While I love to cook, I don't like spending hours in the kitchen so you will find that most of these recipes are easy and quick to make. Lo opened Annisa in 2000, an intimate restaurant in Greenwich Village, which has held a Michelin star consistently since 2009. [There was] Chinese—my father was from Shanghai, but he died when I was there—and then my stepfather came into the scene and he had really strong New England roots, so we had a lot of that sort of simple New England food. https://cookwarerecipes.pro/special-sauce-chef-anita-lo-on-cooking-for-yourse KeepRecipes is one spot for all your recipes and kitchen memories. Her first experience opening a restaurant was a Korean behemoth in the mid-’90s, that tidy time when ring-molded food skyscrapers were the rage and fermentation was a health inspector’s nightmare, not the hipster holy grail. In a day and age when great neighborhood restaurants are few and far between, Annisa was an unpretentious Michelin-starred refuge that turned first-timers into regulars and regulars into Lo loyalists. Anita is chef-owner of New York’s Annisa restaurant, which received a Michelin star. People come in for the soup dumplings, people come in for the chicken, and people come in for the sable. Turns out that what she lacks in off-the-cuff inventiveness, she makes up for with a steel-trap memory and a mastery of dissecting dishes to their component parts, as well as repurposing ideas over and over in endless combinations. It was just really delicious. If I’m ever alone and I want to make something simple for myself, I go directly to that. One of my interns came in and made doughnuts one day—just plain doughnuts—and I thought. My mom was a very good cook, and she made a lot of different styles of cuisine. It was a really special thing that made you and everybody appreciate food more, instead of just having this staff meal where cooks shoved whatever they could in their faces while they were standing, and it was all stuff that was going bad. [She] would put, like, six different dishes out. https://www.seriouseats.com/2019/02/special-sauce-anita-lo-2-2.html I thought something similar to that could be really good in a chicken, because. "It's a lot easier to multiply than to divide," Lo says. Nominee, Best Chefs in America 2015. Mix together by hand Anita Lo. Then again, most new restaurants are trying to find their own way to define the intersection of cuisines these days—the curve may have finally caught up with her. Recipes by Chef Anita Lo Anita Lo is the chef and owner of Annisa and one of the most respected chefs in the country having earned numerous accolades for her inventive Contemporary American cuisine. She ventured into Asian-tinged BBQ two years before Zak Pelaccio hit with Fatty ‘Cue—her Bar Q closed after ten months, pushed over the brink by the 2009 recession. Submit. I had a lot of bread left over—we used to save all the bread and it would build up. A soup dumpling is gelled, so I made it with pigs’ feet so it gels on its own. In almost all cases, I have modified the original recipes in an attempt to make them healthier by reducing the fat while still preserving the flavor. It was kind of obvious to put foie gras in it instead of crab and/or pork. Lo, a second generation Chinese-American, earned a degree in French language at Columbia University and studied at Reid Hall and Ecole Ritz-Escoffier in Paris. A Chinese American, she has appeared on Top Chef All Stars. Chef's Pencil is part of the Amazon Associate Program and earns from qualifying purchases. In June 2009, a fire destroyed the restaurant entirely and while plans for rebuilding Annisa got underway, Lo appeared on Top Chef Masters and finished fourth out of 24 chefs. 2001 BNC alum Anita Lo’s 2018 cookbook SOLO celebrates the joy of cooking for one, just like this weeknight-friendly chicken recipe with a twist. Jan 1, 2014 - Chef Anita Lo of Annisa, Rickshaw Dumpling Bar, and Bar Q in New York City demonstrates how to fill and pleat Chinese dumplings using homemade wrappers. FIRST WE FEAST participates in various affiliate marketing programs, which means FIRST WE FEAST gets paid commissions on purchases made through our links to retailer sites. Be inspired. Anita Lo, born in Michigan, is a second-generation Chinese American and while she studied French at Columbia University, has never worked in any field other than the restaurant business. The Annisa chef reflects on the influences that made her one of NYC's most distinct culinary voices. They also freeze well making them good for leftovers. Scale down recipes with care. Set that claim against her successes on pretty much all of the quick-fire cooking shows (she was the first challenger to win on Iron Chef America and came in fourth on the first season of Top Chef Masters) and something doesn’t add up. She would come home from a very long day at work—she was a doctor—and she would cook for us. Keep Recipes. “I’m not that prolific. She’s slashed her commitments down to one: Annisa, the restaurant she has owned for 13 years, that she pulled from the ashes of a devastating electrical fire, that she held on to through a breakup with her business partner and nursed through the period when fine dining was the first line slashed from everyone’s budget. And then it’s served with seared foie on top and a black vinegar reduction—you know, normally Shanghai soup dumplings are served with a black vinegar dipping sauce with ginger in it, so I just did a plate reduction. There she has built herself the space to relax, to write (her first cookbook, Cooking Without Borders, was published in 2011), to spend time at a summer house on Long Island and work on potential new dishes. We would eat it over rice. Can Restaurant was my first chef job, in the early '90s. Recipes available for personal use and not for re-sale or posting online. 2021 Complex Media, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 2020 © Chef's Pencil   Privacy Policy & Terms of Service  Advertise with us  Contact us. You know, a lot of people hate the things that they can’t ever take off [the menu], but…my cooks get really good at it, because they have to do it over and over and over again. It’s just a classic Japanese miso marinade for rich fish. That's not to say it can't be done, at least for some recipes. While earning a degree in French language at Columbia University, she studied at Reid Hall—Columbia's French language institute in Paris.