Photo by Keith Ferris

Robert Johnston, chef and co-owner of the recently opened Il Continori in Wappingers Falls, has spent his entire professional life in restaurants. The New Paltz native first cut his teeth as a dishwasher at the Mohonk Mountain House before becoming one of the first chefs at Barry and Susan Wine’s Quilted Giraffe on Academy St. in New Paltz in the early 1970s, before the Wines moved their restaurant to Manhattan. (Bon Appetit hailed The Quilted Giraffe as “one of the most influential restaurants of the 20th century.”) Johnston himself relocated to Manhattan, and his list of employers is a roll call of fine restaurants: Petrossian, Algonquin Hotel, Dolce and Keane Steakhouse, among others.

For the past four years, Johnston had searched for the right location for a restaurant that would bring him back to the Hudson Valley. Il Continori, Located on Main St. in Wappingers Falls and housed in a hundred-year-old brick building, represents the realization of that dream. Johnston, partnering with Ken Berisha, owner of Brothers Pizza in Beacon, opened the contemporary Italian restaurant in early November. “The food is more eclectic than your traditional Italian restaurant,” Johnston said. “I’m French trained but I really love the Mediterranean cuisines and that’s where I have a lot of fun.”

There are many stories surrounding the origins of puttanesca sauce. Some sources say the “pasta of the whores” came from a dish that prostitutes would prepare in order to lure their clients with its piquant aroma. Others say it came from housewives, hurrying home from an afternoon liaison and anxious to offer a dish so zesty and flavorful that their husbands would think it had been simmering all day. Johnston told me that puttanesca earned its name because “that’s what [prostitutes] would eat—anything on the shelf, the canned stuff, whatever they had laying around.” No matter who you believe this traditional southern Italian pasta dish has been a staple of households restaurants and for hundreds of years because it is as flavorful as it is simple to make.

PENNE PUTENESCA

INGREDIENTS

1 lb. Penne Pasta
6 fresh plum tomatoes, chopped
1-8 oz. can plum tomatoes, drained and chopped
8 cloves garlic, chopped
4 oz. Calamata Olives, chopped
4 anchovies, chopped
1 Tsp. Capers
¼ Cup fresh Basil leaves, chopped
Olive oil
Fresh cracked pepper
½ Cup grated Parmesan Cheese