Peter Serpico Really, Really Loves Fast Food

If all you know of Peter Serpico is the sometimes quirky but always refined food at his eponymous South Street restaurant, you might not expect him to have much regard for Pizza Hut personal pan pizzas. But he also worked for years alongside David Chang, an avowed lover of crappy beer and noted fast-food theorist. So maybe it should come as no surprise that when describing his "death row meal" to Restaurant Hospitality magazine, Serpico laid out this highly specific, all-out orgy of engineered deliciousness:

If I were on death row, my last meal would be a Big Mac with medium fries and a medium Coke from McDonald's, a personal pan Meat Lovers Pizza from Pizza Hut, three crispy strips with honey mustard from KFC, a Whopper Jr. from Burger King, a Soft Taco Supreme with fire sauce from Taco Bell and a coconut doughnut from Doughnut Plant.

Also included in the quick-hit "10 Thoughts" interview are the revelations that Serpico "would have no reason to live" if chicken fingers had never been invented and that his very favorite junk food is "fried potatoes of any sort."

All of which makes perfect sense, really, after thought number one:

1. One thing you don’t know about me is that I don’t take myself that seriously.

Good thing, too, because Serpico also cops to having once made a deviled-egg terrine, which he has to live down as his all-time "worst culinary creation." Check out the full interview here, covering ground from go-to drinks to most memorable meals.

As an aside, when the chef-owner earlier this year named the "ten dishes that made his career" on First We Feast, he did not go so far as to name any fast-food items as major influences. There were some home-cooked comfort foods, and otherwise the list was significantly more cheffy, involving impossibly simple-not-simple dishes like "farm eggs on the Slovenian border" cooked by Albert Adria. He did, however, declare within that he "can eat more lasagna than Garfield" — and if that doesn't win him some space in your heart, you might want to check your pulse.