The Montelvini Prosecco wasn’t the only thing flowing at “Top Chef All-Stars” runner-up Mike Isabella’s “oven-warming party” at his new Italian eatery Graffiato on Monday night. “Carla [Hall], Spike [Mendelsohn], Jen [Carroll], Kevin [Sbraga], Dale [Talde], Stephen [Asprinio], everyone came to support me. I couldn’t be happier. It’s awesome,” Isabella said, grinning about his fellow former cast mates and friends.
Foodies, writers and industry folks also turned out to sample Isabella’s wood-oven pies and Italian small plates, which were a smash hit with everyone we talked to.
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“I’m really happy for him. This pizza is really good,” Alchemy’s Hall told Yeas & Nays.
She’s not the only “Top Chef” co-star who likes the grub at Graffiato. Isabella told us Mendelsohn has eaten there three times already, and Talde and his girlfriend enjoyed dinner downstairs before the party, “As I walking by, I heard Dale’s girlfriend say this feels like it’s New York. A cool, loud, trendy place that has good food, is chef-driven but is also a place that’s like a neighborhood in Brooklyn where people go back over and over, that’s what I want to bring here — that feel of local neighborhood place that’s chef-driven and fun.”
Isabella’s quest to produce good food and fun was successfully achieved. “Prosecco on tap is genius,” one partygoer raved as she reached for another glass. So who came up with the brilliant idea to serve bubbly brew-style?
We can thank Isabella’s wife Stacy for that one. “I went to Spain a year and a half ago with Jose Andres and a bunch of chefs from around the country including Paul Grieco of Hearth. He was the first guy to bring Riesling on tap to New York and I thought what can I do that’s better and what does my wife drink? She drinks Prosecco. So I told my general manager James I want Prosecco.”
To that we say bravo.
