(Eilon Paz)
When it came to his own wedding, chef/restaurant owner/TV food personality Aaron Sanchez made a surprising decision.
He wanted it to be a potluck. So he invited 15 of his closest friends, each one a chef (including Amanda Freitag and Chris Cosentino), and asked them to bring the dish of their choice. “We ate like kings,” Sanchez says.
That was two years ago, and that was when Sanchez and his wife, singer/songwriter Ife Sanchez Mora, decided they’d do a lot of entertaining in return. So having a really great kitchen was important to them when they were looking for an apartment.
This Feb. 1, they moved into a 1,300-square-foot rental in Greenpoint with the kitchen of their dreams. “Our stove is a beautiful thing,” says Sanchez, chef/owner at TriBeCa’s Centrico and Nolita’s Tacombi. “It’s a convection oven; it circulates the air inside. So it’s great for baking. It’s very rare to find a full convection oven in a home, but it’s very common in restaurants. It’s also a gas stove . . . with five burners.”
The kitchen also has a Sub-Zero refrigerator, a spacious pantry and lighted cabinets with glass doors. “I love our kitchen,” Ife says.
In fact, they both love everything about the home. It’s a duplex on the first and second floors of a four-story building, with a yard (200 more square feet) and a deck, three bedrooms, two bathrooms, a big living room, that open kitchen, lots of closet space and a washer/dryer.
Sanchez won’t say exactly how much the rent is for all that, but he does admit that it’s more than $3,000 a month. “We’re paying for a quiet street,” he says. “We pay for having a cool neighbor.” (The building’s owner lives on the top two floors.)
“We pay for the great parking around here,” he continues. “It’s not just about the physical space. It’s about all the amenities and everything else around here. . . . There’s a nice mixture of young professionals and artists, and an older generation of immigrants who settled here. It’s a very cool Polish neighborhood.”
And a good place to raise a child. Ife is pregnant, due in March. One of those three bedrooms will be for their son, Yuma, once he’s born. It’s decorated in a jungle theme, with cavorting monkeys and giraffes and lots of green leaves. Another bedroom is used as an office/guest room. Ife’s 14-year-old daughter from a previous marriage, Sofia, lives with the couple half the time. When she’s home, that’s her room.
Those sleeping areas are on the ground floor. The master bedroom is above (along with the living room and kitchen). The family calls the look of their home Asian fusion. “We’re Mexican,” Sanchez says, “and we have all these international influences in our home. I think it’s a real testament to our love of all cultures.”
The home features a hand-painted Moroccan coffee table, lots of Buddhas (Ife collects them), a one-of-a-kind daybed from Tibet, a hand-dyed Japanese wedding kimono from the 1960s hanging on the wall like a piece of art, and an altar at which the couple, both Buddhists, worship twice a day.
To go with all that, the couple picked a bright color scheme — it’s all done in royal blues, coral and gold. Ife’s mom, interior designer Teresa Mora, did much of the work. “We wanted the kitchen to be the focal point of our space,” Sanchez says. “So we didn’t want a traditional dining room. When we entertain, we sit on cushions on the floor around the coffee table. That way, we can have great conversation, great food and great drinks.”
Those drinks include Kahlua, which has hired the chef for a new campaign. (Sanchez fans can visit http://www.kahlua.com/DeliciosoNightIn for a chance to win dinner cooked by the chef, plus a trip to Mexico.) “Instead of going out, I’m trying to encourage people to have a memorable experience in their own home. We call it ‘Delicioso Night In.’ I invite the people I care about the most,” Sanchez says. “Then, when I get a lot of people together, I like to have finger foods. People walk in the door, and I give them a cocktail. I serve a Kahlua ginger ale.”
Sanchez and Ife were living on the Lower East Side before they made their move to Brooklyn. They’d met at a dinner party, and later discovered that they lived four doors down from each other. “I was seduced by her singing, and she was seduced by my cooking,” Sanchez says.
This creative couple has a lot going on. Ife’s just released her first CD, “In Love Story.” Her husband can be seen on the Food Network’s “Chopped,” “Chefs vs. City,” and “The Best Thing I Ever Ate,” plus the Cooking Channel’s “Heat Seekers.” He just finished his second cookbook, due out in November 2012. And he’s planning to open a restaurant in Kansas City this fall.
“But,” Sanchez says, “the most important plan right now is to be a dad and a good husband. I’ve always wanted to be a dad. So I’m going to take some time off from work to be home.”
Aaron Sanchez & Ife Sanchez Mora’s
favorite things
* Ife’s acoustic guitar
* The kitchen
* Aaron’s knife and bamboo cutting board
* Their Buddhist altar
* Aaron’s house shoes. He designed a line of chef’s shoes for Mozo
* The kimono on the wall
* The Moroccan coffee table