Dominic Amaral leaves Madeline’s, Jason Carter takes over

After working under Susur Lee for nine years, head chef Dominic Amaral has left his post at Madeline’s and is now working at Zucca Trattoria, making Jason Carter of Lee the new executive chef. The shuffle happened quietly in early July when Amaral resigned from Madeline’s (the chef section on the restaurant’s Web site is currently down) to work as a sous-chef under Zucca’s Andrew Milne-Allan. “It was just time to go,” says Amaral “and I want to spend more time with my daughter.”

Blair Aspinall, Zucca’s managing partner, met Amaral when he worked as a sommelier at Susur from 2004 to 2006 and hired him when he left and the sous-chef position became available. Aspinall says even though Amaral loved working for Lee, he was looking for a change of scenery.

“He’s phenomenal. He’s everything I remembered about him. He brings a different set of skills because he worked for Susur for so long, and although he doesn’t have a great background in traditional Italian, his heart is there,”  says Aspinall of Amaral, who had a three-year stint as executive chef at Bar Italia in the ’90s “He’s actually Portuguese, but the way he does pasta, it’s all coming quickly to him.”

Zucca is currently on summer holiday and will reopen on September 9.