Pintxo

In May of 2024, I opened Pintxo Wine & Tapas in Canandaigua, NY. It was (and still is) my goal to deliver a sophisticated hospitality concept in a comfortable and convivial environment. With a focus on Spanish wine, we execute a menu that pairs well, without itself being distinctly or deliberately Spanish.

I knew I'd want us to make our own bread, and that practice remains a driver for our program. Our menu is built around small plates, designed for pairing and sharing. We import some special Spanish components, and make our food from scratch around them.

Melt Bakery

In 2010, I started Melt Bakery in NYC with my friend Kareem. With $350 and big dreams, we started slinging our ice cream sandwiches at the brand new Hester Street Fair on Manhattan's Lower East Side. From there, we garnered a spot (and eventually two) on the High Line, NYC's most-visited tourist attraction, which quickly became our most visible home. In 2011, we built our kitchen on Orchard St., on the Lower East Side, where the business was born; we opened a store in that location a year later.

Over the years, we ran seasonal locations at festivals, parks, and food markets like Mad Sq Eats, Broadway Bites, Washington Square Park, Governors Island, The US Open, New York Comic Con, and dozens more, with up to 13 locations running concurrently. We delivered our sandos across the city, shipped them, and sold them wholesale to over 100 venues like Woodpecker (David Burke), The Lobster Joint, dozens of movie theaters, Citi Field, and Madison Square Garden. We used our small fleet of carts to cater private events: weddings, parties, bar- and bat mitzvahs, and corporate functions for Yahoo, Google, and hundreds of others. We eventually opened up a second brick-and-mortar, in DUMBO, Brooklyn, as well as a small store in Macy's Herald Square.

Melt made it through Covid, technically, however a plant that supplied dairy to our manufacturer had a listeria outbreak; this didn't afffect our product directly but the protocol around listeria requires (as it should) a complete recall of all related product in a facility. This happened just as Sam and I had entered contract on our house in the Finger Lakes, and Sam was beginning the final rounds of interviewing for his position at UR & RIT. Melt was basically right back at Square One... and March is not a good time for an ice cream company in the most competitive city in the world to be starting from zero. We were extraordinarily lucky in that we had no debt, so Melt is still ours, just on a shelf.

I'm currently assessing bringing Melt back, in a wholesale capacity, later in 2026. (If you're interested in joining me on this journey, please drop a line!)

Ice Cream Design

My work as a pastry chef and of course as the founder of Melt taught me a lot about ice cream! I started freelancing officially in 2019, when my friend Luke contracted me to design for his new brand, Marco Ice Cream. Bringing international vibes (and sometimes heat!) to the ice cream aisle, Marco ran for five years. Our ice creams were found in about 3,000 grocery stores mostly in the western half of the US. We also had a robust DTC component, that included live, interactive video tastings with many of our clients!

There aren't many ice cream designers out there, and there's not a lot of demand for it. When we find the right fit, though, it's a blast! I've worked with a couple smaller brands both in New York City and beyond, and am currently formulating for a Baltimore-based company that's reviving an old brand. (More on that soon!)

Got an ice cream project you'd like to discuss? Drop a line!

Instruction & Writing

Ever since I started cooking professionally, I've enjoyed sharing my knowledge and discoveries (however new). I started teaching at Williams Sonoma's Columbus Circle store in NYC around 2008. This habit continued with the dawn of Melt, where I taught pastry classes to our new audience, and with Kareem at my side instructed people on the especially and uniquely complicated art of starting a small food business in New York City. During the pandemic, I used my time at home to set up a kitchen studio, and taught baking lessons on YouTube for anyone to join. I also did private virtual instruction for companies looking for team building events online. These days, you can often find me teaching baking or demonstrating wine at Canandaigua's fantastic New York Kitchen.

I'm working on developing a new streaming concept, as well as a podcast.

I started writing food in 2006, chronicling my time in culinary school in blog form. I love writing largely for the fact that it simply helps me remember what I'm doing, and even if the only one chuckling as they read it is me, I enjoy getting it all down on (virtual) paper. We'll see if the book I want to write ever happens. The more I write, the more likely it will! Currently, I do most of my writing for my Substack, and I now have just enough subscribers that I feel a little responsibility to it!