Acclaimed chef Robbie Felice of Viaggio, Osteria Crescendo and Pasta Ramen will be heading to Rutherford to cook alongside Antonio De Ieso at his contemporary Italian restaurant, Fiorentini. The two culinary titans combined for three spots on our top 25 restaurants list last year and have racked up dozens of accolades throughout their illustrious careers.
Felice and De Ieso will team up to cook an exclusive dinner on a Monday. The idea of scheduling the meal on a Monday was so that more industry folk could attend. “We wanted it to be available to people [who work] in this industry,” Felice told me, “so many of these events happen on the weekends, so we wanted to offer something that more restaurant workers would be able to attend.”
The menu will include six courses, plus an amuse bouche. Diners will feast on the likes of cappelletti in brodo, saffron risotto with truffle, lamb neck croquettes and hazelnut praline with olive oil ice cream.
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The event was announced in an Instagram post on Monday morning and sold out in under an hour.
Didn’t get a ticket? Fret not, because the duo already has plans for another dinner together on December 4. This time, De Ieso will head to Felice’s flagship restaurant, Viaggio, and the two will cook a five-course dinner featuring a variety of truffles in every single course. Guests can expect to find Alba truffles, Périgord, Burgundy truffles and more. White truffles in particular have a short season, lasting only from September through December—making them extremely hard-to-get.
Truffles, of course, come attached to a hefty price and truffle-themed dinners often go for $300-400 a person, considering the fungi typically runs around $10 a gram. Felice is committed to a $200 price tag for his dinner with De Ieso at Viaggio, which, in the grand scheme of truffle dinners, is sort of a steal.
Again, the event will commence on a Monday, making it open to restaurant workers who are seeking a rare night out.
The duo is excited to get these dinners underway and New Jersey is extremely lucky to experience it. These are two of the top chefs in the entire state, teaming up to cook the food that they love. Felice, who spends most of his time cooking Japanese-Italian food at his immensely popular Pasta Ramen is just excited to go back and cook the food that got him started for a few nights, “I never get to cook just Italian food anymore. So, I’m excited to do that,” he tells me.
Tickets for the event can be bought here.
Peter Candia is the Food + Drink Editor at New Jersey Digest. A graduate of The Culinary Institute of America, Peter found a passion for writing midway through school and never looked back. He is a former line cook, server and bartender at top-rated restaurants in the tri-state area. In addition to food, Peter enjoys politics, music, sports and anything New Jersey.
