In The News

PNC Firstside Chef Mike LaMantia is redefining cafeteria cooking
Edible Allegheny

August 2012
By Abby DiBenedetto

A heavy stainless steel door swings open to reveal six hanging slabs of pork belly that are slowly transitioning into one of the most be loved ingredients used in cooking — bacon.

“We cold smoke all of our bacon here,” says Executive Chef Mike LaMantia grinning with pride. “We go through about 200 pounds of it a week, people freak out over our bacon — it’s crazy.”

As I stand starring at the beautiful soon-to-be homemade, organic bacon, I remind myself of my whereabouts. I’m not touring the kitchen of a trendy restaurant, but rather that of a cafeteria in a corporate office. “You hear cafeteria, and you think tray line, lady in a hair net, and green Jello,” LaMantia says. “That’s not what we do here.”

For three years, Chef LaMantia and his Parkhurst team have been quietly cooking from scratch at the PNC Firstside cafeteria — and house-smoked bacon is just the tip of the iceberg. The lunch meat in the deli station? That’s made in-house too, along with the mayonnaise that accompanies it between slices of artisanal bread. “The benefit to making our own mayonnaise is that we can use local eggs,” LaMantia says. “We control how it tastes.”

After a look at LaMantia’s culinary resume, it is easy to see the origin of his local initiatives and pioneer spirit. As a line cook during the birth of big Burrito Restaurant Group in the 1990s and later, as a sous chef on the development team at Giant Eagle Market District, LaMantia has worked on the cusp of some of the biggest food movements in Pittsburgh. “big Burrito at the time, that’s who you worked for, it was — and still is — a powerhouse in Pittsburgh. They were doing all of the local stuff, Bill Fuller was doing things that nobody was doing around here — stuff you would see in other states, he brought that to Pittsburgh.”

LaMantia grins as he recalls bargaining with farmers while working at Kaya to find the freshest produce possible. “You’d have a guy coming to the back door with mushrooms, ‘Randy the mushroom guy is here!’ And you’d haggle with him on the pricing. That’s how it worked. Now, buying local is so popular, that smaller cooperatives like Penn’s Corner Farm Alliance are able to branch out to people that would never have had access to them.”

Putting in the extra effort to do food the right — albeit more rigorous — way is the only option for Chef LaMantia. “I have always wanted to do things on my own. I don’t like the idea of buying prefabricated, it feels like a cop-out,” he says. “I like the challenge and skill involved in doing stuff from scratch. I like figuring it out for myself. I am constantly learning, and it keeps the job fresh and interesting.”

Take, for example, the first time he ordered a whole cow from Keystone Farmers Corporative Association in Uniontown. “I remember looking at it and going, ‘I don’t know what the hell I’m doing.’ A pig’s one thing, but a cow — it’s a lot of meat.” LaMantia tackled this culinary challenge just as he does all of the others, with research and trial and error. “I got some books, and I just figured it out, and I’ve got it down now — I’m pretty efficient,” he says. “We use every piece of that animal, and most importantly, I know the guy that raised the cow. He’s dropping it off at the loading dock, I see where our money’s going — that’s cool.”

LaMantia and his team go through a cow a week during their busiest time of year.  Hamburgers are a favorite among the 900-1,000 diners they feed on a regular basis —and there’s not a puny patty in sight. “We grind 90 to 100 pounds of beef at a time for hamburgers,” says LaMantia. “It may not sound like a lot, but when you see it all out in front of you, it’s massive!”

Not only does the PNC Firstside kitchen go through mass quantities of fresh, local meat every week, but hundreds of pounds of produce as well. On the regular,

LaMantia uses 700 pounds of local potatoes alone (I suspect their superb homemade chips play a large part in the high demand for potato poundage!). Fiddlehead ferns are also a fan favorite at the PNC Firstside Cafe. Because of their somewhat strange appearance, “You would think people would be hesitant about them,” says LaMantia. “But I had them in here and did something as simple as caramelize them with some Crimini mushrooms, and we sold 20 pounds of fiddlehead ferns.”

When we visited, LaMantia was throwing fresh currants into that mix. “We’ll take something basic and put a little twist on it, and that’s a way to incorporate whatever different kind of ingredient we have at the time,” he says. “Like in the chicken salad wrap we photographed, we used fresh currants. Neil [Stauffer, Director of Penn’s Corner Farm Alliance] might only have those for a week or two, so I’ll buy whatever I can off of him and people try it when some of them don’t even know what it is.”

For LaMantia, introducing diners to the benefits of eating local, not to mention foods that they may not have tried before, is part of the fun. “They get to know what goes into what they are eating,” he says. “They know that when they buy a turkey sandwich here, that turkey helped out a farmer, it’s benefiting the community. Plus, it’s just a better end product. We’re able to find animals that were raised with care by people who care.”

Chef LaMantia is a person who cares, a game changer. He is positively impacting the way people view local eating and cafeteria dining through a lot of hard work and little competitive spirit. “We’re here, and we’re making an impact on the local community and farms,” he says. “And if we can do it here, you can do it anywhere.

Recipe

Chicken Salad with Fresh Currants

By Chef Mike LaMantia, PNC Firstside
Yield: 4 servings

Ingredients:

  • 2 large chicken breasts (roughly 1 pound)
  • 1 cup mayonnaise (homemade if possible) or thick Greek yogurt ⅔
  • 2/3 cup almonds, chopped and toasted
  • 2/3 cup bok choy, diced (mature stalks, just the white portion)
  • ¼  cup of garlic chives or scallions, chopped
  • ½ cup of fresh red currants, stems removed
  • ¼ cup of simple syrup (equal parts water and sugar)
  • ¼ cup Dijon mustard (only if using yogurt)
  • Salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

  1. Fill a pot with slightly salted water (enough to cover chicken breasts). Place chicken in boiling water. Cook for 35-40 minutes.
  2. Cool chicken in ice water or in refrigerator until cool to the touch. Shred chicken by hand.
  3. Place currants in small sauce pan on medium heat, and pour simple syrup over currants. Reduce until simple syrup is gone.  Gently stir to prevent burning. Currants should have a gel-like look. Remove from saucepan and refrigerate until cold.
  4. Mix all ingredients with chicken in bowl except mayonnaise. Add mayonnaise gradually to achieve desired consistency. If using yogurt, add Dijon. Season with salt and pepper.
  5. Serve atop a bed of lettuce, as a wrap, or sandwich.
PNC Firstside Chef Mike LaMantia is redefining cafeteria cooking
Edible Allegheny

August 2012
By Abby DiBenedetto

A heavy stainless steel door swings open to reveal six hanging slabs of pork belly that are slowly transitioning into one of the most be loved ingredients used in cooking — bacon.

“We cold smoke all of our bacon here,” says Executive Chef Mike LaMantia grinning with pride. “We go through about 200 pounds of it a week, people freak out over our bacon — it’s crazy.”

As I stand starring at the beautiful soon-to-be homemade, organic bacon, I remind myself of my whereabouts. I’m not touring the kitchen of a trendy restaurant, but rather that of a cafeteria in a corporate office. “You hear cafeteria, and you think tray line, lady in a hair net, and green Jello,” LaMantia says. “That’s not what we do here.”

For three years, Chef LaMantia and his Parkhurst team have been quietly cooking from scratch at the PNC Firstside cafeteria — and house-smoked bacon is just the tip of the iceberg. The lunch meat in the deli station? That’s made in-house too, along with the mayonnaise that accompanies it between slices of artisanal bread. “The benefit to making our own mayonnaise is that we can use local eggs,” LaMantia says. “We control how it tastes.”

After a look at LaMantia’s culinary resume, it is easy to see the origin of his local initiatives and pioneer spirit. As a line cook during the birth of big Burrito Restaurant Group in the 1990s and later, as a sous chef on the development team at Giant Eagle Market District, LaMantia has worked on the cusp of some of the biggest food movements in Pittsburgh. “big Burrito at the time, that’s who you worked for, it was — and still is — a powerhouse in Pittsburgh. They were doing all of the local stuff, Bill Fuller was doing things that nobody was doing around here — stuff you would see in other states, he brought that to Pittsburgh.”

LaMantia grins as he recalls bargaining with farmers while working at Kaya to find the freshest produce possible. “You’d have a guy coming to the back door with mushrooms, ‘Randy the mushroom guy is here!’ And you’d haggle with him on the pricing. That’s how it worked. Now, buying local is so popular, that smaller cooperatives like Penn’s Corner Farm Alliance are able to branch out to people that would never have had access to them.”

Putting in the extra effort to do food the right — albeit more rigorous — way is the only option for Chef LaMantia. “I have always wanted to do things on my own. I don’t like the idea of buying prefabricated, it feels like a cop-out,” he says. “I like the challenge and skill involved in doing stuff from scratch. I like figuring it out for myself. I am constantly learning, and it keeps the job fresh and interesting.”

Take, for example, the first time he ordered a whole cow from Keystone Farmers Corporative Association in Uniontown. “I remember looking at it and going, ‘I don’t know what the hell I’m doing.’ A pig’s one thing, but a cow — it’s a lot of meat.” LaMantia tackled this culinary challenge just as he does all of the others, with research and trial and error. “I got some books, and I just figured it out, and I’ve got it down now — I’m pretty efficient,” he says. “We use every piece of that animal, and most importantly, I know the guy that raised the cow. He’s dropping it off at the loading dock, I see where our money’s going — that’s cool.”

LaMantia and his team go through a cow a week during their busiest time of year.  Hamburgers are a favorite among the 900-1,000 diners they feed on a regular basis —and there’s not a puny patty in sight. “We grind 90 to 100 pounds of beef at a time for hamburgers,” says LaMantia. “It may not sound like a lot, but when you see it all out in front of you, it’s massive!”

Not only does the PNC Firstside kitchen go through mass quantities of fresh, local meat every week, but hundreds of pounds of produce as well. On the regular,

LaMantia uses 700 pounds of local potatoes alone (I suspect their superb homemade chips play a large part in the high demand for potato poundage!). Fiddlehead ferns are also a fan favorite at the PNC Firstside Cafe. Because of their somewhat strange appearance, “You would think people would be hesitant about them,” says LaMantia. “But I had them in here and did something as simple as caramelize them with some Crimini mushrooms, and we sold 20 pounds of fiddlehead ferns.”

When we visited, LaMantia was throwing fresh currants into that mix. “We’ll take something basic and put a little twist on it, and that’s a way to incorporate whatever different kind of ingredient we have at the time,” he says. “Like in the chicken salad wrap we photographed, we used fresh currants. Neil [Stauffer, Director of Penn’s Corner Farm Alliance] might only have those for a week or two, so I’ll buy whatever I can off of him and people try it when some of them don’t even know what it is.”

For LaMantia, introducing diners to the benefits of eating local, not to mention foods that they may not have tried before, is part of the fun. “They get to know what goes into what they are eating,” he says. “They know that when they buy a turkey sandwich here, that turkey helped out a farmer, it’s benefiting the community. Plus, it’s just a better end product. We’re able to find animals that were raised with care by people who care.”

Chef LaMantia is a person who cares, a game changer. He is positively impacting the way people view local eating and cafeteria dining through a lot of hard work and little competitive spirit. “We’re here, and we’re making an impact on the local community and farms,” he says. “And if we can do it here, you can do it anywhere.

Recipe

Chicken Salad with Fresh Currants

By Chef Mike LaMantia, PNC Firstside
Yield: 4 servings

Ingredients:

  • 2 large chicken breasts (roughly 1 pound)
  • 1 cup mayonnaise (homemade if possible) or thick Greek yogurt ⅔
  • 2/3 cup almonds, chopped and toasted
  • 2/3 cup bok choy, diced (mature stalks, just the white portion)
  • ¼  cup of garlic chives or scallions, chopped
  • ½ cup of fresh red currants, stems removed
  • ¼ cup of simple syrup (equal parts water and sugar)
  • ¼ cup Dijon mustard (only if using yogurt)
  • Salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

  1. Fill a pot with slightly salted water (enough to cover chicken breasts). Place chicken in boiling water. Cook for 35-40 minutes.
  2. Cool chicken in ice water or in refrigerator until cool to the touch. Shred chicken by hand.
  3. Place currants in small sauce pan on medium heat, and pour simple syrup over currants. Reduce until simple syrup is gone.  Gently stir to prevent burning. Currants should have a gel-like look. Remove from saucepan and refrigerate until cold.
  4. Mix all ingredients with chicken in bowl except mayonnaise. Add mayonnaise gradually to achieve desired consistency. If using yogurt, add Dijon. Season with salt and pepper.
  5. Serve atop a bed of lettuce, as a wrap, or sandwich.