Patria Restaurant and Lounge
169 W. Main Street, Rahway NJ 07065
(732) 943-7531
Web Site: http://www.patrianj.com
Wow, what a wild and oppressive summer we had. Crazy rainy weather, outrageous humidity and a 20-year tropical storm that has caused devastating amounts of damage to our state.
Our house got knocked off the grid during Irene and we’ve been doing a bunch of home improvements that have been taking up a lot of our time, plus we got older parents to take care of.
I guess this is what happens when you hit your 40s. Life just creeps up on you.
I’ve also been working really hard this summer and cranking out the hours in the “Real Job”, so if you’ve been wondering where all the foodie posts have been the last eight weeks, now you know why!
It’s difficult to remember the fun times from the Summer of 2011, but we definitely did have some truly great meals.
One was a very memorable dinner I had in late July with the folks at Diaz-Schloss, who handle PR for Patria, a funky high-end nightclub/lounge in Rahway which serves Pan-Latino cuisine with classic Italian and French twists.
If the name “Patria” sounds familiar to you, it’s because it used to be the name of a Nuevo Latino restaurant in New York City, which earned accolades (3 stars) from the New York Times and Bon Appetit magazine. And the guy who made it all happen there was Chef Andrew DiCataldo.
DiCataldo may be Italian-American, but he has a Latino soul.
DiCataldo is one of the founders of Nuevo Latino Cuisine and has brought his experience and classical Italian and French cooking techniques to Patria.
After graduating culinary school at Johnson & Wales, he moved down to Florida and ended up at Scratch restaurant in South Beach the 1980s and then in Miami in early 1990s (alongside his close friend Douglas Rodriguez, which he has co-authored a cookbook with) at the Cuban restaurant Yuca, where he and Rodriguez experimented with Caribbean and Central/South American flavors and developed the refined “Nuevo Latino” style that is popular today.
He then was exposed to Mexican flavors at the famed Las Puertas in Coral Gables.
After returning to New Jersey and opening Mexicali Blues in Teaneck, DiCataldo then went on to Patria in the 1990s in New York City, branched out to Tapas-style small plate cuisine at Pipa and now has returned to bring this Pan-Latino style to the New Jersey town of his youth, at a brand-new Patria.
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Posted by offthebroiler 
