How Chef Ludo Lefebvre and Jewelry Designer Irene Neuwirth Throw a Dinner Party
While the calendar may say it's spring, the Bon Appétit staff in NYC would beg to disagree. To get a kick of warm weather, we took our Night Kitchen series on the road to Los Angeles to celebrate two of our April features. Jewelry designer Irene Neuwirth hosted us at the enviable kitchen in her new flagship store, and chef Ludo Lefebvre of Petit Trois kept us in awe of his omelet magic and other delightful spring dishes.
Dylan + Jeni1/11Chef Ludo Lefebvre
Tonight we are in jewelry store cooking dinner—what’s the most unexpected location you have cooked dinner? "When I was doing so many pop-ups, we cooked in some very strange places. But I would love to do a pop-up on an airplane. Airplanes are so boring, you should get drunk and eat a great meal to pass the time."
Dylan + Jeni2/11Este Haim (of the band Haim)
Do you have a signature dish? “Eggplant parmigana. It was the recipe that my mom first mastered and it’s the recipe that made my dad fall in love with her—he was under the “eggplant parm spell.” I mastered it when I was 17, around the time I started dating my first boyfriend. I pretty much make it for every boyfriend I have. Italian food is always the most romantic.”
Dylan + Jeni3/11Abbi Jacobson and Ilana Glazer, creators/stars of Broad City
Ilana, What’s your favorite restaurant in NYC right now?“I want to tell you, but I am worried you guys are going to blow up my spot. I love B&H, just old Jew food. I always get the vegetable soup. And their pickles are like my Grandma’s, they are mad Jew-y. Oh it’s so good, it’s so old and the people that go there are either really in the know peeps or just old people who only speak Polish.”
Dylan + Jeni4/11Guests were greeted with Charles Smith Wines' Secco Bianco, which went perfectly with the star of the evening...
Dylan + Jeni6/11Irene Neuwirth, jewelry designer
What is your signature dish? "We make super simple food with the great West Coast ingredients. I do make a mean cheeseburger. I put bacon in the meat, Worcester, parsley, and salt and pepper. With American cheese on an English muffin—it’s my favorite."
Dylan + Jeni7/11Joanna Newsom, harpist/vocalist
What’s the last dish you learned to cook?"I am a newly off being a vegetarian and have been spending time learning how to cook meat, which can be intimidating! Last week I learned a slow cook chicken recipe that melted my brain. You braise it at a low temperature for two hours and then turn up the temperature and make it crispy at the end—total revelation. I’m so easily intimidated by cooking meat, but this dish was crispy and juicy and only five ingredients. Once you realize that cooking with meat has to do with the science of it all, it starts to make more sense."
Dylan + Jeni8/11Abbi Jacobson, Broad City
What’s the last dish you cooked? "I don’t really cook that often, but when I do I cook a lot of it. I made grilled chicken and shishito peppers recently. I am really into shishito peppers, I am obsessed with them. I had them at Iris Café in Brooklyn and now I make them all the time."
Is there a dish you would like to master? You know what’s so simple, and I could probably learn? When you go out to a restaurant and there is a salad. And it’s super simple and the dressing is just perfect. I don’t know what it is about going to a great spot where they really just know how to work with lettuce and the dressing. When they get there hands all up in there mixing it, you know it’s good.
9/11There's Iberico pork hiding under that cabbage dressed in green garlic gravy.
Dylan + Jeni10/11Jessica Koslow, chef of Sqirl
What was the first dish you mastered? “Growing up I would make Rice Krispie treats, I really stared mastering it around 8-years-old. You know how some dads make pancakes? Well my dad just made Rice Krispies. It’s such a nostalgic thing for me.”
Dylan + Jeni11/11For dessert? Apple butter, creme de brie, and toasted barley. A dreamy end to a spring evening.
