Chef Marc Vetri Talks About Italian Food

A Conversation With Chef Marc Vetri

Just found this incredible video featuring an interview with Chef Marc Vetri on Chef’s Table by Scott Hass, a James Beard Award-Winning Journalist. I am a big fan of Marc and have written about his food, restaurants and cookbooks many times on my website and blog. See

• My interview with Chef Vetri
• Marc Vetri’s Il Viaggio di Vetri Cookbook
• My Birthday Dinner at Vetri
• Vetri’s Rigatoni with Chicken Livers Recipe

So you can imagine how excited I was to find this very informative interview on YouTube and be able to share it with you. In the interview, Marc talks about how his understanding of Italian cuisine drastically changed from what he knew growing up in an Italian-American family dining mostly on Southern Italian cuisine to what he learned after spending time in Northern Italy (Bergamo) learning to cook an entirely new style of Italian food.

Some of the topics discussed in the interview include:

• The difference between American-Italian food featuring red sauce/meatballs and Northern Italian cuisine featuring local ingredients.
• How the region – fish, meats and vegetables – dictated the style of food.
• How he arrived in Bergamo, Italy.
• Learning the basics and building on those skills
• Bringing his Northern Italian cuisine back to American – think whole roasted fish
• Why he stays focused on Italian food.
• The idea of being “focused” and “work ethic”
• Working in a kitchen – learning, hours, repetition
• Cooking with local foods – Lancaster, PA
• Cooking simply with the best ingredients.
• Mistakes made when cooking Italian.
• Key ingredients for Italian cooking.
• How the “ingredient defines the dish.”