Illustration: Maanvi Kapur
“I’ve always loved extreme things,” says Hillary Sterling, executive chef of the “Italian-inflected” restaurant Ci Siamo in the newly minted neighborhood of Manhattan West. “I love riding my bike for 100 miles, and I’m running a half-marathon in two weeks.” She’s also launching her first cookbook, Ammazza!, next month, and will open a Boston outpost of her restaurant later this year. But before that, she has to get through “a race that’s like a cross between running and CrossFit, with eight different exercise stations, and you have to run a kilometer between each one,” she says. And even then, she’s thinking about food: “I do a lot of my best menu planning toward the end of my runs, where I’m running through dishes in my head and nothing else is in my way.”
Tuesday, April 7
My alarm goes off at 6:15, but my feet hit the ground closer to 6:30. I share a South Williamsburg apartment with my wife, Tess McNamara, and our almost-4-year-old-son, Rowan. It’s a bit of a race to see how much can happen before he gets up. The primary goal is to have lunch packed and breakfast ready by the time he wanders out of his room looking for us.
First things first: espresso, made on my De’Longhi La Specialista. Tess is the director of fresh products for Eataly, which means there’s a regular rotation of Italian beans in the house — this week it’s Caffe Vergnano.
We also have two gray longhair cats, Sable and Sardine, who are sisters. They’re gorgeous but pains in the ass — everywhere and nowhere all at the same time. Sable just wants to eat the chicken I make for my son, and once she ate my takeout Peter Luger burger when I left it unattended. Sardine doesn’t beg for food, but she hates me. Tess likes cats more than I do, and I think Sardine sees through me.
Rowan eventually starts yelling “Mom!” and quickly eats some yogurt with blackberries. I think about putting the rest of the blackberries away, but it feels like too much work for 7:30 a.m., so I eat exactly eight blackberries.
We head off for school (technically camp, since it’s spring break) a little after 8 a.m., and Rowan asks to stop at the “cookie store.” That is, in fact, Birdee, a bakery that is one of our favorite newish additions to the neighborhood. The only rule is “nothing chocolate” in the morning. Today, we opt for the seasonal strawberry-coconut Danish (excellent), although most days I try to steer Rowan toward the plain croissant. We both have a quick sugar boost before heading off for the day.
After drop-off, I have a window for exercise, which I try hard to protect. Today it’s a quick stop at Equinox in Domino, before I rush home to shower and hop on a Citi Bike headed for Ci Siamo. That takes me between 26 and 35 minutes, depending on if I catch the lights.
I always park in front of Mercado Little Spain, then cut across Tenth Avenue to get to the restaurant. I stop by Whole Foods and grab a Suja Organics turmeric-ginger juice, which I pair with some cottage cheese and crackers in the office before heading into the kitchen for the day. Every morning, when I hop on the line, there’s a perfectly boiled egg waiting for me thanks to one of my cooks, Dauriz Ramirez. I eat it with salt and hot sauce, which is just what I need to power me through the lunch rush.
Today is a special day because we’re hosting a Passover dinner. That means lots of recipe testing and tasting throughout the day. I’ve been really excited about this menu: marinated tongue with pickled ramps and chiles; a matzo “lasagna” with lamb, black olives, and escarole; matzo-fried chicken served with a chili vinaigrette and green-goddess sauce; and this absolutely crazy take on an Italian stracciatella soup that I reinterpreted as a Chinese rice roll filled with eggs, ramps, and Pecorino. We’re also serving a baccala mantecato as part of the antipasti platter, and it’s not quite right when I taste it after lunch service. I eat an enormous amount of smoked fish to recalibrate.
I was raised Jewish, in a half-kosher, half-not-kosher household. We shared the house with my grandparents, and my grandmother was an amazing kosher cook. She lived in the first-floor apartment, and we lived on the top two floors. Downstairs, we didn’t eat shellfish or have milk with dinner. But my mom, who grew up not very religious, loved bacon and cheeseburgers and had no problem cooking those things. I grew up crossing borders and pushing boundaries — so why not mix it up at Passover?
Dinner gets moving early, and we have 50 guests arrive on the terrace for 6 p.m. It’s really beautiful — one of those nights when everyone on the team feels a greater sense of purpose.
We don’t wrap up until after 10:30, and I haven’t had much in terms of a proper dinner. Luckily, Tess was at Passover, and I box up all of our leftovers for her to take home. I eat matzo fried chicken and the remnants of the lasagna standing up at our kitchen island around midnight, before calling it a night.
Wednesday, April 8
It’s a slower start to the day, but the espresso machine is going by 7 a.m., and Rowan is up a few minutes later. It’s peanut-butter toast for him, more blackberries for both of us, and we’re out the door.
Wednesdays are an especially important workout day: sled pushes, burpee broad jumps, assault bike, and SkiErg on repeat for 45 minutes; I love it so much. Tess thinks I’m crazy.
Before work, I secure my usual ginger-turmeric juice on my walk through Whole Foods, followed by cottage cheese and the hard-boiled egg that Dauriz has left on my cutting board.
Every day before lunch and dinner service, my kitchen team prepares a small tasting plate for me consisting of all our sauces, vegetables, proteins, and a few pastas. I like to taste all the ingredients on their own to make sure that our bases have been seasoned correctly. I’m hyperfocused on training all of my cooks on the fundamentals of taste. It sounds so basic, but actually training your palate — being able to perceive individual flavors is incredibly difficult. To me, a discerning palate is what separates good cooks from great cooks.
We’re putting a new pasta dish on the menu tonight, orecchiette with ramps and pistachio pesto, so my afternoon is spent adjusting the pistachio-pesto-to-butter-to-ramp ratio until we’ve found the right balance. It’s ready in time for dinner service and tastes like a hopeful first sign of spring.
This afternoon, I’m out of the kitchen a bit earlier than usual to pick up Rowan. We stop by Misipasta for an afternoon snack and menu-planning session with my friend Missy Robbins. This works well for Rowan, since Misi the restaurant and Missy the person are two of his favorite things. We share an order of chickpeas, and Rowan has some pasta.
At home, I make one of our favorites for dinner: turkey larb with sticky rice. This recipe has been part of my “cooking at home” rotation for years, so much so that I added it to my cookbook. It might otherwise feel a little out of place within a book consisting of mostly Italian recipes, but it’s such an easy fridge-clean-out, anytime-of-the-year recipe that I needed to include it. The sticky rice is made fully in the microwave, inspired by a recipe from the Night + Market Cookbook. Tess and I enjoy ours with an Other Half IPA and a generous helping of chiles.
Thursday, April 9
Alarm and espresso No. 1 (usually of about four or five). I make us some egg burritos using Caramelo flour tortillas that we buy at Marlow & Daughters — truly the best of the best. A stop at “the cookie store” is requested, and I comply. This time, my not-so-subtle advocacy for the plain croissant wins out.
Citi Bike to work; Whole Foods; ginger juice; cottage cheese; hard-boiled egg; and my usual tasting plate to kick off lunch service. We’re busy, and one of Rowan’s classmates is here to celebrate his fourth birthday. I run out and pick up some candles and apple-juice boxes to make their celebration extra-special.
This afternoon, we’re R&D-ing an asparagus dish that we served as part of Passover; I want to give it a permanent spot on the dinner menu. We soak dates in sweet vermouth, purée them, and incorporate Champagne vinegar and white-wine vinegar to create a sauce for the asparagus, to which we add chunks of bleu cheese and ramps. I eat too much bleu cheese, but by the time dinner service gets going, the dish is ready to be verbalized as a special.
Dinner service starts early and stays busy all the way through. At Ci Siamo, our kitchen in the back is entirely open and faces a massive wood-fired grill. Anyone in the dining room can usually find me on expo, but I’m always jumping around depending on which station is getting hit especially hard.
Tonight, I’m at the pasta station, and I keep tasting one of our newer dishes to make sure it’s where we want it to be. It’s a really simple dish from the outside — corzetti (a very thin coin-shaped pasta) with Montauk red shrimp that we have gently cured and marinated, some spring garlic, fennel pollen, and chiles, and then we finish it with lemon and orange. It’s really hard to make sure everything is balanced and nothing is overpowering the sweetness of the shrimp.
I head out late and eat a sad couch dinner consisting of pretzel crisps and Wegmans hummus (plus a not-so-sad negroni made with a new Mexican gin I discovered, Condesa Clásica) while I catch up on menu writing.
Friday, April 10
It’s a frittata morning, enjoyed alongside my espresso and Rowan’s blackberries. During my early days of working brunch at Vic’s, on Great Jones Street, I tanked because I didn’t know how to cook eggs. Italians don’t really do brunch, so I was in for a rude awakening every Saturday and Sunday morning. Finally, a kind chef friend took pity on me and taught me how to properly season a massive amount of eggs — ten grams of salt per flat (24) of eggs.
After I drop Rowan off, I go for a three-mile run from his school up through Greenpoint and down the Williamsburg waterfront. I stop into Devoción for a cold brew, before getting ready and grabbing a Citi Bike over to Ci Siamo.
It’s the usual combination of juice, cottage cheese, and a hard-boiled egg, before a busy afternoon of meetings. On Fridays, there’s no real lull between lunch and dinner service, and we’re moving all afternoon long.
I’m out earlyish for dinner at home with Tess and Rowan. Friday night is movie night, so we do takeout and a movie. Here’s a tip for anyone living in the greater Williamsburg area: You can get a Peter Luger burger delivered on Caviar. I first discovered this a year or so ago, and I was suspicious. I realize this is going to absolutely enrage some people, but it’s actually better that way. I’m willing to stake my reputation on it. I’ve said it to David Berson. It helps that I only live a few blocks away, but the delivery time gives the burger proper rest and allows the cheese to steam. We order two burgers, creamed spinach, and Caesar salad, with an IPA for me and a mezcal and tonic for Tess.
It’s Rowan’s choice for the movie. Right now he’s really into Encanto and Coco. But last weekend, I was surprised when he asked for The Jungle Book. I was like, Okay, a cartoon from 1967. That’s right up our alley!
Saturday, April 11
Since becoming parents, weekends have shifted from a choose-your-own-adventure kind of spontaneity to a fully scheduled affair. Today, that looks like a birthday party for one of Rowan’s friends at Jane’s Carousel in Dumbo. Rowan asks if he can wear his cow costume. He doesn’t like wearing pants or a coat, and it’s a very warm, thick costume, so I say, “Okay.”
We have our usual espresso and breakfast at home, before hopping on the ferry. Once we’re at the carousel, our VIP birthday-party-guest status grants us unlimited carousel rides. After an hour or so of constant rotation, Rowan enjoys an ice-cream cone from Mister Softee and we swing by Breads Bakery for chocolate rugelach.
We hop on the ferry back to South Williamsburg with a few other families from the birthday party. We aren’t planning on it, but we decide to have an impromptu midafternoon picnic close to our apartments. I run over to Fini Pizza and get a long-hot-pepper-and-shallot pie, plus a bottle of Langhe Chardonnay. It’s nice to know that spontaneity isn’t totally dead.
We stop by Marlow & Daughters for some dinner inspiration on the walk home and decide on some beautiful pork coppa chops, plus a hot dog for Rowan and some asparagus. I marinate the chops in harissa and tahini and grill them up on our roof. We enjoy them with Other Half’s Rabe, its newest double IPA. Rowan is so tired that he falls asleep right after dinner, mid-sentence, in his cow costume.
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