At Michelin-starred Rezdôra, chef Stefano Secchi brings his seven years of training under the best pasta-makers in Emilia-Romagna, including time at Massimo Bottura’s famous three-Michelin-starred restaurant Osteria Francescana, to his NYC restaurant. While remaining true to the traditions and methods of fresh pasta making, chef Secchi aims to bring creativity into dishes like in his uovo raviolo — a single giant raviolo with black truffle shavings and a runny egg yolk that oozes out of it when cut.
“There’s a dish we’re trying to bring back, it’s [called] girasole, which means sunflower, and it’s based on my train ride from Modena to Rimini and seeing sunflowers on the way,” says Secchi. “And you eat seafood in Rimini, so we’re going to do a beautiful crab with it. It’s one of those things I absolutely love.” For this dish, Chef Secchi’s executive sous chef, Anthony Bellock, steams an enormous Norwegian king crab. When it’s ready, the two take the leg meat and head fat, and mix it with marscapone, lemon zest, and other herbs.
Chef Secchi then rolls out two sheets of fresh pasta dough — one sheet of classic dough, and one sheet of squid ink pasta dough. He adds dollops of the crab mixture to the classic sheet, and then covers it with the squid ink sheet. He cuts out round shapes with scalloped edges. “This is tedious, right?,” he says as he pinches and folds up each corner of each pasta, revealing the yellow color on the bottom and the black color in the middle that resemble a sunflower’s colors and shape. “But a pasta like this is something you don’t see.”
“We never opened Rezdôra for the stars,” Secchi says. “I really wanted to make things at a really high level like how I was taught, and with the best ingredients I can get my hands on, so that when people sit down, they’re like, this is a different experience.”
Check out the full video to see more pasta-making processes, and to see actor and investor Tony Shalhoub stop by for a taste.