Spring Fare With French Flair

Hot Philadelphia Chef Dominique Filoni Preps Cuisine On $40 Budget

(CBS)  Chef Dominique Filoni is America's youngest "French Master Chef" and was named one of Food & Wine magazine's "best new chefs" last year.

His Philadelphia restaurant, Bianca, has been open six months, and continues to win praise with its simple, yet sophisticated cuisine.

Filoni agreed to prepare a meal for four on The Saturday Early Show's shoestring $40 budget.

Filoni and his wife, Sabine, opened their restaurant and named it after their daughter in October. Their son was born just ten days later.

Their goal was to create a somewhat casual restaurant that would feel enable patrons to feel as if they were eating in their own home.

Because Filoni is French, the menu has definite French overtones.

Born and raised in St. Tropez, France, Filoni saw cooking and eating as a family affair. Activities often revolved around food, whether it was helping his grandmother prepare one of her legendary culinary feasts, foraging for wild mushrooms and leeks with his uncle, tending to the family garden, or searching for snails with his mother.

By the time Filoni was 16, he had already graduated with honors from the intensive culinary program at the Lycee Hotelier Institute in Hyeres, France.

For five years, Filoni cooked at several well-regarded restaurants in the French Alps, the French Riviera and Paris. During that time, Filoni learned the importance of using the freshest ingredients, and the necessity of incorporating these ingredients, on a seasonal basis, into menu development.

As he rose through the ranks, he began to understand the subtle hand needed to coax maximum flavor from dishes by letting flavors speak for themselves.

Always eager to expand his knowledge and take on new culinary challenges, Filoni moved to the United States in 1995 to accept the position of Chef de Cuisine at "Tierra" restaurant in Gulph Mills, Pa.

In 1997, the owners of the former Tierra restaurant recognized Filoni's extraordinary talent and promoted him to Chef de Cuisine at the subsequently named "Savona." Sticking with his simple philosophy of utilizing only the best ingredients available, Filoni blended his superb French discipline with his love of Italian spontaneity.

The combination developed into his own innovative signature style of cooking.

Filoni's dedication to "Savona" was rewarded when he became one of the restaurant's partners and executive chef in 2000.

Just three years later, Filoni was inducted into the Maitres Cuisiniers de France, making him the youngest French Master Chef in the United States.

Filoni has been featured on the TV Food Network, in Wine Spectator, Bon Appetit, Town and Country and Culinary Trends magazines, among others.

He now lends his talents exclusively to his own establishment.

FOOD FACTS
Emulsion: A mixture of one liquid with another, with which it cannot normally combine smoothly. Emulsifying is done by slowly adding one ingredient to another while mixing rapidly.