Tony’s News: Zeppole and how playfulness and nostalgia can change the nature of a dish
One of the things that I love the most about Tony’s and his cooking is his playfulness and the nostalgia of his mise en place.
I simply couldn’t resist posting this photo of chocolate-dipped mini zeppole stuffed with Italian-style custard. The dish, served as the coda to one of the best meals I’ve ever had at Tony’s (including a risotto with porcini mushrooms topped with shaved Umbrian black truffles), was delicious enough on its own. But the presentation — red checkered wax paper and an old-fashioned paper cradle — cinematically transported me and my dining companion (whose name I cannot reveal) to another time in Italian-American cooking when the previous generation sat at red-table-clothed tables adorned with straw-flasked bottles of Chianti.
And beyond the nostalgia that it inspired, the presentation also paid homage to Tony’s roots as a pioneer of Italian cuisine in the U.S., gently poking fun at its early innocence and naïveté set against the extraordinary elegance of Tony’s main dining room and the dishes that had preceded.
At the end of such a sumptuous and sophisticated meal, the classic zeppole (a nod to Tony’s Sicilian roots) served as a poetic bookend, reminding us gently of where it all started…
