Inside the Kitchen: Seven Questions with Chef Zach Pollack of Cosetta

Making gefilte fish with my grandma in her 1930s kitchen, right after my grandfather died. His gefilte fish was not only edible—as many, I hear, are not—it was delicious.

I didn’t want the tradition to die with him, so I asked my grandmother (who wasn’t really a cook) to show me the ropes around grandpa’s recipe. It was moderately successful in terms of my learning how to make gefilte fish, but very successful in building a lifelong memory.

Italian food is as much about what’s on the table as it is about what’s around it: friends, family, community. In Italy, food isn’t a thing to be consumed; it’s an experience to be had in the company of others.

Even if you dine solo, as many of my meals in Italy have been, it’s a highly communal experience. The people who have prepared it for you, whether they be chefs in restaurants or nonnas in their homes, are sharing a part of themselves, their story, and their history.

Others talk about “people-pleasing” as a negative trait, or an abandonment of one’s own agency in the service of pleasing others. Under certain circumstances, however, I think there is a soft majesty about an inner calling to please others, whether they be friends or strangers.

It’s the main reason I got into this business, but it’s also why, after 20 years of unanticipated challenges and disappointments, I still love it.

I often use the term “quiet technique” when building a new menu or coaching one of my chefs. I think great technique should exist solely for the sake of the improvement of a dish, not to draw “oohs” and “ahhs.” I’m not a fan of dishes that flaunt the technique that went into them.