Celebrity chef Dale Talde is determined to redefine Asian-American cuisine

Esther Davidowitz | NorthJersey

Show Caption Hide Caption Taldes Restaurant of Jersey City Fort Lee resident Dale Talde is the chef and owner of Taldes Restaurant of Jersey City.

Authentic?

Dale Talde, the Filipino-American celebrity chef who resides in Fort Lee and owns a slew of restaurants, takes offense at that word, the word American food lovers and chefs often use to praise and tout restaurants. Talde, "Food & Wine's" Best New Chef in 2013, is having none of it.

"Who's to say what's authentic?" asks the "Top Chef" favorite, sitting in the huge (more than 3,500-square-foot) dining room of his 4-year-old Asian-fusion restaurant Talde in Jersey City. (His first Talde opened in Park Slope in 2012.) The 40-year-old new father (to a newborn son) is proud to serve food that is a mishmash of cuisines: Korean, Japanese, Singaporean, Filipino, German, French, Italian, even Jewish.

Ever had his chicken soup ramen, dubbed "Rabbi's Ramen" — a ball of steaming creamy chicken soup with ramen noodles, shmaltz and a hint of yuzu? Tried his famous pretzel pork dumplings, the dough made the same way Philly soft pretzels are made? Or ever tasted his wonderfully flavorful crab fried rice, in which traditional Asian rice is mixed with Mediterranean aioli sauce and Mexican jalapeno peppers?

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If you haven't, there are a host of spots where you can try Talde's proudly "inauthentic" dishes: his namesake restaurants; "inauthentic Italian" restaurant Massoni (biryani rice balls, anyone?) in Manhattan; and his "kind of Chinese" restaurant Rice & Gold (what about beef tartare with kimchi and shiso) in downtown Manhattan. He also owns two rooftop bars in New York City and two nightclubs (one is on the basement floor of Talde Jersey City).

"I feel like he was a game changer in Jersey City," says Maria Rodrigues a Jersey City resident, who dines with her husband at Talde JC "a little too often — about once a week. My husband and I joke that he must sprinkle crack on the pretzel pork dumplings, they're so good."

Chef Brian Ray, executive chef of Asian restaurant Buddakan, who worked with Talde is a fan too. "His food always has a soul and a homeyness," he says. "His restaurants are his restaurants. He is not mimicking other restaurants."

In some respects, Talde's jumble of ethnic and international foods may be the most authentic American food. After all America is a nation of immigrants, the men and women, he's quick to point out, who brought their foods, their dishes, their flavors to our shores. Americans have been fortunate to be able to enjoy — and expand on — their culinary gifts.

Talde's parents are among the more recent immigrants to our shores. His dad, a tradesman, and mom, a nurse, settled in Chicago, where Talde grew up feeling — what else? — inauthentic. He still bristles at the boxes he and his friends had to check off to declare their ethnicity/race when taking standardized tests: Pacific Islander, Black, Latino... "I didn't know what box to check," he says.

"I don't fit anywhere," Talde continues. "I'm never going to be considered American in Americans' eyes and I'm not Filipino. When I was younger, it was embarrassing. Now I'm owning it."

It was his mom — "not just a good cook, but a great cook" — who taught him, he says, hospitality, if not exactly how to cook. "She loves to entertain." The two would watch Food Network shows together but never cook together. "We are two alphas," he says — "not a good combination."

The first thing he ever cooked? Apple pancakes — from a box — at age 10, when he refused to eat the Filipino fish soup his mom made. "They were good enough," he says. But they were also an inkling into what would become his cooking philosophy: "I'm going to do me, cook what I want to eat."

He didn't like school but loved sports; he is a huge Cubs and Bulls fan. "I'm all Chicago," Talde says. But he knew he could never be a professional athlete. "I did 23andMe and I can guarantee you that this body does not have the athletic gene."

Talde wanted to be a chef. So, after graduating high school, he went to the prestigious Culinary Institute of America, and loved it. "I learned an entire trade in two and a half years," he says.

His first job was at Outback Steakhouse. "I was the worst cook by far," he says. "I didn't really want to work. They should have fired me."

He'd nevertheless go on to cook at Jean-Georges Vongerichten's superb French-Thai restaurant Vong ("It taught me real discipline") and to work with the James Beard-award winning chef Carrie Nahabedian at Naha ("She taught me real love of food and respect for ingredients").

Talde left Chicago in 2005 for New York, where he worked first at Morimoto and then at Buddakan, both restaurants owned by James Beard-award winning restaurateur Stephen Starr. Starr, he says, liked his food. "It wasn't overly fussy," he says. "It wasn't like tweezers food." Some of his dishes, he proudly notes, are still on the Buddakan menu including the kung pao monkfish and broken chili chicken. Talde eventually was promoted to Director of Asian Concepts for STARR Restaurants before opening his first Talde.

"Having my own place was always the plan,“ he says. His business partners are David Massoni and John Bush; their company is called Three Kings Restaurant Group. He and his wife of four years also have partnered to create their own company, Food Crush Hospitality, to find "new food and beverage opportunities," he says.

Two years ago, he and his wife, former Brooklyn residents, bought a house in Fort Lee, in hopes of starting a family and to be near her parents. "But I told my wife that if I move to New Jersey, I need food culture."

Bergen County hasn't disappointed. "There's an amazing Korean community in Fort Lee," he says — and consequently some terrific Korean eats. He and his wife particularly like So Moon Nan Jip, a no-frills Korean BBQ spot in Palisades Park, where the meats are grilled over oak charcoal, not gas ("It's legit," he says); Fort Lee Pizzeria ("Best pizza; amazing!"); Turkish restaurant Cinar in Cliffside Park ("Awesome"); and new pizzeria and coffee bar Urban Tomato in Palisades Park.

His best way to find good places to eat? "Ask a tradesman," he says. "If you want to know where is the best hot dog, best taco, best quick bite, ask a construction worker, a boilermaker, a plumber."

What about fine-dine restaurants?

"I don't eat in fine-dine restaurants," he says. "Who's got time to eat like that anymore?"

Talde certainly doesn't. He's too busy overseeing his restaurants and coming up with new ideas, ideas for more delicious inauthentic food.