Missy Robbins

Last updated
Missy Robbins
Born1971 (age 52–53)
Washington, D.C. [1]
Education Peter Kump’s New York School of Cooking
Culinary career
Cooking style Italian cuisine
Rating(s)
Current restaurant(s)
    • Lilia
    • Misi
Television show(s)
Award(s) won

Missy Robbins (born 1971) is an American chef who has held a Michelin star at two restaurants, and a contestant on season four of Top Chef Masters . Robbins specializes in Italian cuisine and owns two Italian restaurants in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, Lilia and Misi, which opened in 2016 and 2018 respectively.

Contents

Biography

Robbins graduated Georgetown University in 1993, majoring in art history with a minor in psychology. Whilst in her final semester at University she got a job at restaurant 1789 after being inspired by a friend who got a job at another restaurant. After initially working Friday and Saturday nights whilst at University, she went on to work there for a year before moving to New York to attend culinary school at Peter Kump's New York School of Cooking. [2] [3]

After she left culinary school, Robbins began to work at the Arcadia restaurant before joining Wayne Nish at his restaurant March. She moved to The Lobster Club and Arcadia, in NYC and working with Anne Rosenzweig before traveling in Northern Italy which became an influence on her cooking style. [3] [4] She returned to the United States to work at the Soho Grand Hotel, and moved to Chicago to work with Tony Mantuano as executive chef at Spiaggia. Whilst there, the restaurant was nominated twice for a James Beard Foundation Award and she frequently cooked for Barack and Michelle Obama. [3]

She became executive chef at A Voce, changing the menu completely with the exception of two dishes, and would oversee the opening of a second location. [2] The original location won a Michelin star in 2009, while the second location won a star in 2010. Both restaurants retain those awards through to the 2012 Michelin Guide. [3] As of this edition of the Michelin Guide, she is one of only ten female chefs in the United States to hold a Michelin star. [5]

In 2010, she was named Best New Chef by Food & Wine magazine. [1] She was a contestant in series four of Top Chef Masters . [3] She withdrew from the competition during the first episode, having cut her finger so badly that she required a skin graft on it. [6]

In January 2016, Robbins opened Lilia, situated in a whitewashed building at the intersection of Union Avenue and North 10th Street in North Williamsburg, Brooklyn. [7] [8] It is an Italian pasta restaurant, though Robbins never originally set out to specialize in it, commenting, "I just always had an affinity for the ingredients … the cheeses and olive oils … and then as I started getting older and traveling, there’s something about Italy that just resonated with me". [9] The restaurant earned Three Stars from The New York Times, and a James Beard Award nomination., [10] [11] In August 2018 Robbins opened her second Italian restaurant in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, Misi on the site of the former Domino Sugar Refinery. [12] [13] Its menu includes 10 varied pastas and 10 vegetable dishes, some with proteins. [12] Half the menu is devoted to primi, featuring pasta shapes, including linguine, spaghetti, pappardelle, malloreddus, occhi, and strangozz. [13] In 2018 Robbins was recognized as Best Chef New York City by the James Beard Foundation, [14] and was also awarded Esquire Chef of the Year. [15]

Robbins states that she seeks inspiration from "obscure, weird cookbooks". Jasper White’s Cooking from New England was the first book she owned and she uses The Splendid Table for regional Italian cuisine. [16] While she is strongly influenced by coastal Italian cuisine, she professes to want to explore the cuisine of Calabria, Sardinia and Sicily more, remarking that "There’s always an opportunity to learn because it’s not really just one cuisine, it’s a regional cuisine. Everywhere you go is different, and everywhere within that region every grandmother cooks differently". [9]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thomas Keller</span> American chef, restaurateur, and cookbook author

Thomas Aloysius Keller is an American chef, restaurateur, and cookbook author. He and his landmark Napa Valley restaurant, The French Laundry in Yountville, California, have won multiple awards from the James Beard Foundation, notably the Best California Chef in 1996, and the Best Chef in America in 1997. The restaurant was a perennial winner in the annual Restaurant list of the Top 50 Restaurants of the World; the voting process has since been changed to disallow previous winners from being considered.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lidia Bastianich</span> American celebrity chef (born 1947)

Lidia Giuliana Matticchio Bastianich is an Italian-American celebrity chef, television host, author, and restaurateur. Specializing in Italian and Italian-American cuisine, Bastianich has been a regular contributor to public television cooking shows since 1998.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Daniel Boulud</span> French chef and restaurateur

Daniel Boulud is a French chef and restaurateur with restaurants in New York City, Palm Beach, Miami, Toronto, Montréal, Singapore, the Bahamas, and Dubai. He is best known for his eponymous restaurant Daniel, opened in New York City in 1993, which currently holds two Michelin stars.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">José Andrés</span> Spanish-American chef

José Ramón Andrés Puerta is a Spanish-American chef and restaurateur. Born in Spain, he moved to the United States in the early 1990s and since then, he has opened restaurants in several American cities. He has won a number of awards, both for his cooking, and his humanitarian work. He is a professor as well as the founder of the Global Food Institute at George Washington University.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tiffani Faison</span> American celebrity chef and restaurateur

Tiffani Faison is an American celebrity chef and restaurateur. She is based in Boston, has served as a judge on Food Network's television series Chopped, and is a four-time James Beard Award Finalist for Best Chef: Northeast. She was the winner of Season 3 of Tournament of Champions and was named Boston's Best Chef by Boston Magazine in 2022. She was one of two finalists on the first season of Bravo's reality show Top Chef, where she finished second to Harold Dieterle.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Le Bernardin</span> Restaurant in New York City

Le Bernardin is a three-Michelin star French seafood restaurant in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. Eric Ripert is the executive chef, and he is co-owner along with Maguy Le Coze.

Scott Conant is an American celebrity chef, restaurateur, and cookbook author. Since 2009, Conant has been a judge on the reality cooking television series Chopped. He has published four cookbooks.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marea (restaurant)</span> Restaurant in New York, United States

Marea is an Italian and seafood restaurant at 240 Central Park South, on Columbus Circle in Manhattan, New York City, opened in May 2009.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Momofuku (restaurants)</span> Culinary brand

Momofuku is a culinary brand established by chef David Chang in 2004 with the opening of Momofuku Noodle Bar. It includes restaurants in New York City, Toronto (defunct), Las Vegas, and Los Angeles, a bakery established by pastry chef Christina Tosi, a bar (Nikai), and a quarterly magazine.

Daniel Humm is a Swiss plant-based chef and owner of Eleven Madison Park.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tanya Holland</span> American chef

Tanya Holland is an American celebrity chef, restaurateur, podcast host, writer, and cookbook author. She is known as an expert of soul food. Holland is an alumna of Bravo TV's Top Chef, where she competed on the 15th season. She was the owner of Brown Sugar Kitchen in Oakland, California, which received national recognition and multiple Michelin Bib Gourmand awards.

Melissa Perello is an American chef, she is best known for holding a Michelin star at her restaurant Frances in San Francisco. She had previously won a star at restaurant Fifth Floor, and has won awards from both Chronicles and Food & Wine magazines.

Sepia is a mid-sized, upscale restaurant run by owner Emmanuel Nony and Executive Chef Andrew Zimmerman located in the West Loop neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois. Chef Zimmerman's menu is classified as New American cuisine, and focuses on local, seasonal products. Built in Chicago's Warehouse District, Sepia was originally a print shop from the 1890s. The renovation for the restaurant, designed by Gary Lee, included putting in a custom-tile, Art Nouveau floor and hand-crafted millwork in order to enhance the historical qualities of the building. Sepia also uses vintage stemware for their tables matching the vintage interior decor of the restaurant.

Sarah Grueneberg is an American chef who is head chef and owner of Monteverde Restaurant & Pastificio in Chicago. While executive chef at Spiaggia, she held a Michelin star for three years. In 2017, she was named the 2017 Best Chefs in the Great Lakes at the James Beard Foundation Awards. Grueneberg came second in the ninth season of Top Chef; and she also appeared on the first season of Iron Chef Gauntlet.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dominique Crenn</span> French chef (born 1965)

Dominique Crenn is a French chef. As of 2016, she was the only female chef in the United States to attain three Michelin stars, for her restaurant Atelier Crenn, in San Francisco. Crenn has been featured in several Food Network and other television shows.

Fabio Trabocchi is an Italian chef and restaurateur based in Washington, D.C., where his restaurant Fiola earned a Michelin Star. Before opening his own restaurants, Trabocchi ran kitchens in London, Virginia, and New York, winning a James Beard Foundation Award in 2006.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jean-Louis Palladin</span> French chef

Jean-Louis Palladin was a French-born chef who introduced French Nouvelle cuisine to the Washington elite at his restaurant, Jean-Louis at the Watergate, and influenced a generation of French and American chefs.

State Bird Provisions is a San Francisco restaurant founded by chef-owners Stuart Brioza and Nicole Krasinski.

Corey Lee is a Korean-American chef and restaurateur based in San Francisco. In 2014, his flagship restaurant, Benu, became the first in San Francisco to receive three stars from the Michelin Guide, making Lee the first Korean chef to garner that accolade. In 2019, Benu made its debut on The World's 50 Best Restaurants. Lee is also a two-time James Beard Award winner, a former Food & Wine Best New Chef, and a Goodwill Ambassador to Seoul.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rosetta (restaurant)</span> Restaurant in Mexico City

Rosetta is a restaurant in Colonia Roma, Cuauhtémoc, Mexico City, that has served Mexican cuisine with Mediterranean influences since 2010. It serves seasonal à la carte options. It is owned by chef Elena Reygadas, who studied at the International Culinary Center and worked at Locanda Locatelli in London. Food experts have given the restaurant favorable reviews, with plates of pasta and bread receiving the greatest attention. The British magazine Restaurant has ranked the restaurant twice on its list of the World's 50 Best Restaurants and Reygadas received their Best Female Chef of 2023 award. Rosetta was awarded one Michelin star in 2024 in the first Michelin Guide covering restaurants in Mexico.

References

  1. 1 2 "Missy Robbins". Food & Wine. Retrieved 28 August 2012.
  2. 1 2 "Missy Robbins (C'93)". Georgetown University. Archived from the original on 9 March 2012. Retrieved 28 August 2012.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 "Missy Robbins". Bravo TV. Archived from the original on 27 August 2012. Retrieved 28 August 2012.
  4. ↑ Leong, Richard (8 September 2009). "Chef Robbins aims to repeat success with NYC eatery". Reuters. Archived from the original on March 5, 2016. Retrieved 28 August 2012.
  5. ↑ Wettenstein, Beverly (8 August 2012). "Who Are the Best Female Chefs? 10 U.S. Women Earn Michelin Star". Huffington Post. Retrieved 28 August 2012.
  6. ↑ Tharp, Sharon (27 July 2012). "'Top Chef Masters' Interview: Missy Talks About Her Injury, Leaving The Competition". ology.com. Archived from the original on 30 January 2013. Retrieved 28 August 2012.
  7. ↑ "Design Details, Episode 7: Lilia In Brooklyn". Foodrepublic.com. 14 June 2016. Retrieved 1 August 2019.
  8. ↑ "Lilia". New York Magazine. Retrieved 1 August 2019.
  9. 1 2 Falewée, Samantha (24 August 2018). "Labor Day Menu: Missy Robbins' Buttery Grilled Clams, Garlic Bread and Roasted Tomatoes". Wine Spectator . Retrieved 1 August 2019.
  10. ↑ Wells, Pete (29 March 2016). "At Lilia in Brooklyn, Missy Robbins Is Cooking Pasta Again". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 9 March 2019.
  11. ↑ "The 2017 James Beard Award Nominees | James Beard Foundation". www.jamesbeard.org. Retrieved 9 March 2019.
  12. 1 2 "Missy Robbins Embraces Simplicity, at Misi". The New York Times. 28 August 2018. Retrieved 11 June 2019.
  13. 1 2 "Misi Restaurant Review: Does Missy Robbins's Pasta Destination Live Up to the Hype?". Newyorker.com. 23 November 2018. Retrieved 11 June 2019.
  14. ↑ Upadhyaya, Kayla Kumari (8 May 2018). "Here Are the NYC James Beard Award Winners for 2018". Eater NY. Retrieved 9 March 2019.
  15. ↑ "Esquire Names Brooklyn's Missy Robbins Chef of the Year". Thebridgebk.com. Retrieved 11 June 2019.
  16. ↑ "Inside the Home Kitchen of Award-Winning Chef Missy Robbins". Vanity Fair. 3 August 2018. Retrieved 11 June 2019.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.