Michael Rossi
A Touch of Class in Orange County
This month's featured dish, created by Chef Michael Rossi of Ambrosia Restaurant, combines some of July's most flavorful fruits and vegetables in a recipe that will add a touch of class to your July 4th grill. Ambrosia, located in the OC Pavilion Performing Arts Theater complex, in Santa Ana, California, celebrates a style of fine dining born in the elegant decadence of the post-prohibition 1930s and continued to be perfected through the Hollywood glamour years of the 1950s. It is very much how Chef Rossi's parents' and grandparents’ generations had dined as a matter of course in the pre- and post- years of WWII. In fact, the old country recipe traditions of Chef Rossi’s family, as well as the role that the entire family has played in Michael's culinary tutelage, make Chef Michael the perfect maestro to keep Ambrosia on beat with the baby grand piano that provides a classical ambiance to his very season-centric menu.
"I would say that my cooking style reflects the seasonal marketplace; not only cooking food from a particular country, but embracing the special bounty of each season, always using the best available products and cooking the food from that country with perfection."
About his relationship with Melissa's, Chef Michael added, "As a chef working in an urban environment, far from the harvest regions, I look to Melissa's as my access to the ever-changing selection of fresh ingredients that the company delivers right to my kitchen from all over the world."
A seating at Ambrosia, coupled with tickets to a performance at the adjoining 500 seat theater locally known as the OC Pavilion, relives a time when an elegant meal was the first course of an evening on the town that usually included a play or concert or maybe a night of ballroom dancing. The opulence of Ambrosia's dining room décor is meant to spark an immediate sense of elegance, along with the expectation of impeccable service to follow. Plush leather booths, complete with foot cushions, make for an intimate module where diners are served by a team of attending professionals as if there was no other table in the room. It is a room that embodies the essence of fine dining eloquence, where the table, service and meal are a performance unto itself.
While Chef Rossi is modest about the professional kudos that he has received since coming to Ambrosia from the exclusive Diamond Club at nearby Angel Stadium and Disney's Napa Rose Restaurant, he proudly admits to his position in the Rossi family of kitchens. If the reader accesses the family’s own web site, thefamilykitchen.com, you will agree that Chef Michael comes from an entire family of fun loving foodies scattered all over the globe. The public is welcome to come join their virtual table.
The site was the creation of Michael's father Bob as a vehicle for this family of foodies to keep up with each other as the clan began to branch out around the world. Through blood and marriage they can all trace a link back to a stack of recipes of the Forte family, a branch of the Rossi family tree going back four generations in the small southern Italy town of Noepoli. Throughout the family there are old and new recipes that constantly bounce back and forth through the site; besides this site is a great place to pick up cooking hints and new recipes. "For many years, I thought my grandmother created dishes that no one could ever duplicate. Her kitchen was my classroom," explained Michael. "That is, until I traveled to Italy as an aspiring chef only to be served the same exact flavors by a set of distant relatives who I had never met before but who were serving me my great-grandmother Lucia’s recipes! The experience demonstrated for me the grand cooking heritage that I am a part of as a member of this crazy, food loving family." True to the special occasion focus at Ambrosia, even the July 4th grill is not beyond Chef Michael's upscale approach. His featured dish is meant to produce its own fireworks by replacing the usual burgers on the barby with succulent duck breasts, and swapping out those mustard-relish jars in favor of a full-bodied Apricot-Red Onion Jam. While you may want to keep a few hot dogs in reserve for the kids, there is no reason that the adults at your picnic table should not enjoy a bit of white tablecloth flare to go with the fireworks. Not that he needed to defend this dish in any way, Chef Michael did explain his choice for a July 4th table: "Well, it's a birthday party for a whole country, right? So, I'd say that's a special occasion worthy of a dish equally as special, ala Ambrosia style, just serve it on a fancy paper plate!"
