Six Chefs Describe The Ideal Southern Christmas
Read MoreREestaurant of The Year: Cooks & Soldiers
Read MoreThe Basques have a “violent passion” for food, the executive chef of Cooks & Soldiers in West Midtown says. Their cooking straddles Spain and France, mountains and sea, city and farm. It is a rustic style of eating that embraces salt cod and cured ham, tomatoes and peppers, beans and potatoes, cheese. Basque cuisine is also an international movement that has spawned wild experimentation, celebrity chefs, Michelin stars.
Read MoreWestside’s Cooks & Soldiers is packing in the city’s diners eager to sample creative takes on traditional Basque tapas and other Spanish fare. But if you want to avoid that lively scene while still enjoying Spanish tastes, head to Decatur’s Iberian Pig.
Read MoreChefs at Cooks & Soldiers end every Friday night with a brief exercise, in which one person is charged with creating a dish to serve to the rest of the staff. The goal, says executive sous chef John Castellucci, is to create a platform where cooks can try new things and bridge the gap between simply being creative and actually creating.
Read MoreTartare — it’s on every menu these days, and you’re kind of over it, right? Well give a second look at this dish from the new Basque-inspired Westside restaurant: that’s not beef, and that’s not an egg yolk.
Read MoreIt’s always the first food devoured at a party. Here are two crowd-pleasing takes on pigs in a blanket: one made with frozen puff pastry, another with a rye pastry wrapper crusted in caraway and coriander.
Read MoreAt 23 years old, John Castellucci has already worked in the kitchens of high-profile restaurants in New York and San Francisco, run with the bulls in Spain and completed a stint in a Michelin-starred restaurant in San Sebastián. Now, he helms the kitchen as Executive Sous Chef for Cooks & Soldiers, the newest concept by the Castellucci family. Here, we share John’s takes on Basque country.
Read MoreI get hung up on authenticity. It’s not a good trait. When I encounter a restaurant serving a cuisine I don’t know, I start researching it and holding the restaurant to a standard that is likely of little interest to the owners and chef, who need to answer to the marketplace—not to someone looking for an edible textbook.
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