http://www.wickedlocal.com/winchester/news/business/x1727388030/FIRST-PERSON-BUSINESS-PROFILE-For-Chef-Letteri-simple-does-not-mean-bland

FIRST-PERSON BUSINESS PROFILE: For Chef Letteri, ‘simple’ does not mean ‘bland’
By Samantha Balaban/Staff Intern
Thu Aug 07, 2008Winchester, MA

After Joe Letteri, the owner and executive chef of Simplicity Chef, a chef service that serves home prepared meals and gourmet dinners to private parties in the Boston area, conveniently relocated to Winchester, I had the opportunity to try my hand at making homemade Italian pasta, just the way grandma used to.

And boy was I immediately very glad that I had invited myself over to his house when he announced that we were combining this fresh pasta with lobster claws and a cinnamon butter sauce. That is, especially considering the alternative of an interview over a coffee at Starbucks. No thank you, I will take Italian fine dining any day of the week.

Letteri, who is the son and grandson of Italian immigrants, grew up in Rome and Cerverteri, Italy, before moving to the North End of Boston as a young child.

He gained an appreciation of food and cooking the way many Italian men do: watching his female relatives cooking elaborate family meals and by getting kicked out of the kitchen.

Letteri didn’t discover his passion for cooking right away, however. First he spent two years, from 1997 to 1999, playing professional basketball in Italy. He was ready to sign for a third season when he came home to Boston and realized he didn’t want to leave again.

So he spent the next couple of years working at Boston Senior Homecare, a social service agency, where he helped out senior citizens and met his wife, Lindsay.

Only after that did he decide to try his hand at making a living off of cooking.

“I just always had this love for cooking. I would cook for friends just have dinner parties,” said Letteri.

He first attempted culinary school at Newbury Culinary School for a year before deciding that he wasn’t interested in the business aspect of cooking.

The tradition of the lengthy family meal called him back and influenced Letteri to use his grandmother’s pasta recipe and start Simplicity about 3 years ago.

And how, exactly, does an Italian grandmother make pasta? Well, better than me, for starters.

“Get a quart pan, make a fist, put it in and fill it up to your wrist with flour,” Letteri explains.

And truly, as a pot of pre-made pasta boils away on the stove, I don’t see a measuring cup in sight as Letteri prepares the ingredients for my batch of pasta.
“I do wash my hands, though,” Letteri assures me.

He hands me a ball of freshly made dough to start kneading with flour, and when he tells me that I don’t have to wash my hands, I get the sneaking suspicion that, for some reason, no one is going to be eating my pasta.

As I knead the pasta dough over and over, really putting my weight into it so I can get out all like moisture like Letteri instructs me to, I start to feel like it would probably be a whole lot easier to simply buy pasta from the supermarket.
This, however, is not the Simplicity Chef way.

In addition to improvisational recipes that promise the diner a unique food experience at every turn (I’m the first person to ever try pasta a’la chittara with cinnamon butter poached lobster), Letteri also uses only bought-to-order ingredients in his cooking.

Letteri gets all of his meat from his grandfather, who has been a butcher in the North End for nearly 50 years. He also engages in regular competition with heavyweight sushi buyers at the fish market for fresh seafood.

Since moving to Winchester, he has discovered farmer’s markets and Wilson Farms in Lexington as a great way to get local fresh fruits and vegetables.

It’s Letteri’s patience and dedication to the quality of food that is clearly what makes him a good chef. I, on the other hand, am so impatient to eat that I prematurely announce the readiness of the still-wet ball of dough.

Sadly, instead of being eaten al-dente, my pasta ends up as play-dough for Letteri’s 9-month old daughter, Gia, after it gets stuck and clogs the pasta machine.

Even though Letteri is obviously concerned about the quality of his food enough to not serve me my mess of pasta, he is also quick to stress that he isn’t in the business of selling food. Or catering. He is selling a service and an experience.

According to his press release, “the goal is to serve restaurant quality food in the comfort of [one’s] own home, without the stress or hassle of cooking or cleaning.”

He also wants to help eradicate that 10-minute family dinner where, as he puts it, “we eat, we don’t dine.”

“When we dine, we have that family experience just with a good bunch of friends, good company,” said Letteri.

As a part of the in-home fine dining experience, Letteri offers either a five, seven or nine-course tasting menu, cooked in the diners’ home, and served hot with wait service and wine selections. Prices range from $105 per person for the five-course menu to $225 a head for the full nine courses.

Simplicity also offers home delivered meals. Diners can choose from a range of entrees and Letteri will package your meals in microwaveable trays and deliver them right to your home.

For the in-home dining experience, Letteri will only cook for a maximum of 30 people.
“Everything should not be mass produced,” he said.

Letteri also personally appears at every dinner, and strives to get to know his clients. In fact, engagement dinners are his favorite because he gets to know his diners in a very personal situation.
“I wish everyone I cooked for was my friend,” said Letteri.

This, to me, seems like quite the attainable goal, especially after the meal I just enjoyed. If you thought I was a happy reporter after the lobster, you should have seen my face after the hand rolled potato gnocchi with imported Italian pesto, the chocolate fondant cake with vanilla bean gelato, black pepper corns and lavender, and the chilled berries atop a panna cotta and cherry compote.

Jealous yet? I also got samples of cheesecake and pasta to bring home.

For the future, Letteri hopes to offer limousine service to his clients, so all diners could be picked up at their homes and brought to the dinner party. He also wants to be able to provide a bigger wine list, a choice of five different appetizers, five different entrees, and five different desserts at each dinner.

While he hopes to go more upscale, Letteri has no desire to expand his business to multiple locations or multiple chefs. While he says he trusts his chefs enough to run the show, Letteri knows that his clients pay for him to be there.

“I hate going to a restaurant and the executive chef isn’t there,” he explains.

Letteri will, in fact, turn down publicity opportunities if he thinks they will make his business too big or impersonal.
As it is right now, Letteri is living his dream.

“Imagine the best day of his life, whatever it is, and picture that day, every day, for three years. And it hasn’t run out yet, so milk that feeling out for as long as you possibly can and just enjoy it.”

To commemorate his move to Winchester, Letteri is offering “on the house” wine pairings, a $45 dollar per person value, for the first 25 diners of Simplicity starting Monday, Aug. 11.