Grilled: NYC Food & Wine Festival kickoff

Michael Chiarello, Napa Style

What’s the best strategy for saving room for dessert?
As a chef, I spent most of my career doing savory food. But for a couple of years I did pastry. It always felt terrible, after a 900 course meal, to bring out a little something sweet and everybody’s setting there with their jackets open, looking frightened.

So how do you get them to shove down the sugar?
I like to do dessert about two or three hours later, after dinner is done. It should be its own meal, it’s own celebration with its own wine and everything. Take a break, clean the table, give it some fresh napery, and then you can start again like it’s the first course.