Chi Spacca

Starred review from March 2, 2020
Restaurateur Silverton (The Mozza Cookbook) gives her all in this excellent carnivorous compendium of dishes served at her eponymous restaurant in Los Angeles. Despite the American cooking referred to in the title, these recipes “are inspired by how an Italian butcher might cook.” This is the rare Italian-accented cookbook without a chapter on pasta, but with a grilling tutorial instead, here from executive chef DeNicola. Recipes are solid and aren’t always simplified for the home kitchen: focaccia di Recco (which, Silverton notes, is ordered by 85% of the tables at Chi Spacca) requires a 14-inch copper pizza pan and cheese that needs to dry in the refrigerator for 10 days to two weeks before being used, and the preparation of a beef cheek and bone marrow pie is best spread over three days. Nose-to-tail ethos can be seen in dishes such as toasts made with beef drippings and roasted amberjack collars. The latter are part of a fish chapter with surprising depth, given the carnivorous nature of the proceedings. Best suited for experienced cooks, this outstanding volume is poised to expand Silverton’s considerable audience.

April 1, 2020

Chef and James Beard Award-winner Silverton teams up with Chi Spacca executive chef Ryan DeNicola, and award-winning journalist and cookbook author Carolynn Carre�o, to present a selection of recipes served at Silverton's L.A.-based Chi Spacca. Inspired by how an Italian butcher might cook and eat, the restaurant and book place an emphasis on meats, fish, and seasonal vegetables. The book opens with a guide to the Spacca Pantry (spices, oils, blends, and rubs), and features sections on Spuntini (snacks or finger foods, including pickles), Insalate (salads), Carne (meat: beef and veal; pork; lamb; duck, rabbit, and chicken), Pesce (fish), Contorni, (sides), and Dolci (desserts), as well as tutorials on grilling at home, making aioli by hand, and selecting meats, and a source list for equipment, mail-order meats, and spices. Included are instructions for plating and pairing though some seasonal/regional ingredients may be hard to find. VERDICT These are not recipes that you can throw together on a weeknight; even the salads take some planning. A resource for experienced cooks and those looking for a challenge.--Gricel Dominguez, Florida International Univ. Lib., Miami

Copyright 2020 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

April 1, 2020
Much-lauded chef Silverton has opened yet another successful Los Angeles restaurant, this one focusing on meat. Silverton made her reputation as a pastry chef, and The Mozza Cookbook (2011) showcased the success of her first big Italian eatery. The star recipe from this new book is her astonishing beef cheek and bone marrow pie, a showstopper interpretation of British steak-and-ale pie with long-braised beef and mushrooms and an oversize marrow bone thrusting from the pie's center. For a similarly impressive dinner, she suggests a long-simmered rag� Bolognese not for topping pasta, but to cradle a towering Parmesan souffl�. Other dishes Silverton has created are slightly less complicated, but may require services from a cooperative butcher. Confirming her pastry-chef credentials, she has created a key lime pie with passion fruit caramel. Somewhat more approachable for the home cook, banana cream slab pie appeals to both young and old. Silverton also reveals the secret of her iconic butterscotch budino.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)