15 Oct
Posted by Helen Rosner as Brooklyn, Delivery, Food, Manhattan, Review
Brown at his Chelsea Market party.
Alton Brown is a man on a mission. “There’s a drink I developed that I call Brown’s Bitter Truth. It’s two-parts bourbon, one-part Campari, one-part sweet vermouth, a splash of Gran Marnier, and an orange twist,” he says. “I love this drink. I’m on a book tour right now” — in support of Good Eats 2: The Middle Years — “I’m going from city to city, and wherever I go, I teach the bartender how to make it.” The Atlanta-based Brown was in town last week largely for the New York City Wine and Food Festival, but he also paid a visit to the New York Academy of Medicine. “As it happens, they have a library with 10,000 culinary pieces, including what is considered to be one of the first cookbooks, the Roman Apicius, one copy of which is in the Vatican and one is here,” he explains. “I’m thinking about doing a project about the history of cookbooks. I’m fascinated by where we are in the culinary world, and how we got here, and I’m really interested in tracing that back to its genesis in books.” Find out what Alton ate last week in this edition of the New York Diet.
Tuesday, October 5
For breakfast, I had Wasa bread and two strawberries and coffee — the Wasa had nothing on it, and I was eating the high-fiber Wasa on top of that! I didn’t have anything to go on top — some peanut butter would have been nice, but I didn’t have any because I left my jar of it at home. The Standard Hotel, where I was staying, had sent me up a little fruit thing, so the strawberries came from that. I walked over to 9th Street Espresso, my favorite coffee place in New York, and I had an americano.
For lunch, I had a can of sardines in oil. Always in oil — in water it tastes like cat food. They were Crown Prince brand brisling sardines, that’s the small kind. And then I brushed my teeth.
I had an afternoon snack of a banana, also from the same fruit plate delivered by the hotel. Dinner was a handful of mixed nuts containing almonds, hazelnuts, Brazil nuts, cashews, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, and pecans. It’s a mix I make and I keep it with me when I travel, when I’m not going to get a meal. I was at a book signing down in Paramus, New Jersey, that night, and there wasn’t food.
Wednesday, October 6
I did Good Morning America that day and they had peanut butter! So I had peanut butter on a bagel with coffee. Then when I was doing my segment, I made avocado ice cream, so I had a couple of mouthfuls of my own ice cream. It was very cold, because I made it with liquid nitrogen. It’s so freaking cold, it’s 320 degrees below zero, so you can make ice cream in no time flat.
I spent my lunchtime at the New York Academy of Medicine, looking at ancient, very old, fifteenth-century cookbooks. They treated me to a lunch of grilled-shrimp salad, and they passed a platter of grilled vegetables: asparagus, zucchini, summer squash, and tomatoes.
I had a book signing at the Barnes & Noble in Union Square that night, and my agent took me out to dinner to ABC Kitchen, where I had the shrimp spaghetti with breadcrumbs, fluke sashimi, and a glass of a Belgian ale. And then during the book signing I had a shot of Hudson Rye Whiskey. It’s kind of a story: The event was moderated by my friend John Hodgman. I hadn’t seen him in a few years and we’d been griping about how we couldn’t get a drink. And we both had the same thought: He whipped out a bottle of whiskey, I whipped out a bottle of whiskey. He whipped out some glasses, I whipped out some glasses. We sent an audience member to get ice. He’d brought Basil Hayden’s bourbon, I brought the bottle of Hudson Rye, and we drank mine because when you’re in New York, you might as well drink local.
Thursday, October 7
My wife was in town, and she and Iwent to the café at the Standard Hotel for breakfast. We both had poached eggs with toast, sausage, and coffee. The eggs are very nice, done with olive oil and sea salt, and you spread it on this really nice sourdough toast, and there’s this great pork sausage.
Lunch that day was also at the Standard. I had the chopped-vegetable salad: a melange of greens with chickpeas, feta, and light vinaigrette. I drank water. I was a good boy.
Our Good Eats party was that night at Chelsea Market; it was the opening party for the New York City Wine and Food Festival. I had one of my own signature drinks, the Kentucky Pirate; it’s like a mojito, but with bourbon. We ran around at that party and signed books until midnight, and then we broke down the party and put it in a truck and sent it home. At that point I went to Pop Burger, where I had a box of Pop Burgers and half a chocolate shake — my wife had the other half. She deserved it, she worked hard.
Friday, October 8
I went to Hector’s! It’s this little dive where all the packing guys eat down on Washington Street. I had toast, two eggs over easy, and sausage, coffee.
Lunch I ate at Café Bari in Soho. My wife and I split the Mediterranean mix platter: hummus, baba ghanoush, matboukha — which is a spicy tomato thing ‐ and pita. I had coffee.
That evening I did Jimmy Fallon’s show. I made beef jerky from scratch for him, so I ate a piece of beef jerky, and had a beer-chugging competition with some other guy. [Editor's note: It was Fallon guest Nick Swardson; the chugalug is at 6:10 in this video.] I won, by the way. Then I took my entire crew to a party at Mesa Grill. There were nine of us, and Bobby [Flay] hooked us up with the entire menu. Really. I didn’t eat very much, but I did have two Herradura margaritas.
Saturday, October 9
I had the exact same breakfast as Thursday, except this time it was room service. The only addition was that they put home fries on the plate, even though I didn’t ask for them.
I did an 11 a.m. demo for the Wine and Food Festival. It was about bourbon. My first drink was a mint julep and I drank half of it.
That afternoon my wife and I — at the Standard again — split their spaghetti-and-roast-tomato appetizer. Then dinner was a massive sushi spread at Lure. I had one — one! — Hitachino white ale; it’s my favorite Japanese beer brand. And then I probably ate twelve pieces of sushi, mostly centered on mackerel and tuna sashimi.
Sunday, October 10
I flew home on Sunday. I didn’t have my airplane — I usually fly myself around — but because of bad weather, I had to fly commercial. I went to the airport very early in the morning and had a cup of coffee and another handful of those nuts.
Then when I came home to Atlanta, I went right home and I had collard greens with crowder peas and okra stewed with tomatoes. Oh my gosh, I had me a southern vegetable feast. And then I had the same thing for dinner. I had it again for dinner the next day — thank you, ladies and gentlemen! Three meals in a row!
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Filed Under: the grub street diet, abc kitchen, alton brown, chelsea market, cookbooks, good eats, lure fishbar, mesa grill, new york city wine and food festival, standard grill, the new york academy of medicine, the new york diet
13 Oct
Posted by Helen Rosner as Brooklyn, Delivery, Food, Manhattan, Review
New York’s Michelin mania continues for at least one more day with Josh Ozersky’s tear down of the guide today in Time. “It’s not that I don’t agree with the Michelin ratings, they’re O.K.,” he writes. “But I don’t understand them, and that’s not O.K.” Ozersky has spoken out against Michelin’s shortcomings before (he wrote on Grub Street that “the three-star system has become unmoored from its original purpose” back in 2007), but this time his problem isn’t so much the stars themselves as it is how they’re justified; the mini-reviews are so vague, he says, that the red book is “just another crappily written restaurant guide.”
I don’t know a single eater in New York City who thinks that Corton (two stars) is a much better restaurant than Eleven Madison Park (one star) … Both do the same sort of tweezer food; it’s merely a question of taste and emphasis. But you certainly can’t discern much from their Michelin entries. One has “breathtaking” food and the other “irresistible” food. One has a “perfectly poached” lobster tail, while the other has a “soft, butter-poached” lobster. That’s not good enough. Likewise, why does Del Posto (one star), with its “heavenly” pork loin and “perfectly al dente tangle of spaghetti” not rise to the same level as its uptown rival, Alto (two stars)? These questions are on Michelin to answer — and it doesn’t.
Lest you think this is a new development for Michelin, an overgeneralized voice brought on perhaps by the distractions of too much media attention plus a healthy case of post-foie-gras lethargy, our own Adam Platt had an awfully similar criticism in his 2006 invective against the guide, pointing out that “even non-starred joints receive glowing (and generic) reviews … ‘Columbia students in search of southern-style cooking count on Miss Mamie’s for finger licking good vittles’ begins the gripping write-up of that culinary hotbed, Miss Mamie’s Spoon Bread Too.”
Restaurant Ratings: Is Michelin Lost in the Stars? [Time]
Related: Michelin’s Madness Drives Ed Levine (and Us) Up a Wall
The Case Against the Michelin Guide
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Filed Under: metacriticism, josh ozersky, michelin, michelin guide 2011
13 Oct
Posted by Helen Rosner as Brooklyn, Delivery, Food, Manhattan, Review
“Xiao Ye is an artful misfire: the sort of place that, as [chef Eddie Huang] sadly appears to desire it to be, is really only best when the customers are a little drunk, a little high, maybe both and in any event extremely hungry,” Sam Sifton says in his zero-star review. There are some bright notes, like the “top-drawer dumplings, open-ended and sweetly moist within, more of that ground Duroc pork combining with Napa cabbage to elevate the flavor exactly to its $8 cost.” [NYT]
Related: Xiao Ye Goes ‘ABC Diner’ With Cheetos Fried Chicken
Vandaag chef Phillip Kirschen-Clark “cooks food worth settling in for,” says Jay Cheshes. The spot is “a restaurant that realizes that being current means starting trends — not following them.” [TONY]
Related: Adam Platt on Vandaag
“While the food at [Manzo] in the Eataly shopping complex will probably thrill you, the premises definitely won’t,” Robert Sietsema notes. “But the menu is amazing, with the capacity to transport you from your shopping-center surroundings into a realm of pure culinary invention.” [VV]
Related: Mega Mario: Eataly Promises New Yorkers the most Exciting Food-Shopping Experience Ever
At the Lambs Club, Gael Greene finds that “dinner is somewhat uneven, good and good enough, less brilliant” than an earlier preview visit. “The farm chicken … previously astonishingly moist, is good but not thrilling, and my halibut filet, cooked rarish as I asked, needs more oomph than market carrots can provide.” [Insatiable Critic]
Related: Chef Geoffrey Zakarian Tastes the National’s Entire Menu at Once, Clears His Palate With Beer
Steve Cuozzo has a different Lambs Club story, loving what he calls “a dandy debut in the land of bright lights, nostalgically clubby and cozy, where hits outnumber flops by 3-to-1 … [it's] exactly the kind of suave, modern-American menu that belongs at the corporate-showbiz-media vortex of today’s Times Square.” Still, while lunch is great, “evening meals were less consistent.” [NYP]
The skin-on fried chicken at Hill Country Chicken “exhibits the cosmic one-ness between the crust and the skin that the great fried chicken cooks achieve,” raves Ed Levine, though the pies “vary in quality from marginally acceptable to very, very good.” [Serious Eats NY]
Related: First Look at Hill Country Chicken, Now Serving Pimento Sandwiches
Hecho en Dumbo’s vibe “is meant to evoke the sophistication of contemporary Mexico, and the food is appropriately urbane,” says Andrea Thompson. The kitchen takes “a spare approach, using just a few ingredients to superb effect … for all the gastronomic earnestness, the scene feels raw and energized.” [NYer]
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Filed Under: the other critics, eataly, hecho en dumbo, hill country chicken, manzo, the lambs club, vandaag, xiao ye
11 Oct
Posted by Helen Rosner as Brooklyn, Delivery, Food, Manhattan, Review
Jason Denton.
With plans already well under way for their expansion to Williamsburg, ‘inoteca owners Jason and Joe Denton have turned their attention to an even more immediate addition to their small-plates empire. Jason tells Eater that he’ll have a lease in hand next week for a 65-seat spot in Tribeca, but don’t expect another truffled-egg-toast clone. “It’ll be our first step out of Italian,” Denton said. “Small plates but a move towards French and a more Mediterranean feel. We want to find a young chef who’s impressionable and make it simple and direct.” [Eater NY]
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Filed Under: empire building, inoteca, jason denton, tribeca
11 Oct
Posted by Helen Rosner as Brooklyn, Delivery, Food, Manhattan, Review
Are you a truffle lover in need of a new place to live? You might want to check out what’s on offer at 10 West End Avenue, where owners claim they’re having a hell of a time selling their units because of the scent emitted by ground-floor retail tenant Urbani Truffles. Described poetically in the New York Times as “a refrigerator crammed with rotting carrots and lettuce … the earthy smell of dirt, half a dozen pairs of teenage boys’ worn-out sneakers and some stinky, stinky cheese,” the odor “plays with your mind a little bit,” says a broker with properties in the building. From where we sit, we see two solutions to the problem: the $50,000 ventilation system Urbani is installing, or the building investing in the world’s largest bowl of macaroni and cheese. [NYT]
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Filed Under: real estate, help i’m drowning in too much luxury, truffles
11 Oct
Posted by Helen Rosner as Brooklyn, Delivery, Food, Manhattan, Review
Proving a lesser-known variant of the Internet’s Rule 34 — if it can be eaten, someone’s come up with a wine pairing for it — Dr. Vino wonders what goes best with this week’s trendiest of trendy foods, the spaghetti taco. “Sangiovese,” suggests one commenter. “It’s a natural with pasta and red sauce, and the acidity should handle the fried taco shell. I’d go for a young, lighter version; this might not be the dish for a mature Brunello.” We’re inclined more toward another commenter’s suggestion of Franzia — or else maybe an alternate pairing of “do not waste wine on this because it is a freaking spaghetti taco.” [Dr. Vino]
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Filed Under: oenofile, spaghetti tacos, wine pairings
11 Oct
Posted by Helen Rosner as Brooklyn, Delivery, Food, Manhattan, Review
ABC Kitchen
Esquire “freelance correspondent” (don’t call him a critic!) John Mariani files his annual “Best New Restaurants” list in November’s issue of the magazine, awarding the coveted “Restaurant of the Year” slot to New York’s much-lauded ABC Kitchen. Mariani’s list skews notably away from his usual fine-dining habits and toward casual, communal eating — a shift he notes in his introduction to the portfolio, saying that in recession-tainted 2010, “people ate out again — and they weren’t jonesing to spend money on caviar.” (He kind of hedges his picks on a financial basis, too, calling the list’s honorees restaurants “that are, for our money right now, the best.”) Eater National has the full list of spots, including Chicago’s Longman & Eagle, Frances in San Francisco, and Wolfgang Puck’s WP24 in L.A. — the proto-celeb-chef’s first appearance on this list in some time. Read on for the complete rundown.
Esquire’s Best New Restaurants
ABC Kitchen, New York
Bibiana, Washington, DC
Bistro Niko, Atlanta
Cook & Brown, Providence
Culina, Los Angeles
Epic, Chicago
Frances, San Francisco
Gather, Berkeley, CA
Haven, Houston
Julian Serrano, Las Vegas
Kalu Asian Kitchen, Charlotte, North Carolina
Longman & Eagle, Chicago
Maialino, New York
Menton, Boston
Miller Union, Atlanta
O-Ku, Charleston, South Carolina
Red O, Los Angeles
Samar, Dallas
SD26, New York
WP24 by Wolfgang Puck, Los Angeles
Esquire’s 20 Best New Restaurants of 2010 [Eater National]
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Filed Under: lists, abc kitchen, best new restaurants 2010, esquire, frances, john mariani, longman & eagle, wp24
11 Oct
Posted by Helen Rosner as Brooklyn, Delivery, Food, Manhattan, Review
In the magazine this week, Adam Platt visits both Vandaag and Takashi, each of which is an “eccentric little establishment with its own quirky, slightly off-kilter agenda” that lands two stars. With Thanksgiving a little over a month away, the time to order your heirloom turkeys is now; Rob Patronite and Robin Raisfeld round up your best options, including Bourbon Reds from Blue Hill Farm and kosher versions from Heritage Foods USA.
In openings, Harold Dieterle is ready to launch his second venture, Kin Shop, a Thai-inspired spot that avoids the mix-and-match clichés of many Southeast Asian restaurants. Jeffrey Chodorow’s Bar Basque is also ready for takeoff this week, with regional dishes like clear gazpacho jelly with lobster or mackerel in escabeche with Txakoli vinaigrette. And Shea Gallante is almost ready to launch Ciano, the Italian spot that’s taken over the old Beppe space. Broccoli is in season; give the much-maligned superfood a fresh angle in a roasted-broccoli salad from Franny’s.
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Filed Under: in the magazine, bar basque, ciano, franny’s, kin shop, takashi, thanksgiving, vandaag
11 Oct
Posted by Helen Rosner as Brooklyn, Delivery, Food, Manhattan, Review
230 Fifth.
In a Wall Street Journal article about the increasing trend of restaurants using their outdoor spaces year-round, 230 Fifth owner Steve Greenberg reveals that in the colder seasons, his electric heaters run up a tab of $10,000 a month. Which might go a long way toward explaining the drink prices, but still does not absolve the rooftop spot of its massive Snuggie collection, in a chilly drinker’s choice of red or blue. [WSJ]
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Filed Under: foodienomics, 230 fifth, outdoor drinking
08 Oct
Posted by Helen Rosner as Brooklyn, Delivery, Food, Manhattan, Review
Bush has breakfast at the Standard Grill
“I love trick-or-treating,” says Lauren Bush. “I have younger siblings, so I milked that for as long as I could, tagging along and following them around.” Now that her siblings are in their 20s, Bush is getting her Halloween fix through her latest FEED bag, a jack-o-lantern-faced burlap satchel in honor of the 60th anniversary of UNICEF’s trick-or-treat campaign. (Each bag sold provides micronutrient powder to a child in a developing country for one year.) Now that she’s too old to go door-to-door, Bush is excited about being on the other side of the transaction. “One of the things I’m thinking about giving out this year is scarrots,” she explains. “They’re little packets of carrots packaged in a fun way so kids aren’t like, ‘Ugh, carrots.” A Halloween with no candy at all? “Well, maybe carrots plus a Snickers bar,” she says. Find out what Lauren had to eat this week in our latest New York Diet.
Saturday, October 2
I was down in Tampa that morning; I’d been visiting HSN’s headquarters. At the airport on the way back to New York, I stopped at a Starbucks, of course, because they’re around, and I had a chai latte and a bran muffin. I landed back at JFK, and in the terminal I went to Cibo and had this really delicious little pretzel and hummus snack pack.
My boyfriend picked me up from the airport and we drove out toward Orient Point, where neither of us had really been before. It was beautiful and fall-ish; there were lots of farmstands and pumpkin fields, and we pulled over at one of the stands. It was one of these family farms with a big corn maze and a petting zoo and all these activities, and they had fresh roasted corn right next to the corn field, so we had corn on the cob and some hot apple cider.
We were going to the movies in Southampton. We were kinda cutting it close, but we were both really hungry, we didn’t want to wait until after the movie and we didn’t want to just eat popcorn or candy for dinner, so we stopped at a grocery store and picked up two veggie wraps and little deli takeouts and a giant-size pickle, which I love. We snuck the wraps into the movie, which is probably illegal, and had our dinner. It’s sort of the best of both worlds to eat dinner in the movie theater, but you have to be kind of stealth about it.
Sunday, October 3
I wasn’t feeling that great on Sunday, because of all the travel. For brunch, we went to Joni’s in Montauk, which is kind of our favorite brunch place. It’s this cool, very surfer, very local, very healthy and organic spot that’s run by this really neat woman named Joni who is an old friend. I got a really great scrambled-tofu wrap, and we also split a ginger-carrot soup they have — it was really good. And then I had a fresh juice as well, carrot and apple and ginger, because I was trying to kick whatever [illness] I was starting to get. Ginger and carrot are great when you’re getting sick.
That night we drove back to the city. When I’m not feeling great and it’s a rainy day, my most favorite thing in the world growing up was boxed mac and cheese, so I made myself an Annie’s organic mac and cheese from the box for dinner, and had a salad and part of a quiche. I normally would go for the white Cheddar, but I went with the classic orange this time.
Monday, October 4
I went to Washington, D.C., for the day, so I woke up really early, went to Penn Station, and had a coffee and a vitamin C smoothie that I brought onto the train with me.
For lunch, I went to Potenza. It was just kind of a work lunch; I was with Ellen Gustafson from FEED and with Sam Kass, the White House chef. We were talking about how our new Feed USA platform really coincides with a lot of what he’s accomplishing with healthier school meals and better nutrition for kids, and it was really fun to meet him, and a great lunch spot, too — I had spinach-ricotta ravioli and some margherita pizza. Sam picked the place, it’s right near the White House.
Most of my day was spent on the train, really. Before I got onboard to head back to New York, I got a rice and veggie and tofu bowl in the D.C. train station, and ate it on the train heading back.
Tuesday, October 5
I had a quick breakfast at the Standard Grill. When I actually eat breakfast, my go-to is two eggs over easy with wheat toast, coffee, and orange. I love the atmosphere there. They have good light there in the morning, it’s a happy atmosphere, and it’s right near my office, which is always good.
I forgot to eat lunch, which often happens when it’s a busy day, but we have apples and candy corn lying out in our office, so I’m always nibbling on an apple, which is much healthier than the candy corn. But I eat the candy corn, too.
As an appetizer to dinner, I went to Dylan’s Candy Bar because Dylan had launched a new book on candy, and they were having a launch party. Obviously I snacked a lot on candy before having dinner — she has this rock-candy martini, and I had a bunch of SweetTarts. For dinner, we ordered in from Westville; they have the best veggie chili, and I love their Brussels sprouts. We had some leftover quiche still, so I had that as well.
Wednesday, October 6
I was at Tarallucci e Vino for breakfast, where I’d never been before. I had baked eggs with leeks, asparagus, and Parmsean cheese, which was heaven. And obviously coffee.
Again in the office with apples and candy corn for lunch.
For dinner, I went with two of my best girlfriends to Aria Wine Bar on Perry Street, where we had vegetable lasagna, Caprese salad, sort of a mushroom bruschetta-type thing, and some red wine. It was great, and a lot of fun. After that we went to Roasting Plant for tea, and then we went out to Brooklyn Bowl for the M.I.A. concert, which was really fun. To be honest, I didn’t have a drink there, but I thought about it!
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Filed Under: the grub street diet, brooklyn bowl, dylan’s candy bar, feed bags, joni’s, lauren bush, roasting plant, sam kass, tarralluci e vino, the new york diet, the standard grill, unicef, westville
07 Oct
Posted by Helen Rosner as Brooklyn, Delivery, Food, Manhattan, Review
Redzepi enraptures David Chang and Ruth Reichl
Last night’s “Tasting Culture” event at the New York Public Library was billed as a conversation with Ruth Reichl, David Chang, and “best chef in the world” René Redzepi, but by just a few minutes into the hour long pastiche of Q&A, video interludes, and paeans to locavore foraging, it was clear that this was the Redzepi show. The Danish chef — in New York as part of an exhausting book tour that’s taken him to two Australian cities, San Francisco, and Seattle in the past week and a half, and on to Toronto after this — owned the stage. Pacing around the stage as he spoke, Redzepi explained how he had the idea to turn “a shitty, two-year-old carrot” into his famous Vintage Carrot and Chamomile by thinking about the braising methods that tenderize tough cuts of meat, the iPhone-based geotagging program he uses to share prime foraging spots with his chefs, and how he doesn’t focus on making money so much as he does on turning out the highest-quality experiences for his guests. “Chefs are natural born martyrs,” he said, drawing the night’s biggest laugh: “We’d make the best terrorists in the world.”
But what was more evident than Redzepi’s formidable ability to hold the crowd was his — and Chang’s — position in the somewhat incestuous genealogy of haute cuisine. The event was introduced with an animated video of a talk held two years earlier at the library featuring Ferran Adria (in a voiceover, host Bill Buford introduced the chef to the crowd as “God”), under whom Redzepi staged earlier in his career. Adria didn’t just directly influence Redzepi’s cooking, he opened up the next door: He was at El Bulli at the same time as Alinea chef Grant Achatz, “and he had brought the book The French Laundry,” Redzepi said. “Here I was reading this book, an American chef incorporating some type of pop culture [into his food]. The ‘coffee and donuts,’ the ‘macaroni and cheese,’ [Thomas Keller was] embracing what many people just made fun of! I thought it was so inspiring to see that that I just told Grant — ‘you need to get me [a job with Keller], you need to do it.’”
In conversation later, Redzepi explained that the Keller-Adria continuum was a catalyst for almost all the chefs of his generation. “For me, for David [Chang], for Wylie [Dufresne], for Grant, we all learned things from them,” he told us. “No one was eating Spanish food before Ferran; seven years ago [when Noma opened] no one would have been eating Scandinavian food. But we are also all following our own philosophies.”
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Filed Under: party chat, david chang, ferran adria, grant achatz, noma, rene redzepi, ruth reichl, thomas keller
06 Oct
Posted by Helen Rosner as Brooklyn, Delivery, Food, Manhattan, Review
The big news out of this morning’s Michelin star announcement might be Del Posto’s lack of elevation to two-star status, but hidden beneath that snub is an even better story: Holding the two-star spot that Mario Batali no doubt thinks belongs to him is Chef’s Table at Brooklyn Fare, a prix-fixe supper club located in an open kitchen attached to an upscale Downtown Brooklyn bodega that’s so off-the-radar that it didn’t even make it into Zagat. “I was not expecting to be on the list,” chef César Ramirez told Grub Street. “We’re not the ordinary Michelin restaurant. But [Jean-Luc Naret, the Michelin guide's Directeur Général] said, ‘You’re doing something different.’” (Naret echoed the sentiment to us earlier today, saying that Brooklyn Fare is “one of the top 300 restaurants in the world. We didn’t give two stars because it was Brooklyn — it really deserved to be recognized.”)
Besides sharing its address with a grocery store, Brooklyn Fare stands out from the rest of the crowd because the restaurant is — at least for the time being — entirely BYO. That’s not likely to last for long, though. Along with other improvements to the space (the combination kitchen-dining room recently expanding its seat count from twelve to eighteen), Ramirez is hoping to have a liquor license in place by the end of October, with a wine list curated by Michele Smith, a former assistant sommelier at Per Se (of which Ramirez is also a vet). Don’t start rushing the spot with your prized bottles to beat the end of two-star BYO, though — not only is the competition fierce for a seat at the kitchen table, they might have to redistribute this evening’s scheduled guests, as well. “We were supposed to open up tonight, but we’ll see what happens,” Ramirez says. “We’re going to try to have a party.”
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Filed Under: awards, brooklyn fare, cesar ramirez, michelin, michelin guide 2011