French-Italian Fusion Is Here — and It’s Marvelous

2024 F&W Best New Chefs Camari Mick and Mary Attea deliver gobs of deliciousness at two dramatically different restaurants: Raf’s, where the food is a luscious romp through France and Italy, and The Musket Room, where the flavor-packed global tasting menu is brilliantly executed.

Together, executive chef Mary Attea and executive pastry chef Camari Mick oversee two of the most arresting and modern restaurants operating in New York City right now. There’s The Musket Room, which offers an intricate, elegant, and border-hopping fine-dining menu with dishes that are works of art. And then there’s Raf’s, with a menu that deftly bounces between France and Italy in a head-spinning decadence that all but demands you stay late and order all the desserts. At these two distinct concepts — which are literally down the street from each other — Attea and Mick demonstrate an impressive, shape-shifting versatility as chefs. Everything they do feels so effortlessly precise and is done with bravado and style.

Attea began working in restaurants while studying for a master’s in forensic psychology in New York City. She attended culinary school and interned at 2001 F&W Best New Chef Anita Lo’s Annisa, where Attea moved all the way up the ranks to chef de cuisine. “It was a lot of French technique with inspiration from all over the world,” she says of the global cooking at Annisa. “And that’s how I like to cook today, because it left the pantry open.” Eventually, she landed the executive chef position at The Musket Room.

Originally from Easton, Pennsylvania, Mick knew what she wanted to do since she was little, even asking for and getting a stand mixer for Christmas when she was 12. (It still works!) Her pandemic-era bakery hustled brown butter–apple doughnuts on Instagram; it went viral and drew the attention of The Musket Room owners, who brought her in for an interview. “They were like, ‘We see your work on Instagram,’” remembers Mick. “‘We’ve heard about you. You’re hired, if you want the job.’” First at The Musket Room and later at Raf’s, Attea and Mick developed a close, collaborative working relationship, which Attea describes as a “cohesive style of creating.”

The Musket Room and Raf’s are vastly different operations. Dinner at The Musket Room leans more upscale — a fine-dining destination with a rustic-chic, neighborhood feel. It offers both an à la carte and a tasting menu (with an inclusive vegan option), pulling from Mick’s and Attea’s heritages and travels, with meticulously plated dishes that Attea calls a “canvas for what we consider our art pieces.” It’s a layered, complex menu that changes year after year and demands communication and an “involved creative process,” according to Attea. “It really does require a lot of our thought and creative energy to come up with dishes that excite us and try new flavors or try new techniques that we’ve learned.” On the savory side, you might see a vaguely Spanish-inspired dish like a grilled Ibérico pork with rhubarb, smoked almond puree, and sherry; on the sweet side, a Madagascar vanilla–infused cheesecake with mango chutney, smoked Tajín, and housemade chamoy.

Having opened in 2023, Raf’s, in contrast, is an all-day bakery/café/restaurant with an ethos Attea describes as “fresh, vibrant flavors that are local, seasonal, and simple.” Dinner at Raf’s is a dimly lit, raucous affair, a celebrity haunt with tightly packed tables and servers trying to cram as many plates as can fit. Italy and France intersect in the wood-fired oven, in dishes that smartly marry the two country’s cuisines. The exceptional house-baked bread comes with butter and olive oil; escargot shells get filled with whipped lardo and herbs; a steak tartare has a soirée with anchovy and Parmigiano-Reggiano; and a half chicken, resting on roasted fennel and hunks of sourdough, has a little rendezvous with an Italian salsa verde. Mick’s desserts, while seemingly simple, are anything but straightforward: A classic French opera cake gets mashed up with a tiramisu, becoming a wholly new dessert. And a bergamot granita on a yogurt panna cotta gets a tableside dousing of olive oil.

In the mornings, Raf’s serves breakfast and operates as a bakery with standards like baguettes and focaccia. But then there are Mick’s French-Italian mash-up viennoiseries — like an almond croissant riffing on a cannoli, or a prosciutto and Taleggio croissant — that would probably fracture the EU faster than any Russian euroskeptic disinformation campaign ever could.

Working at both restaurants requires them to use distinct parts of their brains. “It definitely was a process to separate the two out,” says Attea. “I think when conceptualizing Raf’s, I really had to train my brain to stop getting so creative and overthinking the dishes.” It’s the same for Mick. “At Musket Room, I love to be able to really get complex and linear and granular with all the desserts,” she says, “But at Raf’s, you have to keep it simple.”

At both restaurants, it’s an elaborate, cooperative effort between Attea and Mick, one that’s almost like a relay race, where a baton gets gracefully handed off between the two. “If she’s going to do something with rhubarb,” says Mick of how ingredients sometimes echo across the tasting menu at The Musket Room, and even on your way back home, “I’m probably going to use it in a petit four. As you’re in your taxi home and you take a bite, it could take you back to that moment in the restaurant.”

The perfect order at Raf’s

Half chicken

The magnificent, juicy half chicken gets rubbed in fennel pollen and roasted in the wood-fired oven. Served alongside caramelized fennel, the chicken rests on top of hunks of sourdough, which soak up all the drippings, and then it all gets topped with a tangle of herbs and dressed in olive oil and a bright Italian salsa verde. It’s the sort of dish that inspires hushed tones.

Escargot

The food at Raf’s sometimes leans a bit more on the Italian side, and more specifically with a Sicilian or even coastal Italian bent. Filled with whipped lardo and herbs, the escargot — earthy, herby, bright, punchy, and out of this world — goes where no snail has gone before.

Yogurt panna cotta with bergamot granita

“It’s one of the simple desserts that just hits in the right way,” says Mick, who uses locally made yogurt in this dessert. “A little bit of vanilla bean in there, just to round it out and give it some balance. The bergamot granita is so hard and gets you in the back of your throat.” Then they hit it with olive oil served tableside. “It just makes you feel like you’re sitting on a bench in Tuscany,” says Mick. “Super light, refreshing, and just overall delicious.”

Opera cake

A French-Italian mash-up dessert, the opera cake at Raf’s is a riff on tiramisu. Or maybe it’s the other way around — a tiramisu that’s a riff on an opera cake. They’re “the same thing, essentially,” says Mick, finding the commonalities between the two and building from there. “We layer it with a chocolate dacquoise, espresso mousseline, and vanilla Chantilly, and then we glaze it with chocolate and top it with caramel ganache.” The end result is familiar, yet wholly new. “Super sweet and salty. Surprisingly light in body,” Mick says, describing the airy dessert. “But the flavor is luscious and light.”

About our methodology

Chefs who have been in charge of a kitchen or pastry program for five years or less are eligible for the F&W Best New Chef accolade. The process begins with Food & Wine soliciting and vetting nominations from Best New Chef alums, food writers, cookbook authors, and other trusted experts around the country. Then, Food & Wine scouts travel the country, each dining out in dozens of restaurants in search of the most promising and dynamic chefs right now. Food & Wine conducts background checks and requires each chef to share an anonymous multilingual survey with their staff that aims to gauge the workplace culture at each chef’s establishment. Chefs also participate in Food & Wine’s Best New Chef Mentorship Program to empower themselves with the skills and tools they need to grow personally and professionally as leaders and to successfully navigate challenges and opportunities in their careers.

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