Course Two · Il Primo Piatto di Pasta
Zafferano di Navelli DOP · Aged Pecorino di Farindola · Wild Mountain Herbs
Private Chef Robert · Greenwich, CT · Fairfield County
There are dishes that nourish, and there are dishes that transport. Spaghetti alla Chitarra al Ragù d'Agnello — hand-cut pasta pressed through an ancient wire-strung wooden frame, cradling a slow-braised lamb ragù gilded with the world's most prestigious saffron — belongs resolutely in the latter category. This is the kind of plate that silences a dining room, that draws an involuntary pause mid-conversation, that lives in memory long after the last glass of Montepulciano d'Abruzzo has been poured.
For the residents of Greenwich, Connecticut — accustomed to the finest things the world offers — Private Chef Robert brings this masterwork of the Abruzzese kitchen directly to your home, your estate, your intimate dinner party, or your milestone celebration. Every component is sourced with obsessive care, every technique executed with the precision of twenty-plus years of fine-dining craft.
The chitarra — literally "guitar" — is a traditional Abruzzese pasta tool whose steel strings cut fresh egg pasta into perfect square-sectioned strands. The resulting noodle is rougher than a machine-made spaghetti, with a surface that hungrily absorbs rich sauces. Paired with a ragù of slow-braised lamb shoulder, deepened by a whisper of the rarest DOP saffron from the high plateau of Navelli, finished at the table with snowy curls of aged Pecorino di Farindola, and scattered with wild mountain herbs — this course defines the word squisito.
Whether you are hosting a six-course tasting dinner for twelve guests in your back-country Greenwich estate, an anniversary dinner for two in your Riverside home with views of Long Island Sound, or an intimate holiday gathering in Old Greenwich — Chef Robert designs every detail of the experience around you. The shopping, the prep, the cooking, the plating, the cleanup: all handled. All you do is arrive at your own table and be welcomed by something extraordinary.
Greenwich is not a place of generic expectations. Your home deserves a dining experience calibrated to your palate, your dietary preferences, your occasion, and your vision — not a restaurant menu designed for the masses. A private chef brings the uncompromising ingredient sourcing, the knife skills, the sauce knowledge, and the plating artistry of a Michelin-calibre kitchen into your dining room. For a dish like Spaghetti alla Chitarra al Ragù d'Agnello, this means sourcing lamb from a trusted regional farm, hand-cutting every strand of chitarra that morning, blooming rare DOP saffron in warm stock at the precisely right moment, and shaving Pecorino di Farindola — a cheese made from the milk of semi-wild Farindola pigs in the Gran Sasso mountains — only seconds before the plate reaches your guest. No restaurant kitchen, however accomplished, can deliver this level of personalization at your own table, in your own home, on your schedule. For the discerning Greenwich host, that matters enormously.
Hosting in Greenwich — where social obligations, professional demands, and family life move at full speed — is often sabotaged by the sheer logistics of serious cooking. The shopping, the prep timeline, the coordination of courses, the heat management, the cleanup that follows: these consume hours that high-net-worth Greenwich residents simply cannot spare. A private chef eliminates every one of these friction points. Chef Robert handles the full grocery run — sourcing ingredients from Eataly in New York, DeCicco & Sons in Armonk, SweetPea Produce at the Greenwich Farmers Market, and specialty imports directly — arriving at your home fully equipped, executing the full service timeline with military precision, and departing only after every surface is clean and every dish is washed. Your role is purely to be the host you want to be: present, relaxed, and at the table. For Greenwich families who value their time above almost everything else, this is not a luxury — it is a rational decision.
What elevates this dish beyond an excellent lamb pasta into a true fine-dining statement is the deliberate choice of three extraordinary ingredients — each carrying a designation of origin, a centuries-old production tradition, and a flavor profile utterly its own. Together, they transform a rustic Abruzzese classic into a course worthy of any table in Greenwich, CT.
Harvested by hand at dawn on the high plateau of Navelli in the province of L'Aquila, Abruzzo — at 700 metres above sea level — this saffron holds the Denominazione di Origine Protetta designation, the most rigorous quality certification in European food law. The Navelli variety (Crocus sativus) produces stigmas of extraordinary depth: intensely floral, slightly metallic, with notes of honey and dried hay. A single 0.5-gram jar — representing the harvest of roughly 500 individual crocus flowers — transforms the braising liquid of the ragù into something luminous, gilded, and irreplaceable. No other saffron in the world produces this exact character. When bloomed in warm lamb stock before being introduced to the sauce, the kitchen fills with an aroma that stops conversation.
Produced only in the small mountain village of Farindola in the Gran Sasso National Park, Abruzzo, this pecorino is made from the raw milk of Sopravissana sheep and — uniquely in the world — ripened using a starter derived from pig intestine rather than calf rennet. The result is a cheese of profound complexity: pungent but not aggressive, savoury and sweet in the same mouthful, with a grainy, crystalline texture when aged that shatters on the tongue like good Parmesan. Grated over the hot pasta at the moment of plating, it melts fractionally on contact, releasing a wave of umami that no ordinary Pecorino Romano could approach. Its production is so small and so geographically specific that it ranks among the most rare and precious cheeses in Italy.
The Apennine highlands that frame Abruzzo's shepherd traditions are blanketed in wild thyme (timo serpillo), mountain oregano (origano montano), rosemary that grows in the limestone crevices above the treeline, and fresh bay. These herbs are used at multiple stages: bruised in olive oil at the start of the soffritto, tucked into the braising liquid with the lamb shoulder, and scattered as a final fresh garnish at plating. For the Greenwich table, Chef Robert sources these herbs with care — using certified organic fresh herbs from Ambler Farm in Wilton, CT, or the Westport Farmers Market, supplemented where necessary by specialty dried mountain herbs imported directly from the Abruzzo region.
Part of what makes a private chef in Greenwich, CT genuinely different from restaurant dining is the power of intentional sourcing — building each dish from ingredients acquired specifically for your meal, on the day of your meal, from producers who share the same standard of quality. Chef Robert maintains active relationships with the following local and regional vendors for this menu:
The definitive source for authentic DOP/IGP Italian ingredients in the tristate area. Chef Robert procures Zafferano di Navelli DOP, imported 00 flour, semolina rimacinata, and San Marzano DOP tomatoes directly from Eataly's Flatiron or Downtown locations.
An exceptional specialty grocer just minutes from the CT border. Chef Robert sources quality fresh vegetables, imported pasta tools, regional cheeses, and specialty wines — including Montepulciano d'Abruzzo for pairing — at this beloved Westchester institution.
Held seasonally at Roger Sherman Baldwin Park and Horseneck Lot, the Greenwich Farmers Market is Chef Robert's primary source for seasonal fresh vegetables, local eggs, artisan honeys, and fresh herbs from vendors such as SweetPea Produce and local herb growers.
A cherished, community-supported working farm in Wilton — under ten miles from central Greenwich — producing organic vegetables, heritage herb varieties, and seasonal greens. Chef Robert sources thyme, rosemary, and mountain oregano here for this dish when in season.
For the lamb shoulder at the heart of this ragù, Chef Robert sources from quality butcher and specialty food purveyors in the Westport area, prioritizing pasture-raised, humanely handled lamb from regional farms.
One of Connecticut's finest year-round farmers markets, featuring local farms, specialty produce, artisan cheeses, and fresh eggs. An important complementary source for fresh herbs and seasonal vegetables used in this course.
Though this course centers on lamb, Greenwich's finest seafood purveyor captures the local Long Island Sound fishing tradition — a reminder of the maritime character that has defined this community since the seventeenth century.
Aged Pecorino di Farindola is not widely stocked in Connecticut. Chef Robert sources this rare cheese via specialty importers, Eataly's cheese counter, or direct specialty order from Murray's Cheese when it is available.
Greenwich, Connecticut occupies a privileged position on Long Island Sound — one of the most biologically productive estuaries on the Eastern Seaboard. While this particular course draws from the high mountains of Abruzzo rather than the shoreline, the Sound is an ever-present element of Greenwich's culinary identity. The clean, cold waters off Greenwich Point and Tod's Point yield striped bass, bluefish, blue claw crab, and soft-shell clams that appear in Chef Robert's other courses. Local watermen and the Greenwich-area fishing community maintain a tradition of waterfront connection that pairs naturally with the Italian-American heritage woven throughout Fairfield County's food culture. The Sound's salt air, the tidal rhythms of Greenwich Harbor, and the maritime light that falls across the town's estate landscapes are all, in their way, part of the context in which this meal is served.
Greenwich was established in 1640 — one of the oldest towns in Connecticut — when English settlers, having crossed from Dutch-controlled New Amsterdam (present-day New York), purchased land from the Siwanoy people of the Munsee Lenape nation and founded a settlement along the western shore of Long Island Sound. Its position at the very southwestern tip of Connecticut, bordering Westchester County, New York, made it a crossroads from its earliest days: a place where cultures, commerce, and culinary traditions have always mingled freely.
Through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Greenwich evolved from a modest farming and fishing community into a destination for New York's wealthy industrialists, who constructed the grand estates and stone-walled properties that still characterize the back-country landscape today. By the early twentieth century, Greenwich had cemented its identity as one of the most affluent communities in the United States — a reputation it maintains to this day, ranking consistently among the wealthiest per-capita towns in the nation.
The arrival of significant Italian-American immigrant communities throughout Fairfield County in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries — many of them from Southern Italy and the Abruzzo region specifically — left a permanent imprint on the local food culture. Italian bakeries, delis, family trattorias, and food traditions became woven into the fabric of Greenwich and neighboring Stamford, Port Chester, and White Plains. It is fitting, then, that a dish rooted in the culinary heritage of Abruzzo — Spaghetti alla Chitarra al Ragù d'Agnello — should find its most refined modern expression on the tables of Greenwich's finest homes, prepared by a private chef who honors that heritage while elevating it to the standards this remarkable community deserves.
Spaghetti alla Chitarra al Ragù d'Agnello
with Zafferano di Navelli DOP, Aged Pecorino di Farindola & Wild Mountain Herbs
All components to prepare and organize before active cooking begins.
| Component | Preparation | Vessel / Tool |
|---|---|---|
| Lamb shoulder (700g, bone-in) | Pat dry, cut into 3-inch pieces, season generously with sea salt and black pepper 1 hour before browning | Sheet tray, paper towels |
| Soffritto: onion, carrot, celery | Finely dice (brunoise) all three vegetables; keep separate | 3 small prep bowls |
| Garlic (3 cloves) | Lightly crushed, skin on | Small bowl |
| San Marzano tomatoes (400ml) | Crush by hand, reserve liquid | Medium bowl |
| Saffron — Zafferano di Navelli DOP (0.5g) | Bloom in 4 tbsp warm lamb stock or warm water for 20 minutes before use; do not boil | Small espresso cup or ramekin |
| White wine (200ml dry) | Measured and poured; room temp | Measuring jug |
| Fresh herbs — thyme, rosemary, mountain oregano, bay | Strip thyme and oregano; rosemary kept as sprig; two bay leaves | Small plate lined with paper |
| Fresh pasta — 00 flour (350g), semolina rimacinata (150g) | Weighed and sifted together onto wooden board; eggs cracked into a bowl | Marble or wooden board, bowl |
| Eggs (4 large, room temp) | Cracked and ready; not cold from fridge | Bowl |
| Extra-virgin olive oil | Measured 3 tbsp for pasta dough; additional for ragù | Two small pitchers or bowls |
| Pecorino di Farindola (80g aged) | Grate two-thirds finely; reserve one-third as a small block for tableside shaving | Microplane, small dish |
| Finishing herbs (fresh thyme, oregano) | Pick fresh small sprigs for plating garnish; keep under damp towel | Small plate |
| Chitarra tool | Clean and set on work surface; floured lightly | Wooden chitarra board with steel strings |
| Pasta drying space | Semolina-dusted tray or pasta drying rack | Sheet tray + semolina |
Chef Robert's precise service timeline for a 4-person dinner service, working backwards from a target plating time of 7:30 PM.
The ragù can be made two days ahead and refrigerated — the flavours deepen markedly overnight. Skim the solidified fat cap before reheating. The pasta dough should always be made day-of for peak texture. Pecorino di Farindola is irreplaceable in this dish; if unavailable, an aged Pecorino Sardo is the best substitute — avoid Pecorino Romano for this preparation, as its salinity will dominate the saffron. Serve with a glass of Valentini's Montepulciano d'Abruzzo for an experience that is, simply, complete.
Chef Robert uses this list as the definitive procurement guide for Course 2. Items are sourced across multiple Greenwich-area and regional vendors for maximum quality.
Private Chef Robert is available for multi-course tasting menus, dinner parties, holiday events, and intimate fine-dining experiences throughout Greenwich, Darien, New Canaan, Westport, and Fairfield County, CT. Engagements book quickly — contact Chef Robert to discuss your vision.