Tom Colicchio’skitchen is fit for well … aTop Chef, but it took some time getting there.
TheTopChefjudge and his wife, filmmaker Lori Silverbush, opened up their home in the Sept. 30 issue ofWine Spectatormagazineafter taking on an extensive renovation.
The pair movedtheir family— including sons Luka, now 10, and Mateo, 8 (Colicchioalso has son, Dante, 26, from a previous relationship) — from a West Village rental into a gorgeous Brooklyn brownstone in 2016, hoping to providethe boyswith a more diverse New York upbringing than they thought Manhattan could offer.
“A real New Yorker to me isn’t someone who’s only ever met people who look and sound and think exactly like he or she does;it’s the opposite,” Silverbush, 50, toldWine Spectator.
The couple purchased a unique, four-story townhouse, which dates back to 1852, in the neighborhood of Fort Greene to make that happen. Quite a bit of work was required to turn the space into the home they dreamed of, but with the help of Bentel & Bentel Architects, they were happy to tackle the project.
Ty Cole for Wine Spectator Magazine
The biggest decision in the remodeling, Colicchio, 56, says, was where to put the kitchen — perhaps the most important room in the chef’s home. “We probably went through 40 different layouts,” he said, before deciding on dedicating the home’s garden level to the cooking space.
Clocking in at 685-square feet in total,the kitchen is decoratedwith blue millwork, white oak floors, floor-to-ceiling windows and soft-white wall tiling. Colicchio even transformed the space’s old fireplace into a wood-burning grill.
While he says the weekdays are typically hectic and extensive meals are hard to get to, Colicchio is never far from his favorite wines when he is home — especially thanks to his twin wine-cooler drawers. “I don’t think you need an occasion to open a good bottle of wine,” he said, tellingWine Spectatorthat his favorites include Macari, McCall and Lieb from Long Island.
One of Colicchio’s favorite new spaces in the house — especially because he didn’t have it in Manhattan — is the backyard garden, where hetends to fresh herbs. “I get up in the morning at six, I’m out in the garden for two hours and then my day starts, and it’s just a much better day,” he said. “It makes me so happy.”
source: people.com
