Arrive Magazine - July/August, 2008

here’s where Moscatello starts picking
up speed.
The new restaurant (set to open
later this year) is still being planned
(even the name is undecided), but one
thing is certain as far as Moscatello
is concerned: It will be authentic Ital-
ian and “real approachable.” Some
200-plus seats will spread across a
gelato area, a market area, a raw bar
and a salumi area that’ll serve house-
made charcuterie with attention to
detail and top-notch ingredients. Old
school, but not old-fashioned.
To that end Moscatello will visit
Italy in coming months, working
and studying in restaurant kitch-
ens, which will be a little like going
home, or at least back to his roots.
His grandparents emigrated from
Italy, and Italian fare was always a
part of his growing up in Bloomfield,
N.J., under the watchful spatula of his
mother, Marguerite.
“It all started with my mom be-
ing a home-ec teacher,” he recalls,
recounting being dragged along to
class with her and sitting attentively
in the front row.
From there it was a summer dish-
washing job at a pancake house on
Long Beach Island, N.J., which set the
stage for the first big turn in Mosca-
tello’s cooking path.
“One day I started flipping pan-
cakes when the chef didn’t show up
for his shift,” he recalls. “That was my
big break.” He was 14 and a few years
later, at 19, he briefly ran a steak and
lobster joint before heading off to
Colorado in pursuit of snowboarding.
One thing led to another in Colo-
rado (and in Panama and Deer Valley,
Utah, and back in Colorado) and

FREDDELIEBERMAN

Moscatello was being called one of
10 best new chefs in America (Food &
Wine magazine) and chef of the year
(Denver’s 5280 magazine) and so on.
Which leads, quite deliciously,
back to Zola, where Moscatello, now
39, has been serving something the
menu calls “straightforward American
cuisine.” That means, he says, using
American ingredients and celebrat-
ing traditional American dishes but
always with a playful twist. Like, for
example, the TV dinners served in the
bar at Zola: ceramic instead of tin,
and beef cheeks instead of Salisbury
steak, but still a compartment in the
middle for the dessert, in this case,
red velvet cupcakes.
Plenty of gusto in Moscatello’s
approach, like a snowboarder flying
down the mountain savoring every
turn and every drop of cold, melted
snow running down his grinning face.
Zola
800 F St., NW
Washington, D.C.
202-654-0999