A celebrity chef who specializes in Italian cuisine will visit a Livonia grocery store this weekend to meet fans and introduce them to his new line of jarred sauces.
If you’ve watched the Food Network during the past decade, you know Scott Conant. He’s been on more than 200 episodes of the competition show “Chopped” as a judge, but he’s also a real, working chef.
The Connecticut native studied at the Culinary Institute of America, has published four cookbooks and has several acclaimed restaurants, including a new one in the Bahamas. His latest venture is a new signature line of sauces, Martone Street, which are sold locally at Nino Salvaggio stores.
Each jar of sauce ($8.99) comes with a QR code that takes you to a video of Conant demonstrating different recipes.
Conant will be at the newest Nino’s, which opened in March in Livonia, 1-4 p.m. Saturday to chat with fans, sign copies of his books and promote Martone Street (pronounced mar-TONE, rhymes with “bone”). We caught up with him before his appearance at the newly opened specialty market at 18700 Haggerty.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Q: Tell us a little about the path to this moment of launching your retail sauce.
A: A lot of things connected in order to make this come to fruition. I think sometimes the universe keeps knocking you in the head until you get it, until you get the point. For years, I just got a ton of press on my spaghetti with tomato basil, and multiple people had asked me to put that recipe in a jar.
The challenges of starting a CPG company (consumer packaged goods) and a brand and identifying the same quality of tomatoes that we use in restaurants is hard to do with scale en masse. When I saw Rao’s sell for $2.7 billion, I kind of had a little bit of an awakening. I looked in the mirror and I was like, Scott, you gotta get your head out. Let’s go, man.
We all have these dreams and aspirations, and with the challenges in the restaurant world … it’s just tough these days. Expenses have never been as high as they are today inside restaurants. So I think meeting the needs (of consumers) and also how ambitious a person.
I just love doing new things. I love pushing myself. I love pushing the team. I love growing. I love thinking differently about avenues, revenue streams, and an ecosystem of how everything kind of connects. All that being said, the most important thing was … there’s a lot of tomato sauces on the shelves. There’s not a lot of great ones.
Q: How is Montone Street sauce different?
A: I really thought if we were to apply ourselves and identify really good quality products, we could make something that was going to be delicious. We found a wonderful, quality tomato that’s already fresh, packed, sealed, peeled and deseeded. We started cooking them in my restaurants in New York … we loved the flavor profile of it. It really matched what we are doing inside of the restaurants.
The way I grew up with an Italian American family in Waterbury, Connecticut, and thinking about those days of my grandparents canning tomatoes in the backyard. In that spirit of taking these beautiful tomatoes, putting them in a jar, in a glass jar, and giving them or selling them to people and having them experience a really fresh, beautiful sauce that’s made in the spirit of family.
Also, I was a young chef coming up, I was a saucier in New York City. That spirit of developing flavors and making something really wonderful … as chefs we always say that great sauce work will make or break a dish. It covers all manner of sin, so to speak, on the plate. Starting with a great ingredient, a great sauce, a great tomato, will really elevate your overall cooking.
Q: You’re going to be in town at Livonia’s Nino Salvaggio soon to meet fans. What’s your favorite part of doing events like this?
A: You know, you just never know whose life you touch, you know? And hearing some personal stories that people have … it gets really deep sometimes. Hearing those personal stories from people, that’s what it’s all about. It’s such a blessing.
Q: You’ve done more than 220 episodes of “Chopped,” and we’ve had quite a few Detroit-based chefs really shine on the show. What’s your advice to chefs in the competition — is being authentic more important than technique?
A: Hey, it doesn’t even matter if you’re on a TV show or not, being your authentic self is the key to life, right? Getting to know yourself and who you are is a lifelong process.
If people can do that while standing with a camera in their face, it’s hard work. And cooking authentically, utilizing technique to cook authentically is also a really important aspect of it.
mbaetens@detroitnews.com