Michael Cimarusti. Photo by John Troxell.
The city of Providence has a twin flame in the form of a restaurant in Los Angeles. The restaurant’s name is literally Providence and it’s an homage to the seafood of the Ocean State. Executive chef and restaurateur Michael Cimarusti, the 2019 James Beard Award winner for Best Chef: West, leads a spectacular team at the West Coast restaurant that is named after the city where his father and grandparents are from. Cimarusti has run Providence for two decades, where he and his team have maintained two coveted Michelin stars for over a decade and recently added a newly minted Michelin green star. Cimarusti got his start with Wolfgang Puck and worked in some of New York City’s finest restaurants including Spago and Le Cirque.
Recently, I got to meet Cimarusti at a symposium for students at Johnson & Wales University’s School of Culinary Arts. While the chef himself graduated from the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, he spoke highly about culinary education at Johnson & Wales. Cimarusti addressed students and media representatives from around the country – including “Good Morning America,” Travel & Leisure and Saveur – about the connection between the restaurant and Rhode Island. Mainly, it’s the Ocean State’s incredible seafood that inspires him. The Providence and Warwick Convention and Visitors’ bureau and Cimarusti’s public relations team took the chef, his wife, team members and journalists from national media outlets on a three-day journey throughout Rhode Island to experience some of the best dining and drinking destinations in the state, including Oberlin, Gift Horse, Dune Brothers, Dolores, Persimmon, Sakonnet Vineyards, Sly Fox Den Too, Dolce & Salato and more.
“My roots in Rhode Island go way back. My grandparents were born in England but raised here in the Ocean State. My parents met here and were married here,” Cimarusti says. “My love of cooking and seafood, in large part, was found here in the Ocean State. My love of fishing is what inspired me and led me to the kitchen.”
He learned how to fish from his grandfather, Ted, and he later named his second restaurant, Connie & Ted’s in West Hollywood, after his grandparents, Constance and Edward, who lived in Providence all their lives. That restaurant serves clam cakes and Rhode Island-style chowder, stuffies, calamari, Portuguese fish stew, and yes, even coffee milk.
Providence restaurant, on the other hand, features an elaborate tasting-style menu that changes every few weeks. Sustainable fish species are key to the creation and execution of the cuisine. “We try to base every dish we do around a single ingredient,” Cimarusti says. “Of course, seafood is always at the core but then what we surround the seafood with is only good for a couple of weeks so the menu has to change all the time.” The renowned chef spoke at length about the importance of adhering to the Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch program, and recommended students print out the guide and keep it in their pocket, or download the Seafood Watch app to check the status of specific seafood species before cooking with them. “What remains a constant at the restaurant is our staunch belief that sustainability has to be at the core of everything that we do,” Cimarusti says.
The interior of Providence restaurant. Photo by Daniel Collopy.
What first snapped him to attention was when Gourmet magazine editor Caroline Bates visited his restaurant and wrote a nice review, but commented that she couldn’t bring herself to eat the bluefin tuna, because the species was potentially threatened at the time. “She wanted to try it, but just couldn’t do it out of good conscience,” Cimarusti says. “From that moment, it became clear to me that it had to become part of what we do on a daily basis. Now it’s central to everything we do at the restaurant.”
Courses in Providence’s tasting menu. Photo by John Troxell.
Cimarusti learned everything he could about seafood sustainability and joined the Monterey Bay Aquarium Blue Ribbon Task Force, a group of chefs that assemble to discuss issues of sustainability. “It changed the way I think about the ingredients I purchase and the impact I might have as a chef,” he says. “I think this is something all of you as young culinarians need to think about: What is your impact on the world going to be and how will you affect the world?”
He spoke about environmental and sustainability issues, including how drought affects the wild salmon population, when fish can’t make it back to freshwater to spawn; and how some farmed salmon is raised in crowded small pens, which causes disease and releases excessive nitrogen, or effluent, that is then pumped into oceans. Some farmed salmon might even escape and breed with wild salmon, which weakens the species for generations to come. He also mentioned how lobster trapping may endanger the threatened population of Right Whales that can become entangled in lines that lead from surface buoys to traps at the bottom of the sea. While there are many issues with seafood, there’s also hope. Because of our seafood regulations and guidelines, he says the bluefin tuna population and swordfish are both rebounding.
Though bluefin’s status is improving, it’s still on his personal watch list. But Cimarusti is optimistic. He hopes to one day serve it without a guilty conscience. “Salmon is salmon or cod is cod or tuna is tuna is not the case,” he says. “There’s not one ingredient in the world that I want to cook with so badly that I’m willing to risk the health of the ocean or risk the extinction of species.”
Michael Cimarusti. Photo by John Troxell.
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