Naples Culinary Luminaries Share Secret Ingredients

Some secrets aren’t meant to be shared. But asking chefs what ingredients they favor most seems both within the bounds of good taste and enlightening for home cooks who wonder why their efforts don’t quite yield the complexity of dishes they enjoy at their favorite restaurants. Naples Illustrated asked four Naples culinary luminaries which ingredients they love most and why. Their selections have one common element—each is something that does not take center stage yet plays a critical role in creating dishes and sauces that thrill diners.

Kayla Pfeiffer

Chef/partner, Bicyclette Cookshop, Heyday Cookshop, and Thank You Kindly Cookshop

Garlic confit is Kayla Pfeiffer’s top pick. It is made by submerging peeled garlic cloves in fat (often olive oil), then slowly cooking until the cloves are soft, golden brown, and can be spread like butter.

Fresh off her impressive performance on Guy Fieri’s Food Network show Flavortown Food Fight, the wunderkind is back in Naples. She divides her attention between her thriving bistro, Bicyclette Cookshop, and her exciting new venture, Heyday Cookshop, a communal space that features chefs in residence for three or four weeks each. Other highlights include natural wines and vermouth programs and a hi-fi listening room. At Bicyclette, which is also home to her grab-and-go sandwich shop, Thank You Kindly Cookshop, the kitchen makes batch after batch of buttery, aromatic garlic confit to ensure a steady supply of Pfeiffer’s favorite ingredient.“It’s super multipurpose,” she says. “Softening it mellows out the harshness and brings more sweetness to it. It’s almost like a natural butter. I always have at least 5 pounds of it. We make it daily; most of our recipes contain it.” Popular favorites include branzino bathed in a butter sauce containing the garlic confit. The confit also works with many other dishes Pfeiffer reimagines.

Culinary Institute of America degree holders are known for mastery of sauces. Pfeiffer, a 2016 graduate, is no exception. She trained under two-time James Beard Award–winner Andrew Carmellini and five-time nominee Terrance Brennan, both Michelin-star recipients as well. In Naples, she has helmed the kitchens of The French Brasserie Rustique (now Tulia Italian Steak) and Bar Tulia; she also played a key role in creating the initial menu for PJK Neighborhood Chinese. Those experiences have contributed to the cuisine she now oversees. No matter how many innovative restaurants she launches, it’s likely there will always be garlic confit. Pfeiffer says, “If in my next life I could open up a candle shop, this is the scent I’d use.” 

Todd Johnson

Chef/owner, Nosh on Naples Bay

Tanshoku miso, a golden-hued Japanese soybean paste with a balanced flavor midway between mild white and more intense red miso, is Todd Johnson’s go-to. His restaurant was an immediate hit when it opened at Naples Bay Resort & Marina in January 2022. Johnson’s modern global cuisine consists of imaginative small plates meant for sharing plus a few larger options, each painstakingly created and plated. While he has a few favorite ingredients, when he factors in Nosh customers’ top picks, the tanshoku paste is found in both his top-selling appetizer (miso caramel pork belly steam buns with kimchi, cucumber, and miso caramel) and his number one entrée (miso sake bronzed sablefish with miso beurre blanc).

“I love miso because it adds umami and some viscosity,” Johnson says. “I use it in vinaigrette to give it thickness. It doesn’t run off; the dressing emulsifies very well. In the old days, we had to use raw egg yolk. Now we throw a little miso in, and not only does it emulsify nicely, it coats your tongue and adds that umami,” adding subtle depth and complexity to food.

The pork belly—which requires three days to cure, cook, press, and allow the miso-caramel sauce to permeate the meat sufficiently—also appears as a topping on deviled eggs and in the wedge salad.

As a graduate of Naples High School and Johnson & Wales University, Johnson recalls the first time he tasted the signature miso-marinated black cod (also known as sablefish) many years ago at Nobu. “I said, ‘Wow! What is this?’” The creator, famed chef Nobu Matsuhisa, eventually revealed that miso was the crucial ingredient. Nosh customers react much the same way to Johnson’s miso sake bronzed sablefish.

While miso plays a big part in the bao buns’ appeal, he adds another flavor boost via the Korean staple kimchi, a salty, spicy mélange of vegetables. Johnson has been making his own miso since he and his partners opened Bistro 41 in Fort Myers and Rumrunners in Cape Coral. He and his team still make it now, allowing it to ferment so that it develops the desired texture and taste. “Three weeks is the magic number,” he says.

Brooke Kravetz

Managing partner, Old Vines Naples at Mercato and The Supper Club

For Brooke Kravetz, nothing beats mouthwatering caramelized onions. At both the buzzy Old Vines Naples at Mercato and The Supper Club, an intimate spot in the Galleria Shoppes at Vanderbilt, patrons are likely to encounter the mellowed alliums because Kravetz, an inspired chef herself, is quite fond of them.“It’s the combination of the sweet and the savory,” she says. “[Onion is] such a savory ingredient raw, and it totally transforms through the cooking process. After one or two hours, you take something potent and savory and make it into something now sweet, caramelized, and it has those savory components without the bite.”

The process requires low, slow cooking and a watchful eye to prevent burning but is relatively simple. “We start cooking the onions in a little olive oil to let the natural sugars come out, and add a little salt,” Kravetz says, who attended the Cambridge School of Culinary Arts and earned a bachelor’s degree in biochemistry. “It will be a base in a lot of other sauces and purées.”

At The Supper Club, caramelized onions lend sweetness and texture to a cheese-stuffed chicken leg with a French onion broth and caramelized cauliflower. At Old Vines Naples at Mercato, the crispy chicken Milanese comes with caramelized-onion cream broth, Gruyère, peas, and spring onions. With seasonal menus recently launched at both locations, customers will likely find the sweet and savory ingredient in other dishes as well.

A special Mother’s Day brunch is planned at Mercato that will resemble the regular Saturday and Sunday brunch but with elevated specials.Starting in June and running through August, Old Vines offers a 30 percent discount on its whole menu from 4 to 10 p.m., Monday through Thursday. “It’s our way to give back to the local community in appreciation for supporting us in the summer,” Kravetz says.

Gaspard Toulouppe

Chef, Bleu Provence

Fennel—a versatile relative of the carrot—wins Gaspard Toulouppe’s heart. “I love it,” he says. “It’s perfect—there’s the flower, the stalk, and the bulb. It has a licorice flavor and feathery foliage. I work with it so much.” The seeds of some varieties are used as seasonings, too.

Toulouppe, who is from Marseille, France, was dutifully raised in the kitchen of his family’s restaurant and began his formal training at 16. He now occupies the position previously held by Lysielle Cariot. She and her husband, Jacques Cariot, created and ran Bleu Provence beginning in 1999, making it a nationally noteworthy restaurant before retiring in 2024. Now their sons Clément and Kevin manage the legendary restaurant known for both its stellar French food with a Florida flair and award-winning, 40,000-plus bottle wine cellar.

Toulouppe, who served as chef de partie at the Michelin-starred Le Jardin de Berne in Provence, France, worked with Lysielle for several years and now carries on the Cariots’ traditions. He sees his role as both a steward responsible for carrying on excellence, as well as a collaborator continuing to guide the restaurant into the future. The chef also oversees the family’s 10-acre Sanctuary Organic Farm, where they grow passion fruit, ginger, sweet potatoes, carrots, peppers, eggs, and more. The restaurant’s acclaimed ratatouille is made from whatever vegetables grown at the farm manage to withstand the area’s sometimes tempestuous weather.

Toulouppe is considering planting some fennel for the many ways in which he can envision using it. “It’s a vegetable, but you can treat it like a fruit,” he says. “You can make a confit, or maybe with sugar, or on ice cream. You can eat it raw or cooked. It goes with fish and meat, too. I love that there are so many things you can do with it.” Toulouppe has even created an imaginative dessert: a fennel and lime sorbet with fennel confit, toasted fennel-seeds crumble, and airy anise meringue topped with fennel fronds powder. 

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