Missy Robbins Pairs Up With Her Old Boss At Identità

Next week's Identità New York at Eataly is pairing up top-notch American chefs with Italian chefs, all to cook up some (probably) amazing Italian food. A Voce's Missy Robbins is paired with Agli Amici's Emanuele Scarello, who she worked for briefly while in Italy, so we had to pick her brain about the reunion.

"I'm excited about it," she tells us. "I had a great time there and I learned a tremendous amount, but I haven't talked to [him] since, and he's become a very different chef since I was there."

Robbins and Scarello are pairing up for a cooking demonstration Monday at 5 p.m. On the menu: a veal dish from Scarello; a cjalson with dried pears, ricotta, and cocoa from Robbins; and a dried pear soup from both of them.

Why a cjalson? "It's one of those things I remember fondly about [Scarello's] mom making," Robbins says. "She used to make a version with grated apples and cinnamon, and I thought it would be fun to do something from my time there."

As for A Voce, the executive chef is continuing her research for the ever-changing tasting menus. Her recommendations for great Italian cuisine reads? La Cucina: The Regional Cooking of Italy, and The Slow Food Dictionary to Italian Regional Cooking. Robbins is just getting through the latter. "I'm sort of obsessed with it," she says. "I'm reading it like a novel."

So where can you spot her around town? Typically Asian joints. "I tend to not want to eat Italian food on my day off. I eat at Prune a lot for brunch, I go to Ippudo a lot, I go to The Spotted Pig a lot. I go to Do Hwa in the West Village, because it's close to where I live, and it's good."

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