Zak Pelaccio
Posted on 21. Feb, 2010 by admin in Chefs
Fatty Crab
http://fattycrab.com/
Fatty Crab West Village
643 Hudson Streethttp
New York, NY 10014 212-352-3592
Fatty Crab UWS
2170 Broadway
New York, NY 10024
212-496-2722
Zakary Pelaccio is the award-winning executive chef/partner at the critically acclaimed Fatty Crab, a small Southeast Asian eatery focusing on Malaysian Cuisine. Prior to opening Fatty Crab in 2005, Zakary was the executive chef/partner at the critically acclaimed 5 Ninth Restaurant, located in the heart of Manhattan’s Meatpacking District. Previously, Zakary was the chef at the highly lauded Chickenbone Café, a modern gastropub located in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. In 2007, Zakary Pelaccio developed a Malaysian-influenced restaurant called Suka, in London’s ultra-hip Sanderson Hotel that won England’s Food & Travel Magazine “Best Asian Restaurant of 2007” award. Zakary’s most recent endeavors include Cabrito, a small Mexican eatery in Greenwich Village that utilizes local products. Zakary opened a second Fatty Crab on the Upper West Side of Manhattan on March 4, 2009 and is also in the process of opening a Southeast Asian influence barbecue restaurant called Fatty ‘Cue located in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
Zakary’s approach to food is not only a product of time spent with chef luminaries like Daniel Boulud and Thomas Keller, but is also heavily influenced by his travels across Western Europe and his time spent traveling throughout Asia and living in Malaysia. Fatty Crab is based on Zakary’s experiences in Kuala Lumpur and his favorite Malaysian restaurant just outside of Kuala Lumpur that specialized in Chili Crab and Malaysian Rotisserie Chicken Wings.
It is not only his global travels that inform his sense of culinary style; his palate is just as affected by his surroundings. Pelaccio is a passionate member of Slow Food, for which he edited a Slow Food USA eating and drinking guide to New York City, and is an ardent supporter of using fresh seasonal products from small, local farms and regional artisans and merchants. Zakary is also on the advisory board of Heritage Foods USA, a new company focused on resurrecting rare and near extinct breeds of animals indigenous to the United States.
Zakary began his culinary career by training as a manager and purchasing agent with the Myriad Group, NY, owners of Tribeca Grill, Montrachet and Nobu. He then moved to the Food Network, where he wrote scripts and worked as a field producer for the program “Dining Around,” which focused on reviewing restaurants throughout the country.
Soon afterward, Zakary began to follow his passion for food into the kitchen and spent time traveling and working in Asia. He worked as a cook for a year at the renowned Seri Melayu restaurant in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and spent time in the kitchen of the Westin Hotel in Chiang Mai, Thailand. Upon his return from the East, he attended the French Culinary Institute, from which he graduated first in his class. During that time, he worked at the critically acclaimed Union Pacific Restaurant. After graduation, he worked as a cook in some of the country’s most renowned restaurants—The French Laundry in Napa Valley, CA and Daniel in New York City. In addition to his culinary studies, Zakary received a BA from the University of Vermont with coursework completed in Florence, Italy, the University of California at Berkeley and Columbia University.
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The following is a list of recipes by Zak Pelaccio:
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