Chef Seth Moliterno Breathes New Life into The Lobby

By Erika Kubick in Food on May 28, 2014 3:30PM

Photo Courtesy of Facebook. Chef Seth Moliterno.

Bread service: choice of herbed ciabatta, multigrain baguette, bacon roll baked fresh daily. Served with salted goat butter and cow butter.

Amuse bouche: Smoked Sturgeon with citrus segments, crème fraiche, Siberian Osetra caviar, and chive oil.

Lamb Tartare tandoori with cucumber, mint, pickled shallots, golden raisin puree, pickled currants, cumin crème fraiche, and lentil cracker. One of the more complex dishes, but the flavors all revolve around the tartare.

Milk poached burgundy white asparagus with lavender and thyme, iberico de bellot, parsley cream, crispy summer truffle, red velvet apricots three ways: raw, brûléed, and as a gastrique.

Raw and roasted beets, cara cara orange, panko crusted goat cheese, and toasted hazelnut vinaigrette. This little salad exhibits Moliterno’s simple yet elevated approach to food.

Diver Scallop wrapped in Dover sole, English peas, Serrano ham and basil nage.

Honey brown mussels and cociles with artichoke barigoule, cippolini and cilantro.

Pan seared loup de mer, French radish, potato mille-feuille, and sauce matelote.

Crispy braised veal breast, spring navarin vegetables, and blanquette de veau.

Before Chef Lee Wolen left to become the executive chef at a renovated Boka, he brought The Lobby at The Penninsula from a mere hotel restaurant to a Michelin-starred dining destination. Whoever replaced him had large shoes to fill. That task has fallen to Chef Seth Moliterno. Before arriving at The Lobby, Moliterno cooked under Thomas Keller in Nevada and Mindy Segal at Hot Chocolate here in Chicago. Most Recently, Moliterno opened Embeya as sous chef.

Chef Wolen set a standard at The Lobby, implementing a focus on simple, refined contemporary cuisine that focuses on local ingredients. Chef Moliterno takes perhaps an even simpler approach: rejecting the formula of protein-vegetable-grain, he breaks each dish down to just a few simple elements. With eclectic technique, he manipulates the taste and texture of each component to create a mosaic of complexity. His milk-poached burgundy white asparagus dish involves the seasonal star rearing in the center of the dish, delicately garnished with parsley cream, pockets of ibérico de bellota and summer truffles with the crunch of a potato chip. The plate is also adorned with a trio of red velvet apricots: a fan of raw slices, a crunchy bruléed half, and a sweet drizzle of gastrique.

Moliterno’s dishes are disarmingly simple, yet with elegant complexity. For example, an entrée, the diver scallop is tightly wrapped with Dover sole, the two bonded together. Once again, he enriches a rather light dish with charcuterie, Serrano ham. English peas surround the plate, finished with a pour of basil nage. Moliterno uses vegetables for purposes beyond the side dish and all but eliminates the grain component. Especially for the spring menu, the forgone grain keeps the dishes light and focused on the fresh, harmonious flavors of the simplified dish.

Chef Moliterno is focusing on seasonal ingredients in addition to local, and bringing in a flurry of new vendors. Moliterno hopes to utilize the best of the season across all of his menus—including the bar menu, which he aims to reinvent with playful elegance. He has also been sourcing an assortment of whole animals to facilitate in house butchery.

As it stands, Chef Moliterno is likely to maintain that Michelin status. This is a career that I am sure to watch.