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only 15 and
graduated from the Milwaukee Area Technical College's restaurant and hotel
management program. He continued to work in restaurants while in college,
learning quality, quantity and proportion of ingredients, the three components
of taste. Like all students, he started preparing ingredients and plating
the final dishes. Over time he developed his taste memory, essential to
being able to consistently reproduce a recipe: Bartolotta believes a cook
cannot make a great dish unless he (or she) already has the taste in mind
prior to beginning actual preparations.
Bartolotta's
real education in the business began with New York restaurateur Tony May,
owner of San Domenico and founder of Gruppo Ristorantori Italiani, an
international food society devoted to maintaining classical Italian cooking.
May arranged for Bartolotta to work and study in Italy; a six-month tour
of duty turned into seven years. Working at some of Italy's most prestigious
restaurants, he learned all aspects of running a fine restaurant. Stops
included LoCanda dell'Angelo in Liguria (with Chef Angelo Paracucchi),
Ristorante San Domenico in Imola (with Gian-Luigi Morini, and Valentino
Marcattilii, who had learned from Nino Bergese). In two years he earned
the title chef di cucina at San Domenico-Imola, then moved on to Lombardia,
Il Sole DI Maleo, Liguria in Recco at La Manuelina, Toscana in Viareggio
at Ristorante Romano, La Morra in Ponte Moriano near Lucca and Cacciani
in Frascati outside Rome. His recollections of his travels include dining
in almost every important restaurant in Italy, hunting with special dogs
for the elusive white truffle, collecting mushrooms and chestnuts, visiting
regional marketplaces, cleaning partridge and squab still warm from the
hunt, working with a whole wild boar and participating in fishing expeditions
in the Mediterranean. Bartolotta also took advantage of the opportunity
to visit an olive pressing mill and distilleries of special liqueurs and
grappa, as well as to watch the harvest and press at some of Italy's great
wineries.
Returning to
San Domenico, he asked his mentors Morini and Marcattilii, as members
of the prestigious French food organizations Relais & Chateaux and
Tradition et Qualite, to organize a learning sojourn in France for him.
He visited four establishments, training at each for two to three months:
Moulin de Mougin under Roger Vergé, Paul Bocuse in Collognes at
Mont d'Or, Troisgros in Roanne and Taillevent in Paris. While in Paris,
he also studied pastry at Ecole LeNotre.
In 1987 he
brought all this knowledge and experience back to New York to work for
Tony May at Palio under Chef Andrea Hellrigl, working nights at Palio
and days on designs for San Domenico New York. Opening in 1988, it was
a collaboration of May, Morini, Marcattilii and Bartolotta. Under Chef
Bartolotta, San Domenico received an unprecedented three-star review from
Bryan Miller of The New York Times, was highly praised by Mimi Sheraton
in Conde Nast's Traveler as one of the top 50 restaurants in the United
States, earned five stars from John Mariani and Peter Meltzer, and was
honored by both Forbes Magazine and Esquire. Lifestyles of the Rich and
Famous included it on the list of 10 best restaurants in the United States
and Gault Millau guide gave San Domenico the highest rating for an Italian
restaurant, 17 out of a possible 20.
Moving to Spiaggia,
Bartolotta added to the restaurant's eclat. Spiaggia has won a four-diamond
rating from the American Automobile Association, was honored with the
Distinguished Restaurants of North America (DiRoNA) Award and cleaned
up on regional and city-wide awards and honors from the likes of Chicago
Magazine, Chicago Tribune critic Phil Vettel and nationally known food
critic Bill Rice.
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