Ladner to Leave 'Del Posto' for Take-Out Pasta Venture

The cel­e­brated chef and win­ner of the James Beard ​“Best Chef in New York” award, Mark Ladner, announced he would be leav­ing his post as exec­u­tive chef at New York City’s four-star Del Posto restau­rant at the start of 2017 to ded­i­cate him­self to the launch of his quick-serve Pasta Flyer restau­rant, accord­ing to the New York Times.

He told the paper he hopes the idea will grow from the first restau­rant, planned for Greenwich Village, into a chain.

“Old world cui­sine at light speed” is the tagline behind Ladner’s ven­ture. The upscale fast food con­cept, born as a pop-up spot in 2014, is designed to serve gluten-free, high-qual­ity pasta dishes on the fly.

Ladner told the Times he had ​“cracked a code” in serv­ing up pasta in mere sec­onds: ​“a good bowl of pasta, rea­son­ably al dente, appro­pri­ately sauced, made with high-qual­ity ingre­di­ents, in the same amount of time it takes a Chipotle out­let to roll a bur­rito,” he said.

Lauded as the best of the best in his field, the mas­ter of regional Italian cook­ing attended the Olive Oil Program at New York’s International Culinary Center where he dis­cussed the Pasta Flyer project and demon­strated how he pairs extra vir­gin olive oils in his cook­ing.

The use of high-qual­ity ingre­di­ents, Ladner believes, thor­oughly trans­lates to his ver­sion of fast food and the method he has devel­oped for par-cook­ing, then re-heat­ing and sauc­ing, a small-pro­ducer-brand of pasta, Felicetti, in less than 20 sec­onds.

Meanwhile, as noted by The Times, Ladner’s suc­ces­sor, Melissa Rodriguez, will be the first woman to head a four-star New York City kitchen when she takes over the exec­u­tive chef posi­tion at Del Posto upon Ladner’s depar­ture.