<http://schema.org/articleBody>
"FacebookPinterest\n\nIt's been a fruitful year for the Marc Vetri empire. After going mad scientist with his new pizzeria (he concocted a Neapolitan pie with crust that never gets soggy), Vetri announced the expansion of his flagship restaurant. Philadelphia's Vetri, which GQ food critic Alan Richman has called \"practically flawless,\" is expanding to two floors, complete with a test kitchen and luxurious lighting. \"I'm really looking forward to doing cooking classes up there, plus hosting small, intimate wine dinners with winemakers. I think the whole room is a game changer,\" he told GQ. \"Also, we will have another custom-made Murano chandelier in the dining area upstairs. Vetri means 'glass' in Italian, so I love having these amazing pieces to look at.\"With the new space opening up on May 15, we called up the man himself to uncover the meals that blew his mind, from the lightest salad he's ever tasted to the fattest sandwich you need to try. Hint: It involves bacon, cheese, chicken-skin mayonnaise, and meatballs.\n\n\n\n1. Osteria La Brughiera, 1994 Villa D'alm\u00E9 Bergamo, Italy\n\n\"Outside of a small Italian town called Bergamo, a place I once called home, is one of the greatest restaurants ever. There are no two people with more passion and creativity than chefs Stefano Arrigoni and Paolo Benigni. And it shows from the floral arrangements\u2014they spend thousands of dollars a week on them\u2014all the way down to the last piccolo pasticceria.\"\n\n2. Babbo, 1998 New York, NY\n\n\"For years, I'd ride my motorcycle up to N.Y.C. every Sunday and chow down at Babbo with Mario Batali in sight and Johnny Day behind the bar. That's what we called the bartender, whose real last name translated to 'day' in Italian. I still remember the beef ravioli, the gnocchi with oxtail, and the mint love letters: sweat pea, mint, and cheese-filled ravioli. Their wine was great, too, but I'd only have half a glass max\u2014I still had to ride my motorcycle back home.\"\n\n3. Le Louis XV, 2000 Monte Carlo, Monaco\n\n\"I was in Nice visiting friends and they recommended Louis XV, only I didn't have a shirt or a reservation. Fortunately, they knew the chef's mother, so they called her up, got a table, and loaned me a shirt. I remember the simplest of food. I watched five guys make me a seafood platter. It sounds like nothing, but each cook was tasked with preparing one component each\u2014one hot, one cold, one seared, one grilled, etc. It was great to watch everything come together, and something as simple as a mid seafood plate was mind-blowing.\"\n\n4. Da Cesare, 2001 Albaretto della Torre, Italy\n\n\"Cesare Giaccone is an artist, and his restaurant is one of the best in Italy. When you eat at Da Cesare, you can shut your eyes and know what season it is\u2014the food tells you everything. The first thing he served me was a spring salad of field lettuce, asparagus, peas, morels, pistachios, and different smoked meats, with an orange-y vinaigrette. Nothing fancy, but it's still the lightest, most beautiful salad I've ever had.\"\n\n5. The Publican, 2008 Chicago, Illinois\n\n\"This place is one of my favorite restaurants in America, and Paul Kahan is one of my favorite chefs. He's the workingman's chef: always in the restaurant, always involved. I love how there's one long table that forms a rectangle in the center of the room, and you sit wherever\u2014that vibe just makes me want to go back. Get the ham chop. I remember flying out there, looking forward to it. I had to get that ham chop.\"\n\n6. Blue Hill at Stone Barns, 2008 New York, U.S.A.\n\n\"One summer Sunday about five years ago, I took a field trip here with all my chefs. It was an epic meal that was about 90 percent vegetables\u2014the first fifteen courses came straight from their farm. That meal changed the way we did service at my restaurant forever.\"\n\n7. Zahav, 2008 Philadelphia, U.S.A.\n\n\"Michael Solomonov was my sous-chef before he opened Zahav. His flavors are unrivaled and completely from the heart\u2014he's really dug into his Israeli roots for this restaurant. Nobody is doing what he's doing; the lamb shoulder, for example, is braised in pomegranate and served over chickpeas. It's amazing. There is simply not another restaurant like this in America.\"\n\n8. Joe Beef, 2012 Montreal, Canada\n\n\"We had some wild things at Joe Beef, like the horse filet wrapped in bacon with Roquefort cheese. My mind was like, 'Wow.' Joe Beef is also known for the foie gras Double Down, or two fried hunks of foie gras used to sandwich bacon, cheese, and chicken-skin mayonnaise. When I went with my wife, they made us the Italian version with meatballs as the 'bread.' I was like, 'I'm just gonna have a bite.' Then I ate it all.\"\n\n9. Per Se, 2013 New York, U.S.A.\n\n\"If there's one fine dining restaurant that does it right every time, it's Per Se. They're badasses. Last time I ate there was on one of our chef field trips. I'm really into tableside presentation, and they had this big copper pan that they roasted turbo in. It's perfection every time there, from the first bite to the last sugar donut with coffee.\"\n\n10. Providence, 2013 Los Angeles, U.S.A.\n\n\"I've only eaten here once, but that was enough to know Michael Cimarusti is the most creative chef with fish since Eric Ripert. The sweet sea urchin dish, the salt-cooked prawns, the unbelievably fresh oysters...I don't even remember how he prepared them exactly, but god, they were incredible. Michael Cimarusti does things with fish that people haven't even thought to do.\""^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.gq.com/story/marc-vetri-10-meals>