By Laura Medina
Tastemade, the former foodie/restaurant review app, has grown up and away from it's roots.
They're expanding to professional studio cooking shows, the Millennial/Gen-Z answer to Food Network and the Cooking Channel.
Now, they're stepping into feature film and documentary foray with releasing an in-depth journey of pasta maestro and chef, Evan Funke.
For press lucky enough to interview Evan and Gabriel at Tastemade Studios about their Evan Funke documentary, Evan treated them for lunch with his Italian Bread Salad, Panzanella…
A thrifty, humble mash-up of dried leftover Italian bread, fresh heirloom squash and meaty heirloom tomatoes, dotted with fresh burrata cheese for calcium and protein, all tossed together into something so chic, that people are paying through the nose for it.
It was from this Life and Thyme video profiling Evan when he was the hot star chef behind the now defunct Bucato.
Watching that brief video, Gabriel Taraboulsy decided to do a documentary on Evan.
He approached him, when Evan shut down Bucato then made a comeback with Felix, in old Joe's of Abbot Kinney in Venice, California.
With the protagonist regrouping and in transition, Gabriel knew now is the time to shoot a documentary.
Evan agreed, as long it truly represents him, what had happened at Bucato, his Italian journey to regroup and the financial and bureaucratic hurdles of making a comeback, with another upscale pasta restaurant, Felix of Abbot Kinney.
They hope that young chefs; hot, young, gloating chefs, and kids aspiring to be chefs, will watch this documentary as a business, financial, and the importance of maintaining the art and craftsmanship of making pasta, the original way,...made from scratch by hand, sans hand-cranked rolling pasta machines but by rolling pins, made specifically by hand-again.
Evan Funke is the Buddha of Pasta.
He stressed how the pasta lady maestras in Italy taught him the importance of directly infusing your vibe and energy into the pasta, when you make it by hand. Machine-rolled and dried and frozen pasta are devoid of energy. People can taste that energy.
Evan said that diners are eating his vibrations that he infuse into his pasta. This is why this exacting, demanding chef insists on being a good mood because his diners will eat and digest his mood.
Basically, you're eating Evan Funke.
There is more to eating in this documentary.
Since Evan wants to be honestly, a warts and all documentary that will be a lesson to anyone wanting to be in the restaurant business, cooking or investing or managing, much less watching the money.
"All these LA chefs have wins. They never have a failure," Evan Funke.
The sudden downfall and following debacle of Bucato shows the difficulty of the restaurant business.
80% of restaurants will fail in two to three years.
Having the best damn pasta isn't enough.
Bucato was a lesson in financially mismanagement, missing paychecks and missed bills, law suits, and eventually demise of Bucato, all in a mere two years. The family and friends investors were burnt.
Evan regrouped to Italy, where he had to start from scratch, pun unintended.
Pasta making as mediation, Evan seriously exclaims he have learn 185 various pasta shapes, out of the 386 pasta shapes...that he had yet to and keen to want to learn more.
The shapes, the cupping, and the ridges determine how much sauce a pasta will hold. The gluten from pasta thickens the sauce. It is the deep mediation and wisdom that Evan learned and studied from Italy's maestra of pasta;..and her pasta school, in Italy, closed due of the lack of interest among real Italians. Evan Funke was her only student.
Once he found the right investor who has a background in Italian cuisine and food importing and the Joe's of Abbot Kinney opened up, Evan decided it was time for a comeback. His new investor believes in him that she sold her house to finance Felix, http://felixla.com/evan-funke
With Felix...and Bucato, Evan always had a pasta lab...
More than experimenting, Evan knows that his Pasta Lab is the only way he can keep handmade pasta shapes alive while passing down that knowledge and tradition to the new and next generations of chefs.
Mind you, Evan was thinking of entering the Marine Corps. He runs Felix like a well-run army.
Upon opening on any other night, wait staff standing at attention...
Fans, from demised Bucato, have followed Evan to Felix, like a piped piper.
Lines separated into walk-ins, first come, first served...
The RSVP reservations is another line...
Ok, let's dig in on what's important, the food...the pasta...
At Felix, eat, savor, and chow down on real Italy. The closest thing you'll get to spaghetti and meatball sans "red sauce," is Pappardelle pasta in sautéed ground veal and pork with a generous sprinkle of real Parmigiano Reggiano, aged 48 months. A humble dish made of humble ingredients is pasta in its purest form.
There's more to Italian cuisine than red wine. Here's authentic Grapefruit, Honey, & Lime mocktail, made from scratch Italian soda.
Ok, let's get to dessert...or Dolci!
Torta Della Nonna, olive oil cake, grappe peaches, lemon gelato, sprinkled with pine nuts.
Now to truly test a restaurant, you should taste how they treat the classics...tiramisu!
A small bowl of espresso-soaked lady fingers topped mascarpone cheese (Italian Cream Cheese) whipped so fluffy, that's the texted of whipped cream then a simple dusting of dark chocolate powdered cocoa. Not exactly health food, but over-laden with sugar, like most sugar.
If you miss Evan Funke documentary, you can always eat his heart and soul, infused in his pasta, at Felix, http://felixla.com/evan-funke
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