150: Italian Pasta Nights with an American Accent with Renato Poliafito
AnthroDish22 Apr 2025

150: Italian Pasta Nights with an American Accent with Renato Poliafito

Throughout this season, we've been exploring immigrant narratives around food: roles in food systems, labour, and diasporic food stories. Part of this is making sense of the "ish" elements to identities through food, which my guest this week, Renato Poliafito, does beautifully.

Renato is a James Beard-nominated restaurateur, pastry chef, cookbook author, designer, and entrepreneur based in Brooklyn, NY. After a graphic design and advertising career, Renato pivoted to food, training as a barista to learn more about the industry, eventually opening Baked in 2005. This kicked off a culinary renaissance in the waterfront neighbourhood, resulting in several cookbooks, a line of mixes, granola, bakeware, a location in Tokyo, and multiple James Beard nominations. After over a decade at Baked, Renato embarked on a new project. He opened Ciao, Gloria in Prospect Heights in 2019, a daytime café and neighbourhood bakery steeped in his Italian-American upbringing and heritage.

Inspired by the monthly pasta events he did briefly at Ciao, Gloria, pre-pandemic, Renato opened a sister concept on Vanderbilt Avenue called Pasta Night, a casual pasta concept, in October 2024. He is also the author of Dolci!: American Baking with an Italian Accent, his first solo cookbook featuring Italian and "Italian American-ish" cakes, cookies, pies, and pastries for any occasion.

In this conversation, Renato explores how he infused his culture and background into Ciao, Gloria, and Pasta Nights, how he switches between his Italian and American heritages to build their menus, and his perspectives on creating community in Brooklyn and Italian-American eating experiences that speak to American-style dining.

Learn More About Renato:

Episoder(185)

146: Flavour's Role in Food System Fixes with Franco Fubini

146: Flavour's Role in Food System Fixes with Franco Fubini

The idea of industrial food systems is flat, heavy, and feels complex to access. It brings up connotations of very bland, hyper-processed foods made to reach a large number of people at a low cost. Th...

12 Mar 202536min

145: Exploring the Biodiversity of Climate-Smart Crops with Shreema Mehta

145: Exploring the Biodiversity of Climate-Smart Crops with Shreema Mehta

Industrial food systems tend to use mono-crop and unilinear approaches to supplying the Global North with food. But what happens when we consider more diverse crops? My guest today, Shreema Mehta, wil...

4 Mar 202525min

144: The Rich History of Georgian Wines with Sarah May Grunwald

144: The Rich History of Georgian Wines with Sarah May Grunwald

When it comes to wine, I have a tendency to retreat and panic: I don't know anything, and I certainly don't feel like I have the means to access the knowledge. I often wonder if that's a common experi...

25 Feb 202553min

143: Unpacking the Absent Food Citizen in Policy with Isabela Bonnevera

143: Unpacking the Absent Food Citizen in Policy with Isabela Bonnevera

This week, we're exploring the idea of the food citizen, or perhaps more accurately, the absent food citizen, with Isabela Bonnevera. Isabela is a doctoral researcher at ICTA-UAB, and engages with par...

18 Feb 202539min

142: What Role Does Food Play in Fiction Writing? with Margaux Vialleron

142: What Role Does Food Play in Fiction Writing? with Margaux Vialleron

One of the most frustrating parts of watching Gossip Girl growing up was witnessing the elaborate breakfast spreads that the families had each morning, only for the main characters to grab a piece of ...

26 Nov 202432min

141: Uncovering Medieval Pictish Foodways through Paleobotany with Dr. Shalen Prado

141: Uncovering Medieval Pictish Foodways through Paleobotany with Dr. Shalen Prado

Oftentimes, when we think about plant-human relationships, we're thinking about our contemporary lives and how plants factor into it – be it North American plant-based diets or what we're growing in o...

19 Nov 202433min

140: Recovering from Restrictive Online Diet Myths with Dr. Sarah Ballantyne

140: Recovering from Restrictive Online Diet Myths with Dr. Sarah Ballantyne

Diet culture on the internet is excellent at sensationalizing our food to the point of panic. I'm sure many of you have seen the videos across TikTok and Instagram where someone positions themselves a...

12 Nov 202442min

139: What Makes for Good Food Policy? with Chef Joshna Maharaj

139: What Makes for Good Food Policy? with Chef Joshna Maharaj

One downside I find when I spend too much time on the internet is that there's an overwhelming viewpoint that the system is broken and there's not much we can do to change that – or that food, in gene...

5 Nov 202448min

Populært innen Samfunn

rss-spartsklubben
giver-og-gjengen-vg
aftenpodden
konspirasjonspodden
aftenpodden-usa
popradet
rss-nesten-hele-uka-med-lepperod
rss-henlagt-andy-larsgaard
lydartikler-fra-aftenposten
min-barneoppdragelse
grenselos
wolfgang-wee-uncut
synnve-og-vanessa
rss-dette-ma-aldri-skje-igjen
rss-espen-lee-usensurert
fladseth
frokostshowet-pa-p5
alt-fortalt
relasjonspodden-med-dora-thorhallsdottir-kjersti-idem
rss-dannet-uten-piano