Essentially Basque

Ryan Bartlow is the chef and co-owner of Ernesto’s and Bartolo in New York City. He began working in restaurants at age 14 at Baskin-Robbins in his native Chicago. After culinary school, he moved to Spain to cook at the famed Akelarre, and from there, cooked in some of the most respected kitchens in the U.S., including Alinea in Chicago, Animal in LA, and Frankie’s Sputino, Quality Eats, and Frenchette in New York. Ernesto’s has been heaped with accolades since its opening. Pete Wells named it #3 on the list of Best Restaurants in New York for The New York Times in 2021, and it has remained high on that list ever since. It also received glowing reviews in New York magazine, Eater, and GQ, which named it one of the best new restaurants in America. In the summer of 2025, he opened his second Spanish restaurant, Bartolo, in the West Village, which has already started garnering critical acclaim. Laurie Woolever is a New York Times bestselling author, editor, speaker, and former cook. For nearly a decade, she worked as the lieutenant to Anthony Bourdain, coauthoring Appetites: A Cookbook and World Travel: An Irreverent Guide with him. She later authored Bourdain: The Definitive Oral Biography, Richard Hart Bread, and Care and Feeding.