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Chef Thomas Keller will generously host the annual March of Dimes, "Gourmet Gala," at Per Se on Tuesday, November 6th. Gourmet's editor in chief, Ruth Reichl, will serve as the honorary chair for this culinary tasting and kitchen tour at one of New York's most esteemed restaurants. To purchase tickets, visit website March of Dimes or call (212) 353-1012.
Location: Per Se
Address: 10 Columbus Ave., 4th floor
Hours: 7pm-10pm
Phone: (212) 353-1012
Fiamma is reborn, better than ever.
206 Spring St., near Sullivan St., (212) 653-0100
Dinner: Mon., 6 p.m.-10p.m.; Tues.-Thurs., 6-11 p.m.; Fri., 6 p.m.-midnight; Sat., 5:30 p.m.-midnight.
CUISINE Modern Italian
VIBE Civilized glamour
OCCASION Special occasion, intimate date
DON'T-MISS DISH Tuna crudo, Le Marche lasagna
PRICE Prix fixe, $75; desserts, $12.
RESERVATIONS Highly recommended
When chef Michael White departed Fiamma Osteria, restaurateur Stephen Hanson (founder of B.R. Guest Restaurants) was forced to find a chef capable of protecting his upscale Italian's star stature.
Fiamma had never been just another B.R. Guest restaurant. It was the luxury convertible in an 18-car garage filled with reliable, hospitality-driven establishments (Dos Caminos, Ruby Foo's).
Hanson seized the opportunity to upgrade: He changed the plates, the menu, tweaked the decor and even dropped the "Osteria" from its title. Most importantly, he secured chef Fabio Trabocchi (Ritz-Carlton in Tysons Corner, Va.). A 2006 James Beard Award winner, Trabocchi was as carefully sourced as the ingredients on the contemporary Italian prix-fixe menu. Five weeks later, Fiamma was reborn.
What was already an elegant SoHo townhouse has been newly appointed with glossy wood, plush white banquettes and creamy lacquered walls. Designer Jeffrey Beers left the orange linen lampshades intact, as they imbue a gleaming amber hue throughout the serene main dining room.
Trabocchi makes a stunning first impression. The appetizers, which range from a buttery burrata with heirloom tomatoes to an exceptional fontina fonduta, display poignant layerings of flavor executed with impeccable precision. The most breathtaking composition involves delicate nibbles of ahi: Top-notch cubes of tuna come alternatively topped with briny sardines and sea urchins, tamed by sorrel.
The pastas demand your undivided attention...
Seeing as seasonal and Greenmarket ingredients are this year's black, the latest menus are wearing autumn's best and brightest edibles - pumpkins, chestnuts, root vegetables and countless varieties of squash. We thought we'd highlight a few particularly pleasing offerings:
The Orchard - John La Femina's (Peasant) LES restaurant,
diligently turns out global, seasonally-driven dishes. This time of
year he effortlessly sates with butternut squash agnoletti mingled
with toasted hazelnuts.
162 Orchard Street, (212) 219-8570
Back Forty - Previously the chef at Savoy, chef Peter Hoffman has ventured off on his own at this newly minted East Village spot. Heeding the seasons and Greenmarket at every turn of the menu, Hoffman highlights parsnips with a simple, salty tossing of white anchovy and an aleppio vinaigrette.
190 Avenue B, (212) 388-1990
Momofuku Noodle Bar - Brussel sprouts reach their peak of
flavor in the fall, so it's prime time for these greens. Even if you don't have fond memories of this vegetable from childhood, you'll want to revisit this dish as soon as possible. Here, chef David Chang showers roasted Brussel sprouts with bacon and kimchi puree.
163 First Avenue, (212) 475-7899
Pamplona - A commendable make-under, the restaurant formerly known as Urena
has taken it down a notch to reap the benefits of Spanish bistro fare.
Chef Alex Urena weds suckling pig to an arsenal of autumn's best: celery
root gratin, chestnut puree and swiss chard.
37 East 28th Street, (212) 213-2328
The Tasting Room - Chestnuts, minus the open fire and paired
with sweet, tender butterfish, are served sauced and savory at this
Nolita establishment.
264 Elizabeth Street, (212) 358-7831
This week Chris Santos shares a highlight from Stanton Social's fall specials, a vegetable I'm extremely partial to - the pumpkin...
Pumpkin-Goat Cheese Croquettes drizzled with maple mascarpone & crispy sage
Croquettes
1 lb pumpkin puree
1 lb goat cheese
eggs
1 bunch thyme picked
2 cups fine bread crumbs
salt to taste
1 bunch sage
Mascarpone Maple Drizzle
1 cup mascarpone
1/2 cup heavy cream
3 tbsp maple syrup
Though Harold Dieterle found
celebrity as the first winner of Bravo’s Top Chef, his life-long culinary
experience has involved less glamour and more hard work. His Sicilian mother’s
home cooking ignited Dieterle's fascination with food, propelling him
first toward a home economics class in middle school, and then as a dishwasher at The Marina on Fire Island. Realizing his growing affinity for the
professional kitchen, he traveled to
Upon returning to
Perilla’s menu is an amalgam of
Dieterle’s experiences with food, fusing traditional French and Italian
sensibilities with seasonal produce from both New York and the
This weekend we stumbled upon a truly peculiar cocktail at Double Down Saloon, the New York spin-off of an infamous Las Vegas bar. This artful dive bar serves up a house-infused bacon vodka. Committed to his peculiar vision, the owner has special bacon flown in from Kentucky, which he then fries up and soaks in high-quality vodka to create a "Bacon Martini" or Bloody Mary. And if bacon vodka wasn't sufficiently audacious, each martini is topped with a juicy stick of Slim Jim to gnaw while sipping. Bartender Joan likens the libation to "a good scotch."
Address:14 Avenue A, just above Houston St.
Phone: (212)982-0543
doubledownsaloon.com
Expect the unexpected.
525 Broome St., between Sullivan & Thompson Sts. (212) 334-5182
Dinner: Sun.-Thurs., 6 p.m.-midnight, Fri.-Sat., 6 p.m.-1 a.m. Closed Mondays.
CUISINE Progressive American
VIBE Stylized speakeasy
OCCASION Adventurous dining
DON'T-MISS DISH Passionfruit poached char, Crumble cocktail.
PRICE "Salty" small plates, $15-$17; "sweet" small plates, $11-$12; cocktails, $13-$15.
RESERVATIONS Reservations accepted
Tailor is an adventure in dining - a walk on the wild side of food.
Pastry chef Sam Mason demonstrated his innovative technique at WD-50, home of molecular gastronomy and cutting-edge cuisine. At his funky, new SoHo restaurant, Mason unleashes an unusual vision of "salty" and "sweet" small plates.
His menu obscures the line between savory and sweet, food and drink, and just about everything in between.
Picky eaters beware: Chicken and vanilla ice cream make no appearances on the menu. Think foie gras with peanut butter when screening potential dining companions. This is a culinary tour of Mason's avant-garde workshop.
Walking into the restaurant conjures images of an old-school tailor's shop: A giant spool of fabric leans lazily against a wall, a garment rack sits on display in the dining room. Chocolate banquettes and crystal chandeliers offer warm dashes of elegance to the predominately industrial setting.
Down below, the subterranean "cocktail parlor" - a cross between a dimly lit speakeasy and a laboratory - is crawling with a hip crowd imbibing Eben Freeman's (WD-50) cocktails and homemade spirits.
The Violet Fizz was triumphant: a subdued milkshake, made with gin, egg whites, cream and lime. So was the Crumble, a beautifully balanced cocktail with hints of clove, pear cider and brown butter rum. Tragedy struck in the form of a bracing, gin-based Cascade, with unspeakably bitter aftershocks that lingered long into the meal.
Mason makes a compelling case when you forage among the "salty" plates, weaving sweet elements into inherently savory dishes.
Though pork belly has practically become a menu staple, Mason's interpretation is transcendent: tender hunks of pork in a salty-sweet spill of miso butterscotch, accompanied by whisky and cider-braised artichokes. Mason glimpses at genius, poaching a silky char in a sublime, passionfruit butter with doughy bits of lime-pickled spaetzle.
You'd be smart to stick with the salty side of the menu. The "sweet" offers complicated dishes with often unsatisfying results.
Tomato foam doesn't belong on the same plate as warm peaches and ricotta purée. Or maybe it's that tomato foam doesn't belong on a menu. And there was an exceptionally moist, brown butter cake paired with rum and caramel-braised bananas. If only they hadn't been marred by the sharp overtones of mustard ice cream.
With any restaurant, there are dishes that hit and some that miss. But here, with only six sweet and six salty options to choose, the odds are not in your favor.
Mason refuses to let you end dinner on a sweet note. He wages a civil war on your tongue. The result? You leave Tailor still craving dessert.
Ralf Kuettel acquired his passion for nature’s edible bounty honestly. Reared in the foothills of the Swiss Alps, the budding chef grew up roaming the Turbenthal woods and tending to livestock and produce on his parents’ farm. Kuettel embraces a culinary concept that showcases the rich flavors of each season’s flora and fauna, as well as the classic Franco-Swiss technique he studied as a young man.
Kuettel first ventured onto the New York restaurant scene in 1989 at Union Square Café under Chef Michael Romano. One year of intense kitchen training later, Kuettel took a brief hiatus to the West Coast, but the allure of New York’s restaurant scene drew him back. He launched himself into a four-year turn as executive sous chef at Soho’s Zoe. After short-lived stints at Cena and the Chelsea Wine Vault, Kuettel at last felt it was time to realize his dream.
With Trestle on Tenth, his first truly personal and proprietary venture, Kuettel explores all the foods and small-vendor specialty products he loves, from a crépinette of pork shoulder with sautéed nettles to scallops with housemade lamb sausage and corn succotash. A warning to the meat-squeamish: an enthusiastic outdoorsman, Kuettel also finds splendor in the more eccentric cuts of meat, including braised tripe and crispy duck necks.
Status: Single/Married/Divorced
Was single, then married,
then divorced and single again, now very happily married to the best woman in
the world.
Tank driver in the Swiss
Army
How did you get from growing up on a small farm in Switzerland to the hustle and bustle that is NYC?
Cook
Part
of the reason for
becoming a cook was the prospect of traveling around the world (my
parents also
thought it would be a grand idea). So after several years as a cook in
Switzerland in a bunch of restaurants and hotels, I sent out resumes to
Hong Kong, Singapore, and New Milford, CT. Sure enough, I heard back
from Rudy’s in New Milford first and after I got my J One Visa, I
started there.
Your father was a farmer and game warden. How did he
influence your career in culinary?
Primarily, “don’t kill
anything unless you are going to eat it.” We never wasted any food.
Your first job in the US was at Union Square Café. How
did you choose this restaurant, and did you enjoy working under the realms of
Danny Meyer?
Rather
a long story but
one that means a lot to me. After a brief stint for the Restaurant
Association, I thought I would apply for a job at the top restaurants
in New York at the time. La Grenouille, La Cote Basque (sadly I did
not know about the Quilted Giraffe then) and Lutèce. The morning I
contacted Andre Soltner he told me to see him that same morning. After
a brief and honest interview he got on the phone and called Marc
Sarrazin
of DeBragga and Spitler and set up an appointment with him, “sharp at 3
and
don’t be late.” A couple of hours later I saw Mr. Sarrazin, who then
called Michael Romano told him about me. One hour later I sat in Mr.
Romano’s office and trailed the same night. Michael Romano knew the
restaurant where I had worked in Zürich since Mr. Romano himself worked
in
Zürich at Chez Max, a Nouvelle Cuisine restaurant with a chef of
character, who
was as demanding of his guests as he was with his cooks--- a decade
before
Marco Pierre White. Romano hired me on the spot and it was an amazing
experience.
What is your relationship with Danny Meyer today?...
2 1/2 stars
1430 Sixth Ave., at Central Park South; (212) 521-6125
Lunch, 11:45 a.m.-2 p.m., Mon.-Fri.; brunch, 11:45 a.m.-2:30 p.m., Sat.-Sun.; dinner,
Mon.-Sun., 5:30-10 p.m.
CUISINE Seasonal New American
VIBE Farmhouse chic
OCCASION Family dinner, pampered affair
DON'T MISS DISH Veal-and-pork ricotta meatballs, American kobe skirt steak.
PRICE Appetizers, $12-$21; entrees, $26-$38; desserts, $9-$11.
RESERVATIONS Recommended.
'When the chef launched BLT Steak, he lured with freshly baked popovers just as suavely as he persuaded with a succulent porterhouse. Now Laurent Tourondel runs a booming corporation: BLT Fish, BLT Prime and BLT Burger are all notches on his rapidly expanding belt.
At BLT Market, he bows to both seasonal and artisanal themes. It's impossible to miss the signs. Just check in at the hostess stand; whitewashed shelves are stacked with artisanal goods: domestic olive oils, as well as vinegars and syrups from across the country.
It's a charmed space - with vibrant vegetable paintings, antique gardening tools and oak-plank floors - that eclipses its posh Ritz-Carlton address. Rustic wood tables are set with rosemary plants, and paper placemats wear seasonal catch phrases.
Tourondel playfully welcomes with gussied-up pigs in a blanket: a Schaller and Weber beef-and-pork hot dog, wrapped up in a homemade Gruyère-flecked pastry and topped with sauerkraut and mustard. It's a homespun amuse-bouche that makes a gratifying argument for the trickle-up dining effect. At lunchtime, you'll find a mix of power-lunch brokers, jet-setters and BLT admirers soaking up the sunlight as they partake in decorated sandwiches and Black Angus burgers.
Lunch may be your best bet: Only then can you reap the benefits of the excellent roasted leg of lamb panini, doused with fontina and caramelized onions. Or a very fine blue-cheese-capped burger. Even the seven-pepper-crusted skirt steak - a buttery, rich slab - is only available before dusk. The dinnertime seven-pepper-crusted rendition, a New York strip, wasn't nearly as satisfying a cut of meat.
Of course, many engaging dishes appear on both the lunch and dinner menus. Fluffy veal-and-pork meatballs are a must. Unusually light, these robust meatballs are lavished with dollops of ricotta, a garlicky tomato sauce and pea shoots. The semi-smoked wild salmon arrives tied up with bacon - like a thick filet, and nearly as luscious as one, though the floppy bacon failed to deliver a properly crisp casing.
On my fourth visit, I was relieved to find that an overdressed watermelon-and-tomato salad retired with summer. But the stuffed chicken did not...
We're launching into fall with a new Friday feature: "Dining Out At Home." This week chef Anita Lo divulges a recipe inspired by the newly sanctioned Rickshaw Dumpling Bar. She even created this dish, exclusively for Restaurant Girl readers.
If you're so inclined to take on a chef's recipe - we highly encourage it - please send us a photo of the finished product and any kitchen disaster or success story that transpired. (We'll happily post them!) When the feeling moves us, we'll even publish our attempts at recreating a dish or two.
Without further ado, we bring you Anita Lo's...
Kimchee and Tofu Dumplings
Ingredients:
-1 quart kimchee, squeezed dry
-1 package firm tofu, drained
-1/4 cup scallions, bias cut
-1 bunch shiso, finely chopped
-3 Tbsp. soy sauce, or to taste
-1 egg, beaten with a pinch of salt
-salt and pepper to taste
-1 package dumpling wrappers
Dipping sauce:
-1/4 cup rice wine vinegar
-1 clove garlic, finely chopped
-1 tsp. gochu garu (Korean chili flakes)
-3 Tbsp. soy sauce
-1 Tbsp. scallions, bias cut
-1 tsp. toasted sesame seeds
-a few grinds black pepper
Make the dumpling filling:
Place the tofu and drained kimchee in the bowl of a food processor and process until no large chunks remain. Remove to a bowl and add remaining ingredients and stir to combine. Taste and adjust seasonings. Place a heaping Tablespoon of the mixture into the center of a dumpling wrapper and wet the edges. Fold in half to create a half moon and make a pleat at the top of the rounded edge. Place the straight, folded edge on a sheet tray lined with parchment paper and press down to form a flattened bottom. Repeat until all filling is used.
Make the dipping sauce:
Mix all ingredients together. Taste and adjust seasonings. Then,heat a nonstick sauté pan over high heat. Add oil to lightly coat the bottom, then add the dumplings, crest sides up, so that they are not touching. Add water half way up the sides of the dumplings and cover. Cook over medium high heat until the water is evaporated and the bottoms are browned and crispy. Alternately, steam for 5 minutes until cooked through. Serve immediately with the dipping sauce.
