SIMPLIFYING

A Simple Tomato Salad

You don’t have to cook fancy or complicated masterpieces—just good food from fresh ingredients.

JULIA CHILD

Most summer nights at my restaurant, we make one particular dish for almost every table: the tomato salad. It’s straightforward, but incredibly satisfying. To make it, I marinate fresh heirloom tomatoes in extra-virgin olive oil, local gin, a bit of sea salt, and fresh herbs.

As uncomplicated as the salad is, it took me years to learn to make it. Its evolution mirrors the way I’ve changed as a cook: once reveling in complex techniques, now finding joy in simplicity.

The dish originated with an heirloom tomato terrine I made at a four-star restaurant in Manhattan, which involved roasting tomatoes in olive oil for 24 hours, meticulously peeling them and removing their seeds, making a gelatin out of tomato water, layering it all in a terrine mold to set for a day, and making a tomato-gin foam to serve on top. It was a long, technical process that would never fly at a casual Brooklyn restaurant or at home, so I edited out all but the few elements I needed to retain the flavors and balance of the dish.

Surprisingly, the relaxed Brooklyn version of this tomato terrine became the dish that put me on the culinary map in New York. In his review of James, The New York Times restaurant critic Frank Bruni wrote, “No bigger, brasher restaurant around town served me an heirloom tomato salad this summer that I enjoyed any more than the one at James.”

Even in the biggest, most competitive city, the straightforward nature of a simple tomato salad using the best ingredients and a touch of flair can be a winner. That salad represents an important lesson: Fresh, quality ingredients produce delicious food on their own. Sometimes, your job is to let the ingredients do the work.