Profile | Eleven Madison Park alumnus chef Antonio Barbieri on his ‘window of opportunity’ in Hong Kong as guest chef at Margo
- ‘I don’t want to do the same thing as everybody else,’ chef Antonio Barbieri says, and on the evidence of his New American cooking at Margo, he isn’t
- From charred Parker House rolls to his favourite dish – cod and squid with apple and tamarind – Barbieri’s adventurous flavour combinations shine through
In one of the episodes of American sitcom How I Met Your Mother, Ted, the lovelorn main character, receives a cryptic call from an old woman. All she says is: “The window is open.”
It refers to the slim window of opportunity to date the woman he had known since college, who had a tendency to follow every long-term relationship with a very short break, and then an even longer relationship.
For chef Antonio “Tony” Barbieri III, a different kind of window opened when Covid-19 hit New York in 2020. He ended his three-and-a-half-year relationship with contemporary restaurant Eleven Madison Park, where he was executive sous chef, and entered another one, with Hong Kong’s Margo.
The arrangement is temporary: Barbieri, who has been in the city only since December, has taken up residency at the Central restaurant until the end of March. He is stepping into the shoes of chef Mario Paecke, who launched Margo in 2021 with a contemporary European menu inspired by his German upbringing.
While Paecke is on sabbatical, Barbieri has been shaking up Margo’s menu with his New American approach to cuisine.
