Page 19 - The Valley Table - Summer 2020

chefby sabrina sucato
MARK MARGIOTTA NEVER PLANNED TO be a chef at a secret hotel restaurant.
Then again, who does?
He did plan to be a chef, however. After spending much of his childhood slurping soup at Paradise, his grandparents’ still-standing restaurant in Verplanck, which opened in 1947, he graduated to washing dishes in the restaurant’s kitchen (where Chef David DiBari of The Cookery, The Parlor, and Eugene’s Diner & Bar also began kneading pizza dough). He apprenticed under the watchful eyes of his uncles, who instructed him in behind-the-scenes restaurant operation when his grandmother wasn’t plying him with cookies and cream puffs. By the time high school rolled around, cooking was so ingrained in him that he couldn’t imagine doing anything else.
all photos courtesy of the dutchess
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