that,” Blamey says. “I believe al Mare wants possibly somewhat little bit of seasonality, however only a contact, and I believe Alimentari, it’s, you already know, redesigning the menu and simply giving it extra like a recent look.”
Eat just like the consultants.
Join the Grub Road publication.
Vox Media, LLC Phrases and Privateness Discover
See All