Jamie Bissonnette Talks Tapas

Meet chef Jamie Bissonnette, a Boston-based ex-vegan turned champion of charcuterie who turned his love of Spanish food into a successful career and a wild couple of years that saw the opening his third restaurant, Toro NYC, a 2014 James Beard Award, and a guest judge appearance Top Chef Season 12.

The runaway success of Toro, his tapas restaurant in Boston, recently led to a second Toro location in NYC. And though he was recently named James Beard’s Best Chef in the Northeast for his work in Boston’s Italian gem, Coppa, Toro’s tapas are already giving Coppa a run for its money. “I love the way they eat in Spain…so much flavor in a couple of small bites,” said Bissonnette. “And Toro in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood, is a lot like Toro Boston…[the] big little brother who grows up to be a football player.”

At both Toro NYC and Toro Boston, Bissonnette combines his love of Basque cuisine, locally sourced ingredients, and his dedication to sustainability. The results are modern takes on rustic Spanish tapas that have gained such critical acclaim that customers are happy to wait hours to sample his sweetbreads with smoked coco bean puree, braised beef tongue with salsa verde, and crispy pork belly.

This love of rustic cooking bleeds into his writing. Last fall he published his first cookbook titled, The New Charcuterie Cookbook: Exceptional Cured Meats to Make and Serve at Home, a soft-covered book replete with recipes for those of us who can’t wait two hours for a table or simple can’t get enough of his charcuterie.

In The Charcuterie Cookbook’s forward, TV personality and chef, Andrew Zimmern praises Bissonnette’s love affair with his inclusive-style of cooking: “I never liked the old quote about no one wanting to see laws or sausages get made,” Zimmern wrote. “I think that’s been our problem for generations…Let’s applaud it!… To see a trio of blood sausages in a contemporary, easy, simple to understand framework will advance the agenda of improving the family meal in homes all over America by leaps and bounds”.

But why stop at his recipes for morcilla? Check out Bissonnette’s smoked tongue bocadillo (bocadillo de lengua), chorizo sausages and all the unique dishes at Toro NYC and Boston. With their simplicity and bursts of flavor, these recipes, and Bissonnette by extension, are slowly folding Spanish culture to the broader American culinary scene, and we can’t thank him enough for it.