Tuesday, August 3, 7:00 pm
Members $100, guests $125

Ask New Yorkers to define the city’s cuisine, and you’ll get answers as many and varied as the people themselves. Brooklyn native Ian Russo uses New York’s infinite variety, as well as his own international training and experience, as a jumping-off point for the “nouveau New York cuisine” he serves at Ian, where he is executive chef and owner.

A 1985 graduate of New York Technical College’s School of Hotel and Restaurant Management, Russo fell in love with kitchen life, while working at a Brooklyn branch of the International House of Pancakes as a teenager. He held positions at New York’s La Reserve and Le Chantilly, as sous-chef at the latter, then made a young chef’s pilgrimage to France, where he secured a stage at André Daguin’s Hôtel de France, in Gascony. Days off found Russo taking buses or hitchhiking to Michelin-rated restaurants, and within a year he’d tried every three-star rated eatery in France, Switzerland, and Spain. Russo successfully pursued a stage at Michel Guérard, with the help of French friends who translated his interview with the chef. After stints at Comme Chez Soi in Belgium and France’s Georges Blanc, Russo returned to the States to open Gray Kunz’s Lespinasse, as sous-chef. He remained for one year before succumbing again to wanderlust, this time in a westward direction.

In Hawaii, he learned a completely new style of cooking from Roy Yamaguchi, at Roy’s, then returned to New York with his new skills and worked as the poissonier at Bouley until 1995, when he was offered the top spot at Pelago, preparing Mediterranean-influenced cuisine. Ruth Reichl noted his acumen in her review of Pelago for The New York Times, saying, “From the moment you are seated it is clear that extraordinary care goes into this food…Mr. Russo is clearly a talented chef.” Ever the wanderer, Russo once again left New York to run the stoves at Rhode Island’s Café Nuovo and followed this by another stop in Hawaii, as executive chef at Michel’s, in Honolulu.

Lured back to his hometown by the dream of opening his own place, Russo left Hawaii for the tonier shores of Manhattan’s Upper East Side. Bob Lape in Crain’s New York Business exclaimed that Ian “brims with creativity, warmth, and good taste,” noting that “there’s no missing the kitchen’s Hawaiian lilt,” and that the food is “exciting, fresh, and flavorful.” To our minds and palates, that’s a perfect reflection of “nouveau” New York.