As chef/TV host Stephanie Izard was preparing for a return appearance at the Palm Beach Food & Wine Festival, which runs today through December 15, she dished on the great food and spending time with talented chefs. But Izard — known for her Girl & the Goat and Cabra restaurants in Chicago and Los Angeles — couldn’t help but also talk about Palm Beach itself.
“It’s so beautiful,” the Top Chef and Iron Chef winner says. “I mean, you can’t think of a more beautiful location for a festival. Every time I’m down there, I’m like, ‘I need to live here.’ The beaches are just beautiful. I’m a beach person at heart.”
The new California resident shared more about her favorite beaches, the unlikely comfort food she makes at home and what we can expect at her new Valley Goat restaurant, which will debut in Silicon Valley in early 2025.
Can you give us a preview of what you’re preparing for the festival?
I’m doing a Spice dinner with a few other chefs to highlight spices from different parts of the world. I’m bringing some ají de gallina empanadas that we do at Cabra, one of our Peruvian-inspired restaurants in Chicago and L.A.
It’s celebrating some different spices from Peru with the ají amarillo chilis. And then I’m doing a dish that just popped in my head: I’ve made sort of a bagna cauda before — it’s like an Italian dipping sauce for veggies — but I’m gonna make that with some Chinese five spice; a little bit of giardiniera, which is a pickled relish from Chicago; and some beautiful tuna, hopefully local, for a raw fish dish.
Then on Saturday, Maneet Chauhan and I are doing [Kids Kitchen], a fun event for kids where it’s hands-on. We’ll do a little demo, and then kids get to make themselves a snack. I’m doing sweet and savory little French toast sticks with a fun crunch mix so they can have fun personalizing their little French toast sticks and cook along. And then I just got asked to do a brunch with Daniel Boulud on Sunday as well.
It’s fun getting together with different chefs to do different events, so I’m excited.
Will you have any time to explore Palm Beach while you’re there?
It’s hard to not just want to hang on the beach and kick it by the pool. And it’s so pretty to have a couple little cocktails with friends.
But I’d love to just explore the town more and see what it is like to be part of that community and check out the restaurant scene some more. I went to one restaurant last year, Buccan Palm Beach, and it was super delicious.
What are your favorite travel destinations?
I love to try to go to new places every time I travel. I know a lot of people are repeat customers because you go to an amazing place, so why wouldn’t you want to go back?
I went to Costa Rica with my son, Ernie, for Thanksgiving week and we’re going to Portugal and Paris for New Year’s.
I just go all over. I love it. Now that I’m on the West Coast a lot, I’ve been to Hawaii a few times in the last year, to Maui and the Big Island, which is amazing. It’s so nice and close and beautiful.
I usually choose warm places. My son is 8, and so my goal is to start taking him all over the world.
You mentioned that you were a beach person. Do you have any favorite beaches?
In California, Ernie and I go to Malibu really often. And there’s some other ones over by the Newport area that are really pretty. In Florida, I would say West Palm Beach is my favorite. The sand is the most beautiful.
I was just down in Gulf Shores, Alabama. It’s right on the border of Florida. It caught me off guard. I had no idea what to expect. The sand is beautiful, and the beach is great, nice and mellow. That was awesome.
I’m a sucker for the Caribbean, but that’s kind of far from where I’m at now, so I don’t get there that often. But again, Maui, of course, is beautiful, too.
When you travel, do you pack any food for the airplane?
We bring little rice bowls. It’s something that you can feel kind of good about eating, that’s simple and can hold for a couple of hours and taste okay room temperature.
I try to pack some apples and things like that. I try to bring some healthy things so that I feel good about myself when I get off the plane and I’m ready to go.
When you are back in Chicago, where do you go when you want a good meal?
I just took my team to Daisies a couple of nights ago, which was fantastic — a great team. We sat down and said we’ll take one of everything, so we had a lot of food. That was great.
Momotaro is one of my business partner’s restaurants. It’s great for sushi. There’s a cool izakaya underneath that I love because it’s a little more casual.
HaiSous is one of my favorite restaurants. Joe Flamm, who used to work for me, has Rose Mary that’s down the street — I love that. Monteverde is really great.
Now that you’re in L.A., have you found your go-to restaurants there?
There’s this really great place in San Gabriel that’s known for Peking duck, Ji Rong. That is my favorite Chinese restaurant that I found out here.
My son and I go to this little sushi place called Wa Sushi. It’s just a little neighborhood spot. You know when you go to a place where they just know what you want because you come there so often? It’s like that.
Mozza is always delicious — anything Nancy Silverton does is great. Playa Provisions by Brooke Williamson is yummy. I still need to get out and explore some of the more hidden gems.
What are your favorite ingredients to work with right now?
It’s citrus season, so if you look at all of our menus, we have pickled kumquats in just about everything because I just love them. We joke with each other, “How many pickled kumquats did you eat today?” I like popping them in my mouth and eating them whole.
We just put Ruby Red grapefruit on the menu in Chicago from Texas. That is my favorite grapefruit. So yeah, a lot of citrus, just trying to brighten things up in the winter.
My mind is so on things that I’ve been cooking for the holidays, like all different sides and veggies. I just made these semi sweet potatoes with some spiced pecans that I was mowing on for lunch.
Speaking of the holidays, do you have any food traditions?
For me, on Christmas Day, after opening presents, just getting into the kitchen. Last year, we baked cookies all day and made snacks. It’s a whole day of grazing in my house. That’s how I grew up. My mom would put out snacks throughout the day, and every time you walk past it, you had some more snacks. So, we’re a grazing household for the holidays.
What is your go-to comfort food?
When I get home from work and I just want to chill on the couch and watch a movie, I usually just make myself a giant, whatever-is-in-the-fridge garbage salad. I’ll put rice in there, chickpeas, chicken, cheese, lettuce, veggies and always a lot of pepitas for crunch and any other crunch that I can find around. Sometimes I sauté Special K in butter and put it in my salad. It’s delicious.
Really?
Special K sauteed in butter with salt or spices on it — once you try that, you’re just gonna put it on anything.
Tell me more about your upcoming Valley Goat restaurant.
I just got off a call with the designers talking about the wallpaper that’s going up and different goat paintings to put around. The campus for the new Treehouse hotel, where it is located, is beautiful. It’s just so many trees. It’s like this very whimsical, forest-feeling campus. It has a pool and a beautiful gym. And it’s beautiful. When you go to check in, you’re in a greenhouse with thousands of plants. Just seeing the layout for that was like, “Yes, I love this so much.” It’s almost like a sanctuary in the middle of Sunnyvale.
And then it’s just been working with the team and starting to dive in. I need to get to the farmers market. We just brought on our new chef de cuisine, so starting to dive into getting the menu finalized, but it’s taking some of my favorite sauces from over the last 15 years and different flavors that we’ve done and maybe some dishes from various restaurants and having some favorites on there, but then creating some dishes you can only get at that Goat restaurant. I’m excited, it should be fun.
Do you have any other big plans for 2025?
We have some other restaurant projects that’ll probably come in 2026. Hopefully, I’ll continue to do more TV things and just focus on the restaurants that I have right now and exploring where we can go from there.
This new thing of opening in L.A. and now in Sunnyvale, has opened my eyes to the idea of let’s maybe look at somewhere in Florida, let’s look at Vegas, Phoenix or find some different locations that would be fun to have a Goat restaurant.
