Anchyi Wei-Clements

'Top Chef' alumnus Chef Mike Isabella celebrates with friends at his newest spot in town.

‘Top Chef’ Dish: What They Love at Graffiato

Graffiato has been open a few weeks, but the buzz generated around Mike Isabella’s new eatery is still going strong.

The “Top Chef” all star hosted a private reception and invited a few of his fellow “Top Chef” alums for an oven-warming party. We caught up with a few of our favorite contestants from the Bravo reality franchise to talk shop and dish on Graffiato’s menu—a reflection of the Jersey native’s creative and outgoing personality. (His scrumptious ceviche, right.)

“It’s me, it’s my food, I can do what I want,” said Isabella. “ I can change the menu when I want. I have fun with the food.”

We think Dale Talde (“Top Chef “Season 4) said it best: “This is Mike on a plate.”

Camaraderie was clearly evident among all the chefs, especially when Spike Mendelsohn joked that he gave Isabella the recipe for the pizza dough. Even though “Top Chef” is a cooking competition, according to Chef Isabella, it doesn’t keep the contestants from bonding.

“It’s great to have the support of all my guys; Dale, Kevin, Jen, Stephen, Carla, Spike. It’s like all these different people coming from all different places like New York and Philadelphia,” said Isabella. “It’s been great having them here. We really build together, when we compete against each other, it shows you how close we really are.”

Keving Sbraga, Season 7

On what he’s been doing since he won “Top Chef” Season 7: “Traveling and working on opening my own restaurant. It’s going to be modern American food, in a bistro setting, but a fine dining-style.”

On an important lesson learned from “Top Chef”:  “To cook from my heart and do what I know is best and not worry about what someone else wants. That’s when they really enjoy it.”

On giving Mike Isabella advice: “Mike and I are great friends. We talked about his menu, we talked about his concept, but he already had a clear vision of what he wanted to do. He would bounce ideas off of me and I would bounce ideas off of him. It’s not advice—I’d just challenge the way to think about things. This place is 100 percent Mike Isabella. Mike and I cooked together about six years ago, so we’ve known each other for a while. I mean he’s a different Jersey, I’m south Jersey, and he’s north Jersey. It’s a little bit different but he represents Jersey well.”

Dale Talde, Season 4

On what he learned from competing on “Top Chef”: “You cannot come off as fake. It has to be from the heart, from the soul. Especially with this concept that Mike’s doing, he’s doing Mike. It’s beautiful. Jersey! We’re all East Coast dudes now. I mean, there’s a fried calamari pie right here. If that isn’t Mike on a plate, I don’t know what is.” 

On what he’s doing now: “I’m about to open my restaurant, Talde. It’s Park Slope Brooklyn, 7^th Avenue 11^th Street. We’re calling it an Asian-American restaurant, a true reflection of my professional career and who I am personally. As a first-generation Asian American, our voice hasn’t really been put on a plate enough. [Diners will see] lots of pho, shrimp friend rice, and [I’m] adding Brooklyn and a lot of Chicago into these dishes. We open in September and I wake up in the middle of the night thinking ‘Oh my god, we need two rice cookers.’ It’s awesome, it’s overwhelming. It’s been a goal of mine.” 

On how “Top Chef” prepared him to open his restaurant: “[To have] a never-say-die attitude. That when you’re put in that position where you’ve got a grill in front of you and a piece of whole fish, and you’ve got to feed 300 people! That’s the chaos of how a restaurant runs.”

On his favorite dish from Graffiato: “Mike’s spaghetti with the cherry tomatoes, I could eat it every day.”

Stephen Aspirino, Season 1

On what he took away from competing on “Top Chef”: “Always be true to yourself. When you’re on national television, as hospitality people we have a responsibility. I had the pleasure of being on ‘Top Chef All Stars’ where literally every person had the utmost integrity and was just really cool.”

On the respect level among chefs on “Top Chef All Stars”: “It was a great experience because everyone there was so accomplished, and there was more camaraderie than competitiveness. It was a good bond.” 

On penning a memoir/cookbook/love letter to the world of food & wine: “It’s going to be called ‘Eat and Drink Until You Die,’ and it will be out at the end of the year. It’s a little bit of everything. It’s incorporating stories and experiences all about food and wine in a very unpretentious way.”

On his favorite thing he ate at Graffiato: “The scallop crudo and the Prosecco on tap is pretty awesome.”

Carla Hall Season 5

On her co-hosting gig on new ABC show “The Chew”: ”The show has five co-hosts, Mario Batali, Michael Symon, Clinton Kelly and Daphne Oz. And it’s everything and anything about food. So, there’ll be cooking demos, guests and correspondents. I compare it to ‘The View.’ We’re sitting around a table, having fun and talking about food.”

On the food she loved best at Graffiato: “I had the goat cheese with honey pizza. I loved the fried ravioli in the puff pastry. I didn’t have anything yet with the pepperoni sauce. I must have that. Oh, and the mozzarella, love the fresh-pulled mozzarella with the lemon tapenade. Killer, loved it.”

[All photos by Anchyi-Wei Clements]