About Larry Forgione

If James Beard was the founding father of contemporary American food, then Larry Forgione is its Benjamin Franklin - a proud, patriotic chef who was one of the first to embrace and communicate the virtues of our national cuisine and one who possessed the resourcefulness and inventiveness to change the world around him. Indeed, Forgione's name is apt because he helped forge today's culinary landscape. His influence on the American dining scene has been so far-reaching that, in June 1996, Life magazine identified him as one of the "50 Most Influential Baby Boomers", the only person chosen from the restaurant industry.

Born on Long Island in 1952, Larry Forgione attended the Culinary Institute of America, from which he graduated in 1974. Though raised and schooled in the United States, it wasn't until he was working at London's Connaught Hotel restaurant in the mid-1970's that he began ruminating about what was missing from America's culinary landscape. The revelatory moment came one day while he was enjoying the Connaught's poularde de Bresse: "I realized that for all of its fancy nomenclature and lineage, it reminded me of all the fresh foods I had grown up on in New York and taken for granted, but which then seemed to have disappeared."

Larry returned to the United States and took a job with The River Café in 1979. He used The River Café as his outpost as he set out to solve what he saw as the underlying impediment to superior American cuisine-the availability of food grown for chefs rather than simply for home cooks. He strove to create a system mirroring the model he had witnessed overseas by going directly to farmers who sold him the best fruits and vegetables available; identifying mycologists and foragers who found him the best wild mushrooms; securing wonderful cheeses from American purveyors; and on and on. When he asked an egg farmer to raise chickens for him the same way his grandmother Stella did-allowing them to roam all day rather than being cooped up - he coined the now familiar term "free range."

An enthusiastic fan of America as well as American cooking, Forgione has made plenty of room in his career for food lovers outside New York City. In 1981, he co-founded American Spoon Foods, a specialty food company. Based in Petoskey, Michigan, the company produces the highest quality preserves, jams, relishes, spoon foods (no-sugar preservatives), unique dried fruits and wild nuts, salad dazzlers and a variety of sauces and salsas. The entire product line is available through seven company-owned retail stores, a mail order catalog and many leading gourmet shops across the country.

If cooking is an art, then Forgione opened his first masterpiece in 1983 when he introduces An American Place to Manhattan's Upper East Side, (The name was actually suggested by one of his mentors, the late James Beard, with whom he would spend hours discussing our national menu.) The humility of the name perfectly summed up the feeling of the menu, which exclusively featured American grown and produced products. In 1988 the restaurant relocated to a larger, grander space at Two Park Avenue and at the termination of the lease in 1999, moved to 525 Lexington Avenue at 50th Street.

An American Place Restaurant, as well as, Larry Forgione's Signature Café is now part of Lord & Taylor's Fifth Avenue flagship store. Larry's Signature Café is currently in three store locations.

In 1991, Forgione opened The Beekman 1766 Tavern at the Beekman Arms, the oldest inn in America, in Rhinebeck, New York. It was named one of Esquire's Best New Restaurants that year and The New York Times' Bryan Miller selected it as one of the 10 Best Destination Restaurants.

Forgione's efforts in the kitchen have been recognized by the two most revered institutions in the industry. The Culinary Institute of America named him "Chef of the Year" and the James Beard Foundation honored him with the award "America's Best Chef" in 1993. In 1997, in a fitting echo of that fateful moment at the Connaught Hotel restaurant, he was the only American chef invited to cook for the hotel's Centennial celebration, joining such legends as Paul Bocuse, Roger Vergè and Pierre Troisgrois.

Forgione has also been a major force in two prominent cookbooks. In 1996, he collaborated on Heart Healthy Cooking for All Seasons, working with Dr. Marvin Moser of Yale University as well as fellow luminaries Alice Waters and Jimmy Schmidt. In 1996, he published An American Place cookbook which won the 1996 James Bear Foundation Award for "Best American Cookbook." He was also a contributing editor with his own column in both Traditional Homes Magazine and Cook's Magazine.

Following the notion that food is the stuff of life, Forgione has put his influence to use in the service of many altruistic gals. He is a founding trustee of the James Beard Foundation and is credited with the actual funding drive that purchased Jim Beard's West 12th Street brownstone as headquarters for the foundation. He is also a passionate supporter of the CIA's externship Program and a founder of Fresh Start, where chefs teach inmates at Riker's Island how to cook and work together in a kitchen. Additionally, he is a co-founder of the Annual American Chefs Tribute to James Beard, a culinary gala benefiting Citymeals-on-Wheels. That event to date has raised over $9.0 million dollars.

In 1999, Forgione spearheaded a coalition of chefs, restaurateurs and health professionals to promote the National Taste for Healthy Living Collaborative, a nationwide effort to offer guests interesting and flavorful low-fat menu items where the calories and fat do not exceed 30 percent.

In spring 2000, Hilton Hotels simultaneously opened two new luxury hotels in NYC, the Times Square Hilton and their new flagship Embassy Suites Hotel in Battery Park. This assignment included the opening of their three restaurants, approximately 15,000 square feet of banquet and meeting room facilities, 24 hour room service for their combined 1000 rooms.

In 2003 An American Place celebrated its Twentieth Anniversary of serving Larry's inspired American Cooking.

In October 2004 An American Place opened in St. Louis at 822 Washington Avenue, adjacent to the Renaissance Grand Hotel. The restaurant is the former lobby of the Statler Hotel, built in 1917. After under-going renovations that meticulously restored it to its original 1917 grandeur, is now an American Landmark and on The National Register of Historic Places.

In 2008 Wynn Resorts contracted Larry to oversee the operations of the restaurant Tableau, the restaurant responsible for Wynn Towers to receive its Five Star and Five Diamond Awards. Tableau was to be converted and remodeled to become An American Place. This project has been halted due to the economic turn down.

In 2009 Larry was called upon to solidify the culinary operations of the newly renovated Monkey Bar in NYC.

Larry is currently consulting as the Culinary Director of the Clarke's Restaurant Group.