The Four Horsemen - by Nick Curtola & Gabe Ulla & James Murphy (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

The highly anticipated cookbook from the Michelin-starred restaurant, written by acclaimed chef Nick Curtola, James Murphy, James Beard Award-winning wine director Justin Chearno, and co-author Gabe Ulla.

Much like the irresistibly warm restaurant that inspires it, The Four Horsemen: Food and Wine for Good Timesis about more than just amazing food.

The story begins in 2014, when four friends with practically zero restaurant experience between them naively decided to open a restaurant in New York City. They called the place The Four Horsemen, and they hired a largely unknown chef, Nick Curtola, to lead its tiny kitchen.

Even though they did almost everything wrong at the start, The Four Horsemen now has a Michelin star, a waiting list for tables seven nights a week, and a James Beard Award for the best wine program in the United States--not to mention a global reputation as a must-visit destination in New York City. Of Curtola's food,

New York Times restaurant critic Pete Wells wrote, in a glowing review, "The effortlessly casual plates are not, in fact, effortless or casual, a realization that only dawns on you as you're wondering why this sausage or that pickle is the best thing you've tasted in ages."

In the acclaimed restaurant's debut cookbook, Curtola explains his approach to simplicity with warmth, clarity, and more than 100 recipes. The book begins with a humorous and moving introduction by co-founder James Murphy, which sets the stage for Curtola's writing and recipes, casual and informative essays by natural wine pioneer Justin Chearno, and appearances by Murphy and Chearno's fellow horsemen Christina Topsøe and Randy Moon.

Throughout, readers will also find suggestions related to a subject on which the four unwitting friends were experts long before they built the restaurant: how to have fun.

Includes Photographs and Illustrations

Review Quotes

"Inside The Four Horsemen's 700 square feet is everything I love about living in New York City. This is more than a cookbook--though it is masterfully that. Chef Nick Curtola has written a book that is as personal, unpretentious, and amazing as the restaurant."--JEREMY STRONG, actor

"I adore this beautiful book because it reflects the unique intuitive qualities of my favorite Brooklyn watering hole--warmth, ease, beauty, kindness, community. And of course, the most divine food and wine ever."--KIM HASTREITER, co-founder, Paper

"The magic of The Four Horsemen is that it's a place that rewires your brain. It banishes all puritanical suspicions you may have of the pleasures of life and sets you on a new and brighter path. So much of that magic is here in these pages, these recipes, this wine. Come Horsemen yourself and be free."--GARRETT OLIVER, brewmaster of the Brooklyn Brewery, the author of The Brewmaster's Table, and the ed

"The menu at the Four Horsemen has never been a pretentious one, so it makes sense that chef Nick Curtola's recipes easily segue into the home kitchen. Yet this volume gives us something deeper, charting the history of the place--its founding, architectural plans, renovations, menu development--and conveying how hard, how infinitely hard, it can be to build and operate a restaurant of this caliber."--Esquire

"The season's chicest cookbook."--Vanity Fair

"The Four Horsemen is a restaurant that I daydream about all the way from Paris."--IÑAKI AIZPITARTE, chef and founder of Le Chateaubriand

"There is on the edges of Williamsburg an extraordinary restaurant with delicious and heartfelt food, soulful and vibrant wines, and unparalleled hospitality. Now, we all have the keys to the kingdom: Cook and drink along to these pages, and The Four Horsemen is yours whenever you like."--PASCALINE LEPELTIER, M.O.F. and Beverage Director of Chambers NYC

"This is a great gift for a wine lover, a home cook looking to elevate their craft, or just an avid fan of LCD Soundsystem (one of the restaurant's co-owners is frontman James Murphy). It's a perfect addition to a cookbook shelf or a coffee table."--Harper's Bazaar

About the Author

Nick Curtola is the head chef of the Four Horsemen. Raised in Northern California, where he attended culinary school and trained under Camino's Russell Moore, Curtola would later spend time in Piedmont, Italy, butchering goats and making pasta by hand, before eventually moving to New York. After working at the dearly departed Franny's, Curtola settled down at the Four Horsemen, where he has been cooking for the last seven years. Gabe Ulla is the co-author of Ignacio Mattos's debut cookbook Estela and David Chang's New York Times-bestselling memoir Eat a Peach. His articles on food and culture have appeared in WSJ Magazine, Town & Country, Saveur, and The New Yorker. Justin Chearno is the wine director of the Four Horsemen. A Brooklyn resident, he turned Williamsburg's UVA into one of the most influential wine shops in the United States in the early 2000s, well before anyone cared about natural wine. James Murphy is the renowned musician, DJ, singer, songwriter, and record producer behind LCD Soundsystem and the founder of the Four Horsemen.