David DiStasi

The Climb

Technique was shaped early by formal training at the Culinary Institute of America, then hardened in the day-to-day work of his father’s and brother’s catering business in Watertown, Connecticut. That sequence matters: school gave the frame, catering gave the pressure, and the next kitchens extended the range. At La Tavola, and then as a cook at Le Bernardin in New York City (from 2011), David DiStasi moved into service environments where precision had to hold under pace. The next steps widened the map without changing the terms of the work. At Sepia in Sydney, Australia, the kitchen language shifted to another continent; at La Trattoria Enrico Bartolini in Maremma, Tuscany, Italy (from 2017), the reference point moved closer to the Italian cooking he has been naming as the goal. Today, David is chef of Materia Ristorante.

Today

At Materia Ristorante in Bantam, David serves as co-owner and chef, with a cooking style that reads as controlled rather than loud. The list of dishes — tagliolini neri, sugo al granchio, pomodoro gialli, and Berkshire Pork Chop 'Au Poivre' with Sicilian Caponata — shows a kitchen working through Italian forms with clear naming and direct intention. The menu language points to specificity: pasta, seafood, tomato, pork, caponata, each used without extra noise. He has also said, “There’s so much more of Italian cuisine to explore.” That outlook fits the restaurant’s position: not as a nostalgic endpoint, but as a place where earlier training is being put to use. The progression from Connecticut catering to New York, Sydney, and Tuscany is legible in the food’s emphasis on structure and restraint. At this stage, the work is about carrying those references into a style that is personal without losing discipline.

Signature

David's signature dishes include tagliatelle al ragu, Tagliolini neri, sugo al granchio, pomodoro gialli, and Berkshire Pork Chop 'Au Poivre' with Sicilian Caponata. As a group, they show a kitchen built on clarity of form: pasta chosen to hold sauce, seafood and tomato used with a measured hand, and a pork dish that brings a firmer, more savory register into the lineup. The common thread is technique applied toward Italian cooking without drifting into ornament.

In Their Words “My dream is to cook true Italian food. Not the Italian-American food that I and so many other people were raised with.” “There’s so much more of Italian cuisine to explore.”