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Creators
of Hearth >Marco
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Marco Canora's
appreciation for good food developed when he was
a child growing up in a river town in upstate
New York. He especially looked forward to the
summer months when his mother would harvest vegetables
and herbs from the family garden and prepare the
dishes that she had enjoyed during her own childhood
in Lucca, Italy.
By the time
he was a teenager, Marco had developed an active
interest in food and in cooking. Working in his
uncle's television store did little to spark his
imagination, but when a friend got him a job washing
dishes at a well-respected local restaurant, Marco
began to see all kinds of possibilities for his
future. A quick study, he went from dishwasher
to pot-scrubber and eventually on to garde manger,
a position that made him responsible for all cold
dishes in the restaurant.
After graduating
from high school, Marco moved to New York City
to attend Pace University, where he earned a degree
in international marketing. While at Pace, Marco
worked for a booking agency with connections to
the music industry, but this desk job left him
unsatisfied, and it was not long before he went
in search of restaurant work once again. This
time, he landed as a prep cook in Dean and Deluca's
prepared foods kitchen, a job that gave him an
appreciation of just how much high quality produce
a chef can get his hands on.
With college behind him,
Marco decided to leave New York and set off on
a cross country motorcycle trip. During a year-long
stopover in Boulder, Colorado, he worked as a
line cook at Winston's, a seafood restaurant at
the Hotel Boulderado. Then, it was on to San Francisco,
where he quickly found work at Backstage, a restaurant
in the theater district. At Backstage, Marco soon
took on the responsibilities of day-time sous
chef and was later promoted to night-time sous
chef. After spending a little over a year out
west, Marco began to feel the pull of home and
decided to return to New York City. This time,
however, he had a clear goal in mind. He wanted
to work at one of the city's most acclaimed restaurants.
Gramercy Tavern,
a much-talked about newcomer, was looking for
line cooks and offered Marco a job. The match
proved to be a fortuitous one. Not only was Marco
now working in one of Manhattan's up and coming
restaurants, he was also given time off to enhance
his professional skills, traveling to Florence,
Italy where he worked at Fabbio Picchi's world
renowned restaurant, Cibreo. When he asked for
the summer off so that he could start La Cucina,
his own fifty-seat seasonal restaurant in Edgartown,
Massachusetts, he was told that a position would
still be waiting for him when he returned in the
fall.
La Cucina
turned out to be an unprecedented success for
Marco, earning him positive coverage from such
publications as The Boston Globe and bringing
him a bevy of celebrity customers. The most well-known
was then-President Bill Clinton, for whom Marco
catered a fiftieth birthday celebration.
After returning
from his second summer at La Cucina, Marco was
promoted to night-time sous chef at Gramercy Tavern,
but he soon found himself craving involvement
in a new restaurant venture and spoke to Gramercy's
chef/owner Tom Colicchio about this goal. As luck
would have it, Tom had just started to think about
opening a new restaurant and needed an executive
chef, someone who would be responsible for designing
the menu and overseeing all kitchen operations.
When Craft restaurant opened in 2001, Marco was
at the helm. Under Marco's watch, Craft won the
James Beard award for best new restaurant and
garnered three stars from The New York Times.
Marco himself also received some long-awaited
credit for his efforts in the kitchen. U.S.A.
Today noted that Chef Canora's cuisine has won
near universal praise. While Craft grew in popularity,
Marco's job description expanded. Not only was
he running the Craft kitchen, but he also became
responsible for designing the opening menu and
managing the kitchen of Craft's more casual sibling,
Craftbar. In addition, he traveled to Las Vegas
to oversee the opening of Craftsteak and then
to Tokyo to bring Craft's menu to diners at The
New York Grill, an acclaimed restaurant in The
Park Hyatt Hotel.
Although the option
of staying at Craft and riding the wave of its
success was certainly tempting, in the fall of
2003 Marco decided to strike out on his own. Shortly
after leaving Craft, he opened Hearth Restaurant
with fellow Gramercy alum Paul Grieco.
While the opening
months of operating his own restaurant proved
challenging, Marco has enjoyed some proud moments
as Hearth's co-owner and chef. In the spring of
2004, the restaurants success landed him an appearance
on The Today Show with Katie Couric and the chance
to teach a cooking class at Macy's for the De
Gustibus culinary series. Right now, he is looking
forward to whatever other professional opportunities
may unfold.
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