Q&A with Top Chef’s Stephen Asprinio
Stephen Asprinio may not have won the title Top Chef when he competed in season one of the Bravo! Network show. (That honor went to Harold Dieterle who opened Perilla in NYC.) But this March, when the 26-year-old chef and sommelier realized his goal of becoming a restaurateur by opening Forté Di Asprinio in his native Palm Beach, Florida, he showed that he was no loser. "At the end of the day, I came out a winner, too. I’m very young and I’m very fortunate. It’s a lot of hard work, but it’s fun,"
Tell us about your new restaurant.
Forté in Italian means strength, personality. It was fitting for my first restaurant. The design is modern-chic. Lots of pinks and purples and fuschias. I did it all myself. It has crazy lighting. It’s kind of Las Vegas and Soho combined. It’s kind of wild. Very modern and contemporary, which is my outlook. I’m very much the opposite of old school.
The restaurant features a million-dollar wine cellar.
Yes. We’ve got bottles ranging from $30 to $20,000. There are thirty-five hundred bottles and over 600 selections. Some are exclusive to us. Twenty-four wines are available by the glass. We use a Cruvinet wine system, so we’re able to do high-end wines by the glass.
And there’s a major focus on our mixology program. We even make our own boutique sodas. We don’t have anything low-end at all. No Jack Daniels. You can’t even get regular ice water at the restaurant. We make our own filtered bottled water in-house. We have bottled water from Wales, too. We have cola, we have diet cola, we have root beer, but we don’t have Coca-Cola, we don’t have Pepsi.
What criteria did wines have to meet to make it onto your list?
They have to be extremely quality driven as well as value driven. Just as the pricing on the menu is very reasonable. Everyone expected me to open this high-end, super-expensive place. I’m in my mid-20s! I am an elitist in many ways, but not like that.
What do you consider to be the most important rules of food and wine pairing?
The most important rule is that there is no rule with wine pairing. My signature food and wine pairings are with Champagne. I’ve done 13- and 15-course tasting menus paired with sparkling wine from beginning to end. Champagne is hands-down the best food-and-wine-pairing wine.
Is that the only rule, that there is no rule?
That and no white Zinfandel. I think white Zinfandel is a poorly made wine. It’s pretty much mass-produced.
What do you do if someone comes in and asks for white Zin?
We have Riesling, which is similar in residual sugar content.
If you could drink only one wine for the rest of your life, what would it be? I think we can guess.
What do you think it is?
Champagne.
You’re right. If it had to be just one, it would probably be Krug, the king of Champagnes. Krug rosé, to be exact. It’s probably one of the best Champagnes out there. --J.L.
