How To Become Cooking Roia-lty

On the evening of Dec. 19, my wife Suzanne and I will cook a whole fish while being advised and encouraged by an expert at such delicate culinary matters.

It’ll be an adventure, I’m sure, just as on previous Saturday evenings when challenged by this internationally trained chef to do the right gastronomic thing, we have complied — though not always without some strain and a sprinkling of four-letter commentary.

We have done this by inviting Avi Szapiro, chef and founder of Roia, one of our favorite New Haven restaurants, into our small kitchen.

That is, along with dozens of other local chef wannabes (and a couple of real ones), we have joined Avi’s Zoom cooking class, and what a delight and relative bargain it is.

Over several weeks in these sessions, we learned why in the past our chickens dried out and our Arctic char charred into leather. We discovered that celery doesn’t sauté well unless it is prepared to do so, and how a simple poached egg, by adding proper ingredients and enough patience, can turn a salad into a meal.

We have been advised not to ignore the delights, such as they are, of rutabaga and celeriac, why leeks improve sweet potatoes, and have braised chunks of chuck steak into a dish fit for a household addicted to ​“The Crown.”

But it is not a private club, and you are eligible to join. So, should you wish to dress up your own holiday cooking, you too can become an apprentice to chef Avi on the 19th. Here’s what you can expect:

• You will go on the class website and read there that the restaurant itself is on hiatus. This will not surprise you, because so many such places have been shuttered or otherwise severely affected by the pandemic. But you’ll also see that, for $100, you can still purchase high-quality fresh food for two people and two hours of interactive instruction that will test your ability to listen, keep up, and perform as if you, not only Avi, had learned skills in Michelin-starred restaurants.

• You will go to Roia on the day before the lesson and fetch your bag of the ingredients. All of them will be included, including the olive oil, spices, and the orange or lemon twists that Avi typically uses in preparing cocktails — we have enjoyed, while cooking, ​“hanky pankies” (a French delight), juiced up whiskey sours, and delicious concoction made of gin, grenadine and other elements. All included along with the whole fish in the goodie bag.

In fact, one of the things that inspired Avi to start Zoom classes in last spring was that ordinary grocery shopping had become burdensome, time-consuming and even dangerous in the time of Covid-19. So he wanted to provide and prep the food as well. For example, the whole chicken (locally raised), came already brined by him. (The above video includes scenes from one session at the home of Gessica Ni and Arthur Befumo of New Haven.)

“I thought that without the need for shopping and prepping people would be more interested in doing it,” he said. And he wanted a way to reconnect with his customers. ​“I miss them, and, besides, it’s always fun to see people having a good time.” It’s also a way, obviously, to provide some income while the restaurant is closed, though, after paying his hefty food expenses, it’s clearly not a windfall.

During the classes, participants sense Avi’s joy in the doing, and this inspires a communal response. There is much banter, chat-box questioning, laughter, and delight over various levels of triumph by 8 p.m., when participants are ready to go off to their respective dining rooms and taste what their labors have produced.

It is not, of course, the same experience as dining in person. Over the last seven years, since the beginnings of his restaurant, customers have collected in a grand space that was once the main dining room of the old Taft Hotel, where a scores of theatrical personalities stayed when their productions had their final tryouts next door at the Shubert before heading to Broadway.

But these classes provide a shortcut to culinary artistry, certainly compared to Avi’s route.

He grew up in Bogota, Colombia, in a Jewish household. (Don’t all who aspire to master French and Italian dishes – specialties at Roia— come from those roots?)

Avi had the advantage of living in a culinary family. His grandfather had brought European-style bread to the capital city. His mother and her circle of friends brought back recipes and tips from their trips abroad to try at home.

This, then, was mixed into a diet of traditional Colombian dishes, such one that Avi recalls with delight: potato soup made with chicken broth, avocados, capers and cream. He also preferred that when his mother made the iconic Passover dish, gefilte fish, to reserve for himself the pike or carp’s head. An omen, certainly, for an adventurous child.

At 17, he embarked on a journey that took him to jobs around the world. He worked at the classic seafood brasserie, Le Dome, in Paris, where he cleaned fish and peeled a lot of potatoes. He then enrolled at the Culinary Arts Institute in Hyde Park, N.Y., where for first time in an underachieving academic life, ​“I found dynamism, excitement, and the rewards of building good habits,” many of which he introduces during our Zoom sessions. (Hence, the de-threading of celery, for example.)

He apprenticed at Restaurant Pierre Orsi, the Michelin-starred destination in Lyon, where ​“I learned a ton, new techniques, and how to find great products.” He met there the legendary Paul Bocuse, ​“a large presence, who transformed stodgy French cooking.”

And, ​“the Michelin education helped me develop rigor, discipline, stamina, and high standards at the norm, including constant attention to detail. For example, plating is an art form.” Avi learned, in effect, to paint: where on the canvas to put the chives and chervil.

In Oakland, California, he benefitted from the knowledge of chefs who had worked at Chez Panisse, owned by Alice Waters. They taught him to further respect local food, and that distinctions in taste are subtle. For example, a vinaigrette is not a proper vinaigrette unless it is tasted with the specific lettuces it is intended to dress. ​“The experience there removed the mechanical approach to cooking.” Which, of course, made the process even more intriguing, like solving a mystery at every turn.

All of this experience proved useful when he went to London to aid chef Hywel Jones, at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel, in his attempt to attain his first Michelin star. ​“So many hours each day, 16 or 18.”

It paid off. Several months after arriving there, Avi joined in the celebration of the news that Jones and the crew had achieved the prized goal.

“I then made a drastic shift,” and became a cook for a nonprofit, SYDA Foundation, that teaches meditation, work-life balance and other skills in upstate New York and India. ​“I learned there how food affects you, and your wellbeing. I kept a journal of responses to the food I prepared and ate. I learned that each body is different, and reacts to food in a different way. We’re not taught to eat that way, to pay that kind of attention. To listen to our bodies. I learned to chew my food slowly, to gain the nutrients that way, and to realize the very moment I was sated, so as not to overeat. This is tricky, because you reach that point before you know it. It’s like cooking a whole chicken. You don’t let it reach 165 degrees, the preferred temperature. You take it out of the oven at 155 because it will cook the rest on its own while it sits. ”

Before coming to New Haven in 2013, there was one more stop, as consultant and later staff advisor to the frozen food producer Kid Fresh. The idea there was to interest children in healthy foods by being creative with them, by ​“making it fun, delicious, and colorful. By cutting vegetables into fun shapes, like stars, and happy faces. Children love discovering things, and this is a way to introduce them to healthy foods.”

When he finally took up a challenge from associates to come to the Elm City to open his restaurant, he nevertheless kept old connections. When in the spring of 2020 schools closed and nutrition programs for city kids shuttered, he called Matt Cohen, the CEO of Kid Fresh, for help. He donated $12,000 worth of products to distribute to local families suffering from food shortages.

Avi also joined in the effort with others in Frontline Foods New Haven, to feed health care workers so burdened by the pandemic onslaught.

All of which makes my little pitch here for his cooking classes seem to me at this point a luxury for those of us who don’t suffer that kind of depravation.

So how about this? Pay your C‑note for Dec. 19, join us in our delicious Zoom, and then fill your own goodie bags with nonperishables items, and deliver them to a food bank. Avi, no doubt, will toast you with, if not a Hanky Panky, featuring dashes of Fernet-Branca, whatever surprise cocktail you’ll find in your bag.

We may also get, as on a recent evening, a guest appearance from that noted kitchen wizard, Avi’s daughter Eliani, age 2, who, in her mother Meera’s arms, seemed to offer great advice, the details of which we couldn’t quite make out. But we took the advice anyway.