Synopses & Reviews
100 recipes for bold, gutsy, comforting dishes inspired by the flavors of Northern Italy, from the acclaimed Manhattan restaurant Sorella, co-owned and operated by rising star chef Emma Hearst, with her best friend (and honorary "sister") Sarah Krathen running the front of the house.
Emma and Sarah want to share their passion for gutsy home cooking, wine and cocktails, Northern Italy and New York City--and what it's like to be a couple of young, female entrepreneurs in the male-dominated and competitive restaurant world.
Featuring 100 recipes that reflect the authors' reverence for tradition and sense of adventure, the book will share their fun and creative approach to making food and hosting guests for dinner every night. Their philosophy is to keep it clean, keep it simple, and maintain the integrity of ingredients, and their sense of play and exploration will come through in the spirited text and selection of dishes.
The book reads as the narrative behind their friendship, inspiration, and opening and running Sorella together. Along with favorite restaurant recipes, organized by course and recreated for the home cook, are features on making pasta at home; what to drink (both when you're cooking and with the meal); how hospitality is manifested; and what they've learned about food, business, and partnership through this journey.
The recipes, drink notes, and step-by-step techniques are aimed at encouraging the home cook's intuition, offering just enough advice and encouragement to ease her way in the kitchen. Lifestyle photography and a fresh, lively design will showcase the restaurant's elegant-yet-warm style, while the stories will illuminate the authors' personalities. With a visual emphasis on vintage fashion and old-time Hollywood glamour, the gorgeous lifestyle photography will also feature the authors in Dolce Gabbana dresses and designer footwear, in the kitchen and out and about in New York City.
This book will appeal to anyone looking master Italian staples with a modern twist, as well as Italophiles and food lovers with wanderlust who can live vicariously through Emma and Sarah's unique marriage of food and friendship.
Sample Recipes
• Heirloom tomatoes with bagna cauda dressing
• Arugula & prosciutto salad with pickled cherries
• Marinated mussels & straciatella cheese
• Tajarin with lamb ragu, black pepper ricotta, pistachios & mint
• Cavatelli with porcini & pancetta ragu
• Sweet potato tortelli with maple brown butter, cacciatorini & pickled peppers
• Carbonara with spring garlic
• Sorella gnocchi
• Pan-seared mackerel with onion-pine nut puree & pickled vegetables
• Marinated pork chop with wax beans, blistered cherry tomatoes & apple vinegar
• Brussels sprouts with apples & bacon
• Peach crostata with buttermilk gelato
• Salted caramel cheesecake
• Bombolini
Review
"Sorella is one of those restaurants that I find myself going back to over and over again. It’s a place with an allure you can feel, one where that balance between kitchen and dining room gives you the sense that what you’re experiencing has been created not by colleagues but by good friends. This cookbook tells that story, one about a special restaurant, its outrageously delicious food, and the gracious hospitality with which it’s presented. And it shows us that even the simplest meal, if prepared and served genuinely, can become an exceptional, memorable experience."
Review
"I always look forward to dinner at Sorella, which—from the moment you pass through its Allen Street doorway—feels like you’ve stumbled upon the best little dinner party in all of New York. The menu is a treasure of Piemonte-inspired hits, all cooked from the heart and for your pleasure. How gratifying to be able to cook these beautiful recipes in my home, and to know the rich stories behind them!"
Review
"Sorella showcases the seductive and passionate story about food, fun and friendship between Emma and Sarah. It’s spicy, sexy and sumptuous and delicious."
Synopsis
100 recipes for bold, gutsy, comforting dishes inspired by the flavors of Northern Italy, from the acclaimed Manhattan restaurant Sorella, co-owned and operated by rising star chef Emma Hearst, with her best friend (and honorary “sister”) Sarah Krathen running the front of the house.After meeting in culinary school, Emma Hearst and Sarah Krathen opened Sorella—Italian for “sister,” in a nod to the deep connection these friends feel for each other—on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. Lauded for its distinctive blend of gutsy northern Italian fare, family-style spirit, and old-world glamour, their charming neighborhood spot has garnered legions of admirers who come for the ethereal homemade pastas, inspired cocktails, and easy conviviality.
In this, their debut cookbook, Emma and Sarah share behind-the-scenes stories, their passion for food and hospitality, and the secrets to making many of their most popular menu offerings at home. The more than one hundred recipes encompass bold-flavored dishes and signature favorites, including their show-stopping Broccoli Fritto and decadent egg-topped Pâté de Fegato, along with clever cocktails and savvy wine pairings.
Bolstered by stunning full-color photographs, visual vignettes, and unforgettable anecdotes that relate everything from the wisdom of Italian grandmothers and the mishaps of opening night to a starring role on Iron Chef, Sarah and Emma convey both their sparkling personalities and their dedication to balancing innovation and tradition. They also offer a truly unique glimpse into what it’s like for two young women to open and run a lively, welcoming, and wildly successful restaurant in New York City.
Selected Recipes Include:
• Arugula & prosciutto salad with pickled cherries
• Marinated mussels & straciatella cheese
• Tajarin with lamb ragu, black pepper ricotta, pistachios & mint
• Cavatelli with porcini & pancetta ragu
• Sorella gnocchi
• Pan-seared mackerel with onion-pine nut puree & pickled vegetables
• Marinated pork chop with wax beans, blistered cherry tomatoes & apple vinegar
• Brussels sprouts with apples & bacon
• Peach crostata with buttermilk gelato
• Bombolini
About the Author
Emma Hearst started cooking at the age of five, and from the beginning, the love and support of her parents allowed her to pursue her dream. That included not only eating what she served them from the time she was a kid but also taking her to the best restaurants in the world, whether they accepted children or not. When Emma was thirteen, she got a job as a dishwasher at a restaurant in Albany, New York, where the family lived. After high school, she went to the Culinary Institute of America (CIA) and completed her externship at Manhattan’s Union Square Café. She was at the end of her time at the CIA when she met Sarah Krathen, whom she did not like at first. Fortunately, Emma got over that, and they were soon the best of friends. Together, they made Emma’s dream of owning a restaurant in New York City a reality with the 2008 opening of Sorella, with Emma as executive chef.
Sarah Krathen fell in love with restaurant work at the age of fifteen. She started as a barker for a restaurant on Duval Street in Key West, which meant her job was to get tourists to come in off the street and eat there. The owner of Fogarty’s, a much bigger, newer, and better restaurant, saw her at work and hired her as a hostess. At Fogarty’s, she went from hostess to server to expo (the intermediary between the kitchen and the customers) and then decided to attend culinary school. She enrolled in the Culinary Institute of America, received an associate degree in culinary arts, and then completed a fellowship under her mentor, John Storm, in the on-campus Ristorante Caterina de’ Medici. It was during that fellowship that she met Emma Hearst, a meeting that she describes as the most important of her life. The pair became best friends, roommates, and eventually business partners. Sorella opened on New York’s Lower East Side in 2008, with Sarah managing the front of the house and beverage program.