Inside the Kitchen: Six Questions with Brad Kilgore

It's spaghetti bolognese and Caesar salad. Those are two things that I can be fine with whatever version of them I can order. I just hope every now and then it changes so I don't have to eat the same preparation every day.

The first thing that pops up here and feels right, is the first time I worked in Italy…this villa. I was 18 and the chef just taught me to make gnocchi. I just took this boiled potato, made it into a rope, and I rolled it into pillows, and cooked it into a sauce and a dish. I was so young and was totally blown away by how like, "That just happened?!" And gnocchi became one of my things for a very long time after that. So yeah, first time making gnocchi in Italy with an Italian chef? Unforgettable.

The meal from every aspect of the experience has been well thought out and delivered with purpose. The key word is "purpose" there.

To have a restaurant in every place I like to visit or vacation. I want to go there and work when I arrive a little bit. A place like Mexico, on the beach, that's something of a goal. But ultimately, having a restaurant group where the restaurants are located in places that you'd want to visit on a regular basis.

Recognizable but new. That's what I've found myself for quite a while. Like, the kanpachi at ama, you might be like "woah that's a new dish I haven't had that one." But…is it? It's sashimi, shiso, and ponzu. Something that's been served for longer than a 100 years, but you might've eaten it and not realized it. The lumache diavolo pasta that I do here is a great example. It's spicy diavolo, but I'm using yuzu kosho to finish it and that yuzu flavor goes so well with tomato, and it doesn't scream at you. And really, without that flavor, this dish wouldn't necessarily feel special. So that's my comfort zone direction. Sometimes, even when I don't mean it to be, it’s just how I cook these days: Recognizable but new.

Lately my comfort food has been steak and potatoes. Literally, mashed potatoes, steak and bearnaise; it's categorically a comfort food.