The kitchen staff at the one-year-old 715 Restaurant in Lawrence, the subject of this week's Cafe review (and this Fat City video), will be slightly smaller for the rest of the month: Executive chef and co-owner Michael Beard and sous chef Zach Thompson leave tomorrow for Italy.
It will be a sort of homecoming for Beard, who attended the Apicius culinary school in Florence and later did a stint working with a professional butcher in Donnini, a city outside of Florence.
Beard didn't learn the art of butchery in culinary school, but did later when he returned to Italy for a visit two years ago. On that visit, a friend introduced him to a butcher in Donnini.
"I was always intrigued by butchery," Beard says. "European butchery is different from how it's done in the United States. Here we tend to cut up beef into large primals -- the familiar cuts like rib-eye and shoulder. In Europe, butchers are skilled in a good deal more dissecting to create a large number of meat cuts."
Beard realized in Europe that chefs rarely cut their own meat, relying on a skilled butcher: "Every small town has its own butcher and baker," Beard says. "It's the butchers that create the charcuterie, not the chefs."
After he returns to Donnini this week for a 10-day visit, Beard plans to focus on learning new skills in butchering beef: "I have pork pretty much down," he says, "so I want to concentrate on the different cuts of beef."
Sous chef Thompson plans on staying in Italy for a month.
"He's been with us from the beginning," Beard says, "and he's never been to Italy before. So the trip is a bonus for him -- and for the restaurant."
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