Chef Vinny Lauria of Linguini Fini
Integrated Hospitality Management’s group executive chef Vinny Lauria was one of the earliest advocates of western-style nose-to-tail dining in Hong Kong. With Linguini Fini, one of the group’s popular restaurants, serving deep-fried pork brains before most of us even knew that animal part was edible, he tells Adele Wong about the circumstances that brought him to Hong Kong, and how he ended up working for his competition.
On Childhood
I grew up in an Italian-American family in New Hampshire. In an Italian-American family, food is a huge part of your upbringing and life. My grandfather had a garden—he had a grape vine. He made his own wine, made his own prosciutto. Once I turned 14, I decided I wanted to be in restaurants. I got my first job washing dishes. After a year, I became a line cook, and I kind of kept going from there and decided I wanted to go to culinary school. I went to culinary school in Rhode Island. When I was in Denver, I started as a line cook [and eventually got appointed head chef].
On Chance
I moved to New York. I went door to door with a little portfolio of my menus and my resume. I went into Babbo [Mario Batali’s restaurant], talked to the executive chef there, and I was like, “I’ll do whatever it takes.” I was there for two years. After that, I was asked to come to 208 [Duecento Otto, in Sheung Wan, in 2009]. I had never been to Asia before. The day I got to Hong Kong, I checked into a hotel and went straight to the restaurant. It was the opening night of the restaurant.
On Competition
Posto Pubblicco [an IHM restaurant] is a direct competitor to 208. I went in [one day] to check out the competition. I ordered a bunch of food, and nobody was there except for Josh [the original executive chef]. Turns out we went to the same culinary school. I then met Rob and Todd [the owners]. We all had the same upbringing, the same philosophy of food. One of the things that I really strongly believed in, ever since I was young, was farm-to-table or garden-to-table [dining], as that was my upbringing as a six-year-old kid picking vegetables from my grandfather’s garden. When I came on board [Linguini Fini], I educated [Rob and Todd] on what nose-to-tail dining is, and why it’s sustainable, and they got really into it. We changed the branding and we put a pig on [the logo]. We changed the whole philosophy of the place, so instead of a homemade pasta joint, it was now a pork and pasta place with nose-to-tail dining.
What embodies this [concept] in a philosophical and actual sense is our fazzoletti “nose-to-tail” bolo. If you go to Bologna, it has veal, pork and beef in it. So this one uses pig’s head (testa), veal loin and oxtail.
On Influences
The Babbo cookbook was my first cookbook ever. Mario [Batali]’s philosophy is straight nose-to-tail. He believed in the same thing. It’s a very Italian, Old World-cuisine philosophy. Three days ago, I was in Times Square and I got [Fergus Henderson’s] new book, “The Complete Nose-to-Tail.” [Henderson’s original book “The Whole Beast: Nose-to-Tail Eating”] had a huge influence on me. Henderson has had a huge impact on my cuisine, and was a reference point for me. And Mario Batali, of course, I idolize the guy. One other guy that’s had a lot of influence on my cooking is [American chef] Chris Cosentino [known for dishes with offal].
On Body Parts
Offal does not taste bad. It’s just that people have bad associations because they’ve never had it prepared properly in a lot of cases, or they’ve never had it.If we make that experience good, then we have a lot more people eating more adventurously. Now people bring their kids to Linguini Fini and their kids will eat nose-to-tail bolo and it’s awesome.
Visit Lauria at Linguini Fini, G/F-1/F, The L Place, 139 Queen’s Rd. Central, 2857-1333.