(quirky music) (upbeat music) - Can you tell us what you're making today?

- Ah okay, today I'm gonna make mafalde or mafaldine di guanciale, which is a pasta dish.

Mafalda is this type of pasta.

It's a little bit of a rigid pasta.

Guanciale is an Italian term for a hog jowl.

So it's a real nice nutty flavor.

And it's just an absolute delicacy.

Very nice simmer dish, all in one pan.

You can do this quite quickly, but when it's done right, it's absolutely, it's just amazing.

So I'd throw mine before you today.

- Fantastic.

- So I'm gonna start a little bit of extra virgin olive oil, and then we're gonna go right ahead and render down our meat with that.

We want to do it at the same type of temperature so we don't fry it too fast.

We want to bring it up to temperature with the oil so that the beauty of this dish is not specifically eating the meat.

It's eating the residuals or the renderings of the meat passed in through the pasta.

The pasta is the showstopper.

So now that that's going, I'm gonna add my onion.

So this can be a little bit of white onion or shallot.

I'm gonna let that cook off.

Stir my pasta here a little bit.

You want to make sure this pasta stays and remains al dente.

- Gotcha.

- So now, them onions are starting to sweat, they're gonna get a little translucent.

It's working in time with temperature with the whole dish here.

As you can see, everything's coming together real nice.

You can start to smell it now as well.

- It smells great.

- It smells great.

(interviewer laughs) It almost has a bacony smell, but you can tell that it has a little, a lot more earthiness.

White wine.

I like something crisp.

A Pinot Grigio, a Vermentino, a Grillo, something like that.

It's gonna give it a nice acidic flavor.

And let that cook.

(upbeat music) (pan sizzling) - Woo!

- Turn that on nice.

- You can really smell that, smells nice.

- Now, I'm gonna add a little bit of a natural acidity here.

So I want to have some real tomato in here.

- And you make your own fresh pasta here?

- Yes, ma'am.

Everything is made here in-house.

- That's awesome.

- We have six different cuts of pasta and they're made fresh daily.

We make everything in-house.

There's nothing really here that's not made here.

The only thing not made here are the ingredients.

(interviewer laughs) I'm gonna take my tomatoes now like this here.

That's gonna be the base of our sauce.

I'm gonna add a little Calabrese pepper here for a little bit of nice natural heat.

As you can see, all the ingredients are natural.

There's nothing in here that's not good for you in a sense, you know?

- That's great.

- Of course, guanciale might not be the best for your arteries.

(interviewer laughs) But it is the best for your tongue and your mouth and your tastebuds and your life and your soul.

(interviewer chuckles) So now, what I'm gonna do, get a little bit of water in here from this pasta.

We want that starchy, nice water.

I'm gonna put a little bit here, and we're gonna put this pasta right into it now.

This is how we're gonna cook with the rest of this pasta the rest of the way.

Now, what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna add a little bit of butter 'cause I'm gonna add back some of that fat we lost if any, in that guanciale, and this is gonna give it a real nice mouthfeel.

And a little bit of Pecorino Romano cheese.

This is sheep cheese.

A nice high-end sheep cheese out of Rome as well.

Gorgeous, see how that's coming together beautifully?

- Yeah.

It's beautiful.

- And there we have it.

Now we're gonna plate this, and we're gonna eat as if we just conquered a village.

(interviewer laughs) Pasta first, always the pasta and the sauce.

Toss your pasta with your sauce.

And the other trick is never oversauce your pasta.

And to finish this off, a little Grana Padano from Italy.

A little bit of micro basil on top, just to keep the eyes right.

We eat with our eyes first, as most every chef will tell you.

There you have it.

(upbeat music) There you are.

- [Interviewer] Thank you.

- You're welcome.

Buon appetito.

- Thank you.

This is beautiful.

(upbeat music) Mmm, that's amazing.

- Very good, glad you like it.

Well, cheers.

Well, this is a nice Barbera.

The Alba-- - Cheers.

- One compliments the other for sure.

(upbeat music) - Oh, that's nice.

- Yeah, perfect.

- So not only are these dishes beautiful, but they're just incredibly delicious and you put your own spin.

These are your recipes.

What's your source of inspiration?

- That guy, that's my father.

Pretty sure my dad and my family is all into cooking.

I grew up eating Italian food, of course.

Italy, Italian food for regional, mostly Romano area, some Sicilian stuff.

My influences come from my childhood and how it makes me think about, the flavors were everything for me, everything I did, even when I was growing up was that.

So now, as an adult, everything I do is based around food.

Everything.

I won't go on a week-long vacation unless there was someplace or something based around food there.

That's kind of where I get my inspiration.

- [Interviewer] I love this because, so you never stop learning.

It's always a process of learning, seeing what others are doing.

- If you're cooking from a recipe, that's when you stop learning.

If you're gonna continue moving past that recipe and continue moving on your track, you have to continuously learn.

Everything in the cooking game is somewhat of a recipe in that aspect.

So you have to learn what it is and then your next step, then your next step, then your next step.

Those who learn more steps will exceed further.

With every trend that comes around, with every new ingredient that comes around, with every fusion of regions that come around, you're gonna continuously grow.

- I know.

I'm really excited that you're opening up a second location in Chesapeake.

Can you tell me a little bit about that?

- Yeah, absolutely.

I'm very excited about it.

The same anxiety, excitement, stress.

- Of course.

(chuckles) - Everything that makes this place, what it is, is great.

Now I have to go do it again in a much bigger venue, but I'm ready for that.

As a person, I'm very nervous.

As a chef, I'm excited as hell.

(interviewer laughs) - I bet, I bet.

- So.

But I'm definitely looking forward to, to highlighting what we have and what we've always been.

And also bringing on new things that I'm able to do over there that a lot of people are just gonna be amazed with too.

- [Interviewer] You know, one of the things about Luce when you come here is the food is just the highest quality.

It's incredible.

Oftentimes with that comes a pretentiousness.

And in your restaurant, you walk in the door and you feel like family.

- You should be happy and comfortable and you should come here and eat and know that you're coming here and you're getting something good.

There is no pretentiousness here because I don't want to hear it.

Take your tie down, relax and enjoy the best food you can.

That's what want.

- So we're sitting here with your dad, got a picture of your dad.

Tell me about your dad and your family.

- When it comes to cooking and food, my family had just made good food.

They still do.

My aunt is one of my favorite chefs in the world and she's one of my inspirations.

My father was a chef worker.

You know, his love for food is where I got mine.

As far as recipes, people telling me all the time, "Is this your grandparents' recipe?"

"Is this an old family recipe?"

No, I don't have that story.

It's been passed down for generations well before my family.

What comes on my plate is inspired by my travels, by my palette, by my thought.

And definitely-- - But I love that they laid the foundation.

- Definitely inspired by my youth.

- So it was a big decision and a big undertaking to open a restaurant.

What in the world made you enter this crazy world?

- So when I opened up this place, it was very easy for me to do.

It was a very easy decision because I had nothing else.

And the only thing I knew is I wanted to cook.

I wanted to bring my stuff out.

And alls that I really wanted in this little place was a nice wine bar and a martini bar with a nice little menu.

As people started coming in, the menu ended up being requested more.

Everything started rising, and all of a sudden, it became the food, the food, the food.

So therefore people started coming in wanting more food.

Now it will be reconstructed, becoming a restaurant.

Now I'm busier than I've ever been.

(interviewer laughs) I don't understand what the hell I did.

(interviewer laughs) It went from what I wanted it to be to this thing where it is now, and I'm very proud of it.

- Congratulations.

- Thank you.

- I mean, this is, it's such a wonderful restaurant and the fact that you're opening a second location is huge, but there's a saying that goes, if it doesn't scare you a little bit, it's not worth it.

So there you go.

- Right.

Mm-hmm.

(interviewer chuckles) Yeah, it really needs to petrify me.

- Yeah.

(laughs) - You know?

You know?

(chuckles) (upbeat music)