CHEF MARC FORGIONE HAS SUCCESSFULLY CEMENTED HIS OWN CULINARY LEGACY WHILE BRINGING ELEGANCE BACK TO THE STEAKHOUSE FORMULA

BY JESSICA JONES-GORMAN

Marc Forgione was at a high point in his culinary career, working as sous chef at Laurent Tourondel’s flagship BLT Steak, when, in an effort to diversify his experience, he moved to Eugenieles-Bains in Southwestern France and secured a series of humble cooking posts under the direction of Michel Guerard.

“I had this desire to create a clean slate, to go somewhere where no one knew my name…where all they knew about me was based on my performance in the kitchen and what I cooked that day,” Forgione recalled. “I needed to create my own identity, and this small section of France seemed the perfect place to do that.”

Forgione, the son of Larry Forgione, a culinary legend who revolutionized American-style cooking in the 1970s and ’80s, entered the industry when he was just a teenager, joining his dad in the kitchen at An American Place on Park Avenue. And while Marc fully embraced his father’s direction, ultimately breaking free from that legacy was an important step in forging his own culinary career.

“Stepping out of father’s umbrella for the first time represented a period of maturity for me,” Forgione said. “I had moved beyond An American Place at that point, had worked at Above, AZ, and then Pazo before opening BLT Steak, but in all of these New York City kitchens, I still had this recognizable name. And every time I messed up, people noticed. In a twisted way, it was a blessing in disguise, because it made me better, but I needed to learn in an environment where there were no expectations…where I wasn’t being judged by what my father had built.”

Forgione earned spots at three of his newfound French community’s finest restaurants, Le Pres D’Eugenie, Ferme aux Grives, and Le Cuisine Minceur, where he absorbed the nuances of classi French techniques and further developed what had already become a meaningful relationship with ingredients. The area’s remote location served as a sort of oasis for the developing chef.

“Life in New York, with all of the partying and late nights, had become so crazy that I welcomed the idea of leaving it all behind,” Forgione said. “I just didn’t realize how remote of a place Eugenieles-Bains is. The population of the town was 402, and there was literally one butcher, one bakery, and one small stationary store where you could buy cigarettes. I didn’t speak a word of French at the time and wasn’t paid for my work…only supplied with housing. I was supposed to stay for three months, but the experience was so gratifying that I stayed for a little over a year.”

Forgione was also the only American working in a Michelin-starred restaurant, where he started in salads and left after earning his way to the fish station. It took him four months to be able to have a fluent conversation, so there was considerable time spent with a pen, a book, and his thoughts.

“It was there that I truly realized that I wanted to be a chef,” Forgione said. “But I didn’t just want to open up another bistro. I wanted to do something in this industry…wanted to cook and create a statement.”

He was 26 when he came back to the U.S., and started working once again with Laurent Tourondel, who was expanding his BLT franchise.

“When I came back, Laurent was opening BLT Prime downtown and offered me my first chef job,” Forgione said. “To be honest, I didn’t think I was ready yet, but at the end of the day, no one really knows when they’re ready…you just have to figure it out. It was a tough year, but I learned a lot. Laurent then asked me to be his corporate chef, so I traveled the country for the next two years opening BLTs in Dallas, San Juan, Westchester—you name it. It was a crazy experience, so much traveling, but he really showed me how to be a modern- day chef. It sounds crazy, but especially here in New York City, it is really hard to survive on just one restaurant. To take care of all of the costs and then pay yourself at the end of the day is nearly impossible. But Laurent showed me how to be successful…how to open multiple restaurants and create a brand with a team around you.”

But while Laurent was teaching Forgione those details—everything from selecting menu fonts to napkin folds—a business opportunity cropped up.

“It was great learning about big business, but after a while I started to long for that small restaurant I envisioned while in France,” the chef explained. “A kid I went to college with, Chris Blumlo, contacted me about starting something, and while we were still getting ideas on paper, he called me to come look at an available space he had come across in Tribeca. I honestly had to ask for directions, because even though I’ve spent most of my life living in New York City, I don’t think up until that point I had ever been below 14th Street. I made it down there, and when I turned the corner of this beautiful tree-lined street and saw this gorgeous restaurant, I knew we had to do whatever we had to in order to make this happen.”

So, without much thought concerning finances and incidentals, Forgione and Blumlo made an offer, shook the owner’s hand, and walked away owing a first payment of $350,000…and with a three-week deadline in which to pay it.

“We honestly didn’t have a penny between us, so we spent the next few weeks cooking dinner in people’s apartments trying to convince them to fund this project,” said Forgione. “Somehow we raised the first $350,000 and had at least another year to secure another $200,000. Looking back, we definitely did a lot of things wrong, but somehow it all worked out.”

They called the restaurant Forge and opened in the summer of 2008, but due to trademark infringement (there was already a Forge in Miami Beach), it was rechristened Marc Forgione in February of 2009.

“There was a recession that year, and I ended up throwing a New York Times critic out of the restaurant, which was insane, but despite all of those setbacks, we ended up doing OK,” the chef said of his urban rustic eatery. “We got amazing reviews and things just sort of snowballed from there.”

The restaurant was named “Key Newcomer” by Zagat in 2009, and was awarded its first Michelin star in 2010. In time, it earned the distinction of a two-star New York Times review, even after that first critic debacle, and was listed among the Top 25 Restaurants in NYC by Modern Luxury magazine and named an All Star Eatery by Forbes magazine. In 2010 Forgione was crowned the winner of the The Next Iron Chef show on The Food Network. He was also commissioned to open American Cut steakhouse at Revel Resort in Atlantic City in 2012, which he stamped with an unique identity.

“Most people don’t realize that the first fine dining restaurant in the U.S. was Delmonico’s, a steakhouse. But fine dining and steakhouse aren’t models put together often, so what I wanted to do was bring the steakhouse back to its original glory. I wanted to bring back elegance…do stuff tableside. I researched the origins of the Caesar salad, for example…what was the dressing like and how was it originally served? I looked at how shrimp cocktail and wedge salads were originally done, too.”

The model was a success, and thrived until the casino that housed American Cut closed in 2014. But Forgione took his steakhouse formula in other locales: American Cut continues to thrive in Tribeca, Midtown, San Juan, and now Englewood Cliffs, NJ. An Atlanta, GA, location will open this fall.

Forgione also owns and operates Khe-Yo, a Southeast Asian eatery on Manhattan’s Duane Street, which opened in 2013. His latest venture, The Lobster Press, a casual outpost at Penn Plaza, started serving hot panini-pressed lobster sandwiches with chili dipping sauces earlier this year.

“One of my cooks is really good at making sandwiches, so we wanted to play off his talents,” Forgione said. “I am very excited about the concept.”

“I have no major regrets,” he concluded. “I think often about those ideas I dreamed up while working in France. I was hungry then, and wanted to create a statement. I’m very glad that I’ve managed to do that.”

American Cut Bar & Grill
495 Sylvan Avenue, Englewood Cliffs
201.510.4460 / americancutsteakhouse.com