Food Network's 'Ciao House' debuts with Chicago tie - VIDEO
Windy City-based chef Natalia Rosario competes on international stage armed with Alinea pedigree, an indomitable spirit and a tendon transplant. We're tuning in to see just how far she goes.
A lot of exceptional culinary talent has come out of The Alinea Group, most notably Curtis Duffy, Dave Beran, Jenner Tomaska, Andrew Brochu and Damarr Brown. Natalia “Boa” Rosario wanted next, so much that she ignored the nagging pain in her feet during regular 12-hour shifts.
For six years, she worked for the prestigious group that’s maintained Michelin stars at Alinea (3 stars) and Next (1 star) for several years, James Beard awards, plus other notable recognitions. In April 2021, she was told that she’d have to undergo surgery for a tendon transplant to repair damage done during all those hours spent on her feet.
Orthopedic surgeon Dr. Anish Kadakia, who performed surgery on several of the survivors of the Highland Park mass shooting in 2022, gave her two options to consider post-surgery: Leave The Alinea Group and find something else to do that wasn’t as demanding or continue toiling for hours in the kitchen and suffer more damage to her feet. She chose the former, which changed her life’s path in ways she’d never imagined.
“It’s the best thing that’s happened to me because I was in a state of mind of working at a Michelin-starred restaurant to eventually having my own Michelin-starred restaurant,” Rosario confesses. “That was it. I didn’t have any space in my mind for anything else.”
Nevertheless, for her career change, she didn’t have to go very far. After an eight-month, post-surgery recovery, Rosario became a private chef, a pivot that allowed her more flexibility with her schedule as well as less stress on her body. Her new job also made room for new opportunities, such as appearing as a contestant on Food Network’s first-ever international competition, “Ciao House.”
The eight-episode series, which debuts April 16 and runs through June 4, follows 10 emerging American chefs in Tuscany as they compete for the chance to win an immersive culinary education across Italy, training with renowned Italian master chefs. The young chefs live together in a luxury villa, yet they compete as individuals and in teams. Throughout the series, they observe real-life nonnas, or grandmothers, making pasta from scratch, learn butchery from a meat master of a 300-year-old, family-owned butcher shop, tour Tuscany’s beautiful countryside and much more.
It’s an experience Rosario doesn’t take for granted, yet she realizes that had it not been for the tendon transplant, the whirlwind experience would not have happened.
“I feel like if I would not have had that surgery, I would probably still be working at The Alinea Group,” Rosario admits. “I would probably just be waiting for the next person to quit for me to move up and just hoping that one day that dream would come true. [The tendon transplant] has helped me to diversify everything that I want do, including this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity of being on the Food Network.”
Her Tuscany experience is a dream come true—for Rosario’s mother
Born and raised in Puerto Rico, Rosario and her family moved to Mexico when she was a teenager because of her father’s job. The move was a huge culture change for her, yet it has had much impact on her life. That’s because her mother first sparked her interest in cooking. She’d take classic Mexican dishes, like tacos, and put her own spin on them. For example, Rosario explains, her mother would swap classic corn tortillas for crispy plantains and make tacos out of them.
Her mother was also obsessed with Italian culture and cuisine and cooked it every chance she got, Rosario says. In 1992—the year Rosario was born—her mother won a scholarship to study in Italy for six months. Fate had other plans. Her mother didn’t use the scholarship because she became pregnant, then gave birth to Rosario. But she continued to love the culture, so much that every year that she’d sing “Happy Birthday” to her daughter in Italian.
Rosario’s mother loved her Puerto Rican heritage as much as she loved Italian culture, and she fused the cuisines as much as possible. Her passion always showed up in the food that she and her siblings ate, Rosario says. For example, her mother switched out the pasta for plantains in the meat lasagna.
“It’s something that’s so amazing,” Rosario recalls. “I still cook it to this day, and every time I do people exclaim, ‘Wow, this combination is unbelievable!’ Even with the plantains, it looks just like [classic] lasagna.” Rosario’s version elevates the recipe with aged cheddar, Wisconsin cheese and ground beef wagyu.
Rosario’s mother, of course, loves her daughter’s version of her creation. She was also ecstatic when Rosario told her that she was going to Italy to compete on “Ciao House.”
“Here it is many years later, and it kind of feels emotional for me to [compete on the show] not only for me, but mostly for her,” Rosario says. “She had this dream of going there, and now it’s my time to live it for her. Going to ‘Ciao House’ in Italy was a dream come true for my whole family and for myself.”
Alinea, stage at local Italian restaurant prepped her for “Ciao House” competition
Rosario was living in Mexico at the time she applied to work at The Alinea Group. When she was accepted, she moved to Chicago in 2017. She describes the six years she spent there as difficult and competitive, yet rewarding.
“It was the best time of my life,” she says. “I learned so much. One of the things that I loved so much about working for the group is the many transitions that are happening almost every three to four months. It’s not like a traditional restaurant where you’re focused on one menu. … You’re constantly learning, you’re constantly educating yourself. The fact that it’s such a world-renowned restaurant with a world-renowned chef [in Grant Achatz], there is no time for mistakes.
“I’m not going to lie, working for The Alinea Group is really, really hard. But it was so hard that it helped me get to where I am today. I always advise young cooks that if you graduate from culinary school and go directly to hardcore restaurants with Michelin stars, it’s going to be hard, but it’s going to help you so much in your career because it’s going to shape your future endeavors.”
In competing on “Ciao House,” Rosario kept three lessons from Alinea at top of mind:
The creative process of conceptualizing a dish. “Let’s say that we want to do a plantain dish. You’ll start with the plantain. [Then you think about] what ingredients go well with the plantain. Then you start thinking about how you would make the dish in a modern way. I feel like that’s the biggest learning experience I had. You can be a good cook, but the creative process of creating very well-executed dishes is a process. One of the biggest problems that us young chefs have is that we want to put everything on the plate.”
The importance of using high-quality products. “When you have that, it just changes your whole way of cooking. It not only inspires you as a chef to respect the product itself, but it also inspires you to do a very good dish.”
The organization behind The Alinea Group kitchen. “If anyone has ever sat down in any of [Alinea’s] four restaurants after 8pm, you’ll see the execution of how [they] get organized and how [they] clean. You don’t see that in easily, I dare to say, in 90% of the restaurants out there. Every night it gets deep cleaned. If you have to stay two hours or three hours after your shift to make sure it’s clean for the next day, you stay there and do it.”
And a fourth one: It’s more of a mental push. “You work for this amazing restaurant and you want to make the most out of it. You’re mentally pushing yourself to be better. Everyone in that kitchen is very competent—even the dishwasher. Everyone is super, highly competent, so it feels like a competition [every day.] That helps you have a great mindset towards your life outside of cooking.”
That still wasn’t enough for Rosario to feel comfortable enough to compete on the show. Because she didn’t have much Italian cuisine experience in her repertoire, she trained in an Italian-focused restaurant in Chicago to prep before the show.
But what was her first experience in Italy really like?
From the moment Rosario arrived in Tuscany, she experienced local produce in a way she had never imagined before.
“There were so many sunflower fields,” she recalls. “Sunflowers are my favorite, yet I still wanted to know why there were so many of them. I learned that instead of using canola oil, they use sunflower oil as a frying oil. I hadn’t really experimented with it at that point using sunflower oil for frying, and now I like it a lot.”
Throughout the contestants’ stay in the villa, they were spoiled with local Tuscan produce. “There were broad ingredients that were from the villa itself, such as peaches, tomatoes, etc.,” Rosario adds. “It’s just so impressive how food changes when you are using something that’s literally sourced from outside your door.”
Though she was fascinated by the fresh, local produce and entertained by her castmates, she was still in a lot of pain during her stay due to her tendon transplant. Behind the scenes, she says, she handled her condition like a professional athlete.
“I had to be injected with B-12 [shots] every day so it wouldn’t be such a big impact for me in my toes,” she explained. “I traveled from Chicago [to Italy] with the injections, and they had a nurse put them in me every night. Every day after filming, I would wrap both my feet with big ice packets that looked like boots. I would elevate them for at least an hour, then I would be able to continue to the next day. There was one day I didn’t do it, and I regretted it the whole next day because I was limping and really pushing myself to continue.”
With the “Ciao House” experience under her belt, Rosario is already on to the next project, a cookbook. She’s using many of the recipes she’s making for her private client—inspired by her Puerto Rican heritage and years spent in Mexico—for the book.
“I am on a mission,” she says. “There are so many Puerto Rican families like mine who have grown up with Mexican dishes [in their households]. I want them to identify themselves with these recipes.”
Here’s to hoping she includes that Puerto Rican-inspired lasagna in it.
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Inspiring!
Great article!