A Visit to the Legendary The Chef’s Garden in Huron, Ohio
On the Occasion of Barbuto’s 10th Anniversary, a Few Thoughts about Jonathan Waxman
Falling in Love with the State I’m Supposed to Hate
A Day (and Night) in the Life of Brooklyn’s Most Celebrated Open Kitchen
The First of a Multi-Part Conversation with the Author of the new book Skirt Steak
An Offhand Remark that Summarizes the Confusion of Many New York City Chefs and Restaurateurs
Was talking to a friend who is planning a new restaurant somewhere in New York City.
“How many stars are you going for?” I asked.
“Well, if Hill Country got two,” he said. “Guess I’m going for eight.”
- Andrew
Charlie Trotter Wasn’t the Only Chef Celebrating 25 Years on Friday
David Bouley (photo via www.davidbouley.com)
Last Wednesday, the food sections and Twitterverse were ablaze with tributes to Julia Child on the date she would have turned 100, as well as to Tom Colicchio, who shares the birthday with the cooking icon. (Poor Tertulia restaurant, which tuned two-years old on the 15th, nearly got lost in the shuffle.)
Then, as well all know, on Friday, Charlie Trotter’s turned 25. In addition to our own interview, profiles and blog posts proliferated like mad, all building up to Sunday night’s gala dinner.
Turns out, another chef celebrated a silver anniversary on the 17th, but in much more modest and subdued fashion: The following Tweet went out Friday night, from David Bouley’s account “At 5:30pm, August 17th, 1987, I started my TriBeCa restaurant, 25 YEARS AGO!”
There followed something of a virtual party as various chefs and admirers exchanged Tweets with Bouley: Kerry Heffernan reminisced that “I was there as Chef Garde Manger.” Richard Blais Tweeted “thanks 4 the inspiration.” Harold Dieterle chimed in “congrats on 25 years…. I had the best meal of my life there in 1999. It was that moment, I realized I wanted to be a chef.” We at Toqueland took it as an opportunity to offer our congratulations and props to old pal and current Bouley chef de cuisine Brian Bistrong. And so on.
The best and longest exchange was between Bouley and Jean-Georges Vongerichten, who took the moment to sing the praises of a dinner he had recently at Bouley, which prompted the latter to invite Vongerichten to have dinner again in a few weeks when “my garden will be in full bloom, & I want to make you a vegetarian meal, all organic, 100% grown w/my own hands!” Vongerichten suggested they cook in tandem to which Bouley responded, “That’s like when we all cooked together and no one knew what the hell we were doing!” (Ah, it’s memories like that which helped inspire our forthcoming book on the chefs of the 70s and 80s.)
Congratulations to David Bouley on reaching this milestone. We look forward to hearing about the Alumni Dinner planned for October 11 in the Bouley Test Kitchen as part of the New York City Wine & Food Festival.
- Andrew
Ex-Stars Chef Part of Proposal for New Rochelle Restaurant and Food Complex
Jeremiah Tower, headed to the East Coast?
Back in the spring, legendary chef Jeremiah Tower told Toqueland that the next time he had an idea for a restaurant, he was just going to do it.
Well, it looks like he’s followed through on that promise, or would like to, if the town of New Rochelle selects the proposal he’s a part of, one of two in contention for the “adaptive reuse” of the former Naval Armory on East Main Street, near Echo Bay.
The backstory of this development is summarized nicely on the website of New Rochelle mayor Noam Bramson. In brief, the town’s city council solicited proposals for the space in May and there are two contenders. If you want to know everything there is to know at this point, there’s even a link to the proposal itself, which–if you’ve never seen a business plan/prospectus for this kind of thing–you might find a fascinating read. There’s also video of the presentation that was made to the city council last week. (The proposal with which Tower and company are vying is centered on the performing arts.)
A useful, succinct history of the Armory and its environs, and enthusiasm for the Tower proposal, is offered in this Westchester Magazine blog post, which compares the project to Seattle’s Pike Place Market and Philly’s Reading Terminal Market. To us, it sounds like a cross between those landmarks and New York City’s own Chelsea Market, or maybe even Eataly.
A Rendering of What the New Armory Might Look Like
Good Profit, the team with which Tower is affiliated, is an impressive lot that includes architects and designers who have been involved with projects ranging from the London Olympic Stadium to New York City’s High Line.
According to the proposal, Good Profit’s vision for the Armory is as follows: “[I]ts primary use [is as] an indoor open market that will function under the expansive existing barrel vaulted roof. An assortment of vendors and restaurants preparing, serving and selling locally raised and harvested foods will occupy the Main Hall of the Armory. Additional uses in the Annex may include the local chapter of the American Legion, commercial office space and a bicycle repair facility.”
The proposal goes on to say that “The anchor of the Armory will be new restaurant experiences orchestrated by award-winning chef Jeremiah Tower [emphasis Toqueland's], our executive culinary director. Situated primarily inside the former drill hall (our proposed Market Hall), with views into the kitchens, these dynamic spaces serve as meeting places for the enjoyment of regional food prepared to the highest quality. Above, on the Mezzanine and its Terrace, there will be a wine and oyster bar with seating, both indoors and out overlooking Echo Bay and the Long Island Sound. To the outer edge of the Market Hall, the East Hall will house additional vendors and casual seating. Prepared food will be available throughout the Armory at different price points.”
With no disrespect to the other proposal, we at Toqueland couldn’t be more excited by the prospect of Jeremiah Tower getting back in the game so close to our New York City home, and applying his legendary sensibility to the bounty of this region. We’ll be following the city council’s decision with bated breath and a whetted appetite.
- Andrew
On the Eve of His Restaurant’s 25th Anniversary (and Imminent Closing), a Conversation with One of America’s Pioneering Chefs
Charlie Trotter, at his home in Chicago (photo copyright Andrew Friedman)
It’s been a busy summer here in Toqueland—two weeks overseas with Michael White, and a family vacation that just wrapped up a few days ago. It’s caused quite a backlog of interviews and features that are in the can, but not yet fully edited and ready for public consumption.
But there are two events that demand attention as the end of this sultry August approaches: As most readers no doubt know, this Friday, August 17, Charlie Trotter’s will mark its 25th Anniversary, and at the end of the month, the chef will shutter the restaurant in order to pursue a degree in philosophy.
In June, at his invitation, I sat down with Charlie Trotter at his home in Chicago. The interview was conducted following a memorable tasting lunch at the Chef’s Table in the restaurant’s kitchen. (Full disclosure: I was his guest, along with New York chefs David Waltuck and Rob Newton.)
It was a long and far-ranging interview conducted over a bottle of white Burgundy on the sprawling back patio of his townhouse. (From what I gather from blog coverage, it has some overlap with Jay McInerney’s Town & Country feature, which I just learned about the other day and have made a point of not reading. As that one isn’t available online, figured I’d run my piece as is, and then read and enjoy Jay’s.)
Herewith, Part 1 of my conversation with Chef Trotter, with Part 2 to follow between the anniversary and closing.
TOQUELAND: Can you please orient me as to where you are now? I would imagine that it’s a very heady time, a very emotionally interesting time for you. What feeling or feelings are you experiencing right now?
TROTTER: Well, some people say to me, “You must be emotional. Do you have any second thoughts? Any regrets?” And it’s the opposite of that. This is a decision. I’ve long been a guy that’s willing to jump over the side of a cliff without knowing what’s on the other side, whether it’s a grassy rolling hill or jagged rocks, and figure out how I’m going to land when I jump over the cliff.
I can’t believe I’ve been doing this this long. I’ve always been an impatient sort and have wanted to do different things. I forget what he was talking about, but it was one of the great writers who said, “If I had many lives to lead, I would devote one of them to you; however, I don’t, so I have to move on.” That’s what I feel. I mean, I pinch myself all the time saying, “I do this and make a living?” And this is unbelievable. And you meet the most interesting people. You drink the great wines, you eat food, you travel. But in the end, that’s not enough. I have to do other things. I almost did this at the 15-year mark and I really almost did this at the 20-year mark.
TOQUELAND: For the same reason you’re doing it now?
TROTTER: Yeah, yeah. Exactly. Exactly. To go back to academia and read books that sit unread still by my bedside, many, many, many of them. .. I mean, what’s the worst that can happen? If I go back to college and they flunk me out after a couple of months, I can always go back to the restaurant business. So there is no down side to this.
TOQUELAND: You said today at lunch that you may very well find yourself back in the business at some point?
TROTTER: I think ultimately I will be back in this field, this line of work, because I love it too much. But I do need a roughly three-year hiatus period to decompress, look at things differently, read the books. And frankly, there’s an ego element in it for me because I want to see if I can still hang academically with supremely cerebral 26- and 27 year-olds and then go from there.
TOQUELAND: I would think academia is one of the few places where you might feel an advantage being older.
TROTTER: Well, maybe. I remember being inspired by the Saul Bellow work, Henderson the Rain King, where the protagonist went to medical school at the age of 54 or so, and then by the time he was 60 and earned his medical degree, he went off to Africa, did his work. When I read that at 19, I always thought, “Hey, it’s never too late to try something like this.” I have no other agenda. People keep saying, “Oh, you want to be a professor, or teacher?” That’s not really my idea. It’s more of just learning for learning’s sake.
TOQUELAND: I’m struck that you as a chef are doing this. Because I’m writing a book about the chefs of the 70s and 80s, I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about the time when you came up. So many chefs of that era, including yourself, were to some extent what we would today call “career changers.” Two things strike me about that: One, it seems to me there was this real purity about it. People were getting into it because they loved cooking.They weren’t getting into it because they wanted to be a television star, or even really for the money in most cases. They just loved doing it.
TROTTER: Right.
TOQUELAND: The other thing that strikes me is that they were people who had followed another kind of education or professional track at some point so I think they tended to be very well rounded. Now, you know, now you have these kids who see people cooking on TV at a very young age. It’s more of a food culture.
TROTTER: Right.
TOQUELAND: Not that there’s anything wrong with it, but they’ve just always known they want to be in the kitchen, often to the exclusion of other interests. Do you feel that the men and women who came up when you did have an advantage in how they see the world, how they understand their customers, how they go through life?
TROTTER: That’s a big question. I think if you were to ask the top ten chefs in the world that all are, if you will, from my peer group–let’s just say Alain Ducasse, Jean-Georges Vongerichten, Daniel Boulud, David Bouley, Thomas Keller, Tetsuya Wakuda. There are others. I’m just throwing off a few names. And if you ask them all, “All those many years ago, what was your ambition?” I think across the board they would have all said, “Well, I love this craft. I love this art. Maybe one day if I’m lucky, I might be able to open up a restaurant.”
I don’t think any one of these folks would have said, “I hope to open nine restaurants. I hope to have a TV show. I hope to have five cookbooks. I hope to endorse a product line.” And on and on and on. Along the way those things have happened. Today, it’s a little different. I interview people and they say, “Well, in five years I think I’d like to have a few restaurants and I hope to have two TV shows on the Food Network and this and this and this.” And I think the chefs that are kind of in their fifties today may have eight, ten more restaurants, may have TV shows, may have multiple cookbooks, and on and on, consult and other things, but that’s not why they got into this world that we’re in, this line of work.. . some things come your way and you can take advantage of those things, but you’ve got to have a pure kind of approach to all of it.
TOQUELAND: Can you take me back to when you started? One of the things you’re known for is bringing the tasting menu, the degustation menu, to America.
TROTTER: I thought you were going to say one of the things I’m known for is being an asshole.
TOQUELAND: Is that something you prefer to talk about? Expand
I Meant to Post More from Italy, I Really Did
Imola, Italy
I’m just back from my Italian adventure with Michael White. To those who have checked in on the site for more postcards from overseas, my apologies–a number of factors conspired to prevent blogging from on the ground. I wasn’t able to get the post done before a family vacation that immediately followed the Italy trip, so a wrap-up post or two on an unforgettable trip will follow soon, though not immediately.
- Andrew
A Lightbulb Moment as Some Woodworkers Learn About Ghostwriting
[This is my second post from Italy, where I’m traveling with Michael White, researching our upcoming book, along with Evan Sung, who’s shooting photographs for us. (First post is here.) I’ll be abroad through Thursday, July 19, so check back for further posts here in the Toqueland Wire.]
Michael White (second from right) and Evan Sung (far right) greet some craftsmen in Imola, Italy, July 12, 2012
While walking to our car in Imola yesterday, Michael, Evan, and I passed by a woodworking shop situated, rather charmingly, in the former home of a small church. Some of the craftsmen there fashioned the original woodwork for San Domenico restaurant when it opened way back in 1970, and they were old friends of Michael, who introduced Evan to the guys. They had no problem understanding when he told them that Evan was photographing his cookbook.
But when he introduced me and told them that I was writing his cookbook, he was met with quizzical glances. How could I be writing his book?
Michael explained, in Italian, the nature of our working relationship. The quizzical looks continued, so he kept explaining, until finally one of them got it. I only know a few words of Italian, but I understood perfectly what the concept-grasper said next:
“Ah,” he exclaimed. “Tu pense e lui scrive!” You think and he writes!
Everybody cracked up, and after a second, so did I: It was the perfect, five-word explanation that eluded the food-writing world a few months back.
“Esatto,” I said. Exactly!
- Andrew
Maybe Michael White Really Is Italian After All
[This is the first of several posts from Italy, where I’m traveling with Michael White, researching and photographing our upcoming cookbook. I’ll be here through Thursday, July 19, so check back for further posts.]
Michael White, talking and gesturing like a pro, Tre Monti, Italy, July 13, 2012
When people remark on how much Michael White loves Italy, he’s apt to go them one better, replying that “I am Italian.”
Uttered in the concrete canyons of midtown Manhattan, where Michael is the chef of restaurants such as Marea and Ai Fiori, and of Osteria Morini and Nicoletta further downtown, the line seems like a bit of a joke. If there’s one thing this perennially pale, hulking, former offensive tackle from Beloit, Wisconsin isn’t, it’s Italian.
At least that’s the logical and literal truth of the matter. But spend a few days in Italy with Michael, as photographer Evan Sung (who’s shooting our forthcoming cookbook) and I have been doing this week, and you might be left with the impression that Michael’s birthplace and nationality are mere technicalities and that he is, in fact, Italian.
I had my first inking of this when he picked us up at the Bologna airport Tuesday. He’d come out a week early to do some advance work for our photo shoots and spend some time with his wife Giovanna, and their young daughter, who are summering here. (Gio is a bona fide Italian; they met when Michael worked at the original San Domenico in Imola for a span of several years in the 1990s.)
Having spoken almost nothing but Italian for a week, Michael had a tough time reverting to English. “We have to get on the … the–” he said, trailing off. “Sorry, guys. I’ve been speaking Italian for a week. My English is—“ he made a gesture, indicating “gone.” Finally, the elusive word came bubbling to mind: “Highway! We have to get on the highway.”
Those hand gestures were more exaggerated than they were back in New York just a week prior, as well–more proof of his true nationality?
But linguistic amnesia and a tendency to speak with his hands, was nothing next to the nonstop evidence of his true identity we experienced over the next several hours as we saw Michael walk in and around our hotel in the hills of Dozza, through the kitchen of San Domenico, and in and around the streets of Imola. I’ve never been to Beloit with Michael, but Imola is his hometown as surely as any other place could possibly be. Shopkeepers stop and wave at him, and the chef and waiters at the hotel pool all know him (he never worked there, but this is, to put it mildly, a small and intimate area). What’s more, Michael recently shepherded Tony Bourdain around the region for an upcoming No Reservations episode, and the visit garnered some local media attention, so Michael is also a bit of a celebrity; strangers stop and subtly point at him, or nod in his direction as he passes by.
Word of Michael’s success in the States has spread around his old circle of friends and acquaintances, and they stop him and speak Italian, adapting his American name from the rather innocuous “Michael” to a heavily accented, affectionate, and emphatic “MY-KOL” that seems to have an exclamation mark as part of its spelling.
Everybody here seems to know that Michael’s back in America, in New York, and that he operates a lot of restaurants. They ask him how many, and he tells them. The one they all know about is Osteria Morini, named for his mentor, San Domenico’s founder Gianluigi Morini, which tickles them.
Michael White and Gianluigi Morini, circa 1994. This picture sits in the San Domenico dining room today.
Thanks to his network of friends here, our work has been made relatively easy: we borrowed an outdoor space next to San Domenico to shoot dishes for the book Wednesday (more on that later), and the restaurant’s kitchen has been available to us whenever we need it. Today, we’re shooting at a spectacular outdoor patio that belongs to a friend of his, and most of the mise en place and prep was provided and seen to by San Domenico’s chef Valentino Marcattilii (more on him later, too) who surprised Michael by taking the day away from his own kitchen to come with us and help his old charge prep food for photographs.
I’m writing this post from the patio pictured at the top of this post, the one where we’re shooting today. (That’s Valentino on the right in his chef’s whites). We’re having dinner at San Domenico tonight and tomorrow we push off for a day in Bologna, and then on to Campagna, which will be our base for the next five days. I myself am already getting a little homesick for Imola, and not just because of the incredible hospitality that’s been heaped upon us and the fact that nothing like it awaits us in the south. I’ve come to understand what this place means to Michael, and can only imagine how hard it’s going to be to push off. It’s a contagious feeling.
- Andrew
My Last Lunch at Pino Luongo’s Upper East Side Restaurant
Pino Luongo, at “our” table at Centolire
A few weeks ago, I went up to Centolire on Madison Avenue, for a last lunch there with Pino Luongo.
I’m about the last person capable of writing an objective sentence about Pino. Not only was I briefly his publicist a lifetime ago, but we’ve written three books together and he’s been an exceptional friend to me: the year that I became a professional writer, he gifted me an office in his corporate headquarters over Le Madri so I wouldn’t have to spend all my waking hours in my cramped apartment; when he heard I was going to propose to my then-girlfriend on a trip to Italy, he arranged all of our Tuscany accommodations; and, last year, when I was rocked by a family tragedy, he was among the very few who picked up the phone and made one of those excruciating, supportive calls that nobody wants to make.
Of course, if you know anything about the New York City restaurant business, then you know that this isn’t necessarily everybody’s relationship with Pino. In an affectionate chapter in Kitchen Confidential, Anthony Bourdain famously summed up that Pino was “.. . a man envied, feared, despised, emulated and admired by many who have worked for and with him” and acknowledged that much of what his fellow chefs who’d been through “Pino’s wringer” had to say about him was “undoubtedly true.”
I’ve always found those sentences especially memorable, apt, and fair: Pino has his detractors and his enemies, but he also has his fans and friends, a small and strangely silent group of journalists and chefs who will privately tell you that they admire and learned a lot from him. For my part, I’ve generally made it a policy to go by own experience with people, adopting an “innocent until proven guilty” approach. It was with that orientation that I began my working relationship with Pino, and we’ve been tight for more than a decade.
I knew that Centolire’s closing was coming, having had a window onto Pino’s feelings about what he had long considered exorbitant rent, and of his deteriorating relationship with his landlord over the past several months.
And so, there we were at lunch. We only ever sat at one table: the deuce at the top of the stairs to the second floor, from which Pino could thank diners as they left, or urgently wave over a floor manager to tend to them as they arrived. We interviewed for two of our books there and caught up over dinner regularly when we weren’t engaged in a collaboration.
It was a spectacular June afternoon, and the downstairs cafe was full. Upstairs, in the main dining room, the crowd was sparse, as it usually was at lunch. For this momentous occasion, I wanted a pasta and selected the Bolognese, robust and soul-nurturing as ever.
It wasn’t exactly a mournful meal, but Pino was clearly a man with a lot on his mind, because news of the restaurant’s imminent closing was about to break, though we had no idea how soon that would happen. Although he still runs the modest Morso, on East 59th Street, Centolire was the last in a string of grand restaurants that went back to the mid 1980s and included such juggernauts as Le Madri, Coco Pazzo, Mad 61, and Sapore di Mare in East Hampton. Centolire opened at the tail end of Pino’s ill-fated takeover of the Sfuzzi restaurant chain in the late 1990s as well as his personal Everest, Tuscan Square, a combination restaurant and retail concept in Rockefeller Center that never quite found the substantial traction required for such a gargantuan enterprise.
Kitchen Indifference at Gran Electrica, Late Night Redemption at Arthur on Smith
Thanks for coming, now get out (Day of the Dead-inspired artwork on the wall at Gran Electrica)
“Dana Cowin asked me to name the three warning signs that you should get up and leave a restaurant before it’s too late.”
That was Josh Wesson, the legendarily witty, charming, flirtatious, and knowledgeable wine authority, co-author with David Rosengarten of the classic book Red Wine with Fish, and founder of the retail chain Best Cellars.
Josh and I were sitting not twelve hours ago with Red Cat’s Jimmy Bradley. We were catching up for the first time in years in the spacious garden behind Gran Electrica, in Brooklyn’s DUMBO, when Josh recounted the question that Cowin, Food & Wine magazine’s editor, asked him onstage during the annual Food & Wine Classic at Aspen last weekend, where Josh is a longtime attraction (if you ever get the chance to hear him talk about wine, don’t miss it).
His answer: “A lousy reception at the door; a lag time of more than five minutes between being seated and either getting a drink order in or between the order and the arrival of said drink; and a bad bread basket.” On the last point, he elaborated that he’d never had bad bread followed by good food. Can’t say I could argue with that, or any of his criteria.
We didn’t have a lousy reception at the door at Gran Electrica, and there’s no bread basket, but the lag time between ordering a bottle of wine and its arrival was in considerable excess of five minutes. (Josh also caught an error that most wine mortals would have missed on the list: Channing Daughters Rosé was listed as being made from Refosco grapes on the by-the-glass list and Syrah on the bottle list. It also irked him that nobody could speak to the relative merits of the two bottles he was torn between on the relatively short wine card. .. make that a fourth warning sign.)
The menu consists of small plates and not-so-small plates, all suitable if not necessarily intended for sharing. We ordered tongue tacos, fish tacos, coctel (mixed seafood cocktail), carne cocida en limon (a sort-of beef ceviche), and a few others. As would be the case with many diners accustomed to the small-plate format, we intended this as a first strike, with plans to take stock and order more food and drink after devouring and imbibing what we’d so far committed to.
We detected an air of inflexibility bordering on the inhospitable when Josh asked to “supersize” an order of tacos, which come in sets of two, by ordering a third.
Our waitress was charming and quick-witted–when Josh asked if she’d had to personally stomp the grapes for our slow-to-arrive wine, she replied, with coquettish irony, “I prefer to keep my grape-stomping habits to myself, sir.”–but she didn’t have a snappy retort to the taco query: “Sorry,” she said, with the weariness of somebody who’d been in this awkward position more than a few times in the recent past. “They only come in orders of two. The chef is adamant about that.”
This didn’t go over too well with Josh or Jimmy, two old-school sorts who’d pretty much do anything to make a customer happy, certainly something as easy as letting them buy one measly taco à la carte. Warning sign number five?
The food was fine, no more or less than what you’d expect from the brief menu descriptions, and I likely wouldn’t have written about the experience at all except that when we tried to order more food, we were told that the kitchen had closed, but for desert. You would think that a restaurant like Gran Electrica, on a Thursday night, in a thriving Brooklyn neighborhood, with a pulsating bar scene, that takes your name at 8:30, doesn’t seat you until 9:30, and doesn’t get your first order in until close to 10pm, might keep the kitchen open until later than 10:45, or at least give you fair warning that a second round of small plates was out of the question. But there we were, feeling hip and hungry in the middle of an otherwise fully functioning restaurant.
The funny thing was that it was just a few hours earlier that I’d had a conversation with a restaurateur friend about the relative merits of dining when you’re known to the house, and when you’re not. “I’m starting to like it more incognito,” he said to me. “You get the real experience that way, really see what the place is about and how they’re doing.”
Not knowing anybody at Gran Electrica, we were surely getting the “real” experience, but Josh and Jimmy were sufficiently miffed by the refusal of more grub, that Jimmy felt the need to out himself, asking our waitress to: “Tell the chef Jimmy Bradley says thanks for nothing.”
I have to say, I felt the same way: Much as I love this borough I’ve called home for the past several years, and though I’m a fan of many of its restaurants (Char No 4, Seersucker, Prime Meats, Black Mountain, Franny’s, and the brilliant Brooklyn Fare, to name but a few that do it right), there are times when our eateries validate everything Brooklyn’s critics say: doing-you-a-favor attitude, poor table management (i.e., the providing and replenishment of silverware, water, and so on), and the notion tonight that it was perfectly acceptable to stop offering food at what amounted to mid-meal.
[Update 6/22/12, 7:10pm: Gran Electrica's chef de cuisine Sam Richman and I just had a nice email exchange. He says that he doesn't have a hard-and-fast two-taco policy and doesn't know why the kitchen was closed when we were still eating. He did all anyone could ask of a chef in his position: got in touch, explained as best he could, and didn't begrudge me my experience. Outreach like this makes all the difference; I'll try to give the place another chance before the summer's out.]
Arthur on Smith, after hours
Serving into the wee hours isn’t a problem for a new Cobble Hill restaurant that I like quite a bit, Arthur on Smith, where chef Joe Isidori just launched a late-night menu that will be offered from 11pm until 1am Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays. I first met Joe a few months ago when he opened the joint, and I’m an unabashed fan, both of his food and of his unassuming demeanor.
We might not have made it over to Arthur on Smith last night for the informal soiree they were throwing to kick off the menu, except that we were suffering from dinner interruptus, and were hungry.
Arthur on Smith was full of friends of the house and local business owners, there as Joe’s guests to sample the food which was brought out as it was prepared and arrayed on a long, banquet-style table at the back of the dining room where we all helped ourselves.
There were sandwiches of lamb, pork, and perhaps most memorably and originally thick-cut mortadella, the pistachios within whole and crunchy, slathered with mustard, the best, high-class bologna sandwich you could imagine. We also enjoyed pasta carbonara, gnocchi with (I think) short rib sauce, and salads of beets and tomatoes. We washed these snacks down with Lambrusco, about which Josh uttered one of his signature throwaway gems: “It’s delicious and doesn’t have too much alcohol; a surgeon could have it for lunch and not mess up in the afternoon.”
I’m not exactly sure in what sized portions this will all be offered on a (late) nightly basis, but in a neighborhood that shuts down surprisingly early, even on the weekends, this is a great new option to add to the itinerary.
Beyond all that, we had a fun time in the cool, relaxed, midnight-in-summer vibe, joined at one point by Don Pintabona, the original chef of Tribeca Grill and an old pal of the lot of us, including Joe. There was a touching moment when Don mentioned that he was part of the Hayden’s Heroes benefit being hosted this Sunday at Colicchio and Sons in honor of chef Gerry Hayden, a veteran of such kitchens as Aureole, who’s been in the throes of ALS (aka Lou Gehrig’s disease) for the past several years. (The event, as I understand it, is sold out, but you can donate here.) Jimmy, who’s not one of the headliner chefs at the event, immediately offered to help out in the back of the house, a spontaneous gesture of solidarity between him and Don, all in support of their fellow toque. After the indignities of our first stop on this night, the second couldn’t have been more reassuring.
- Andrew
Grand Central Publishing Acquires Harold Dieterle Book Project Based on Toqueland Posts
Harold Dieterle (photo courtesy Perilla restaurant)
I haven’t even met Amanda Englander and she’s already made a liar out of me.
After two recent posts about the book concept Harold Dieterle and I had devised for a forthcoming project, Harold Dieterle’s Kitchen Notebook, I promised to keep you all posted on the proposal process. But that won’t be happening because Amanda, an editor at Grand Central Publishing, swooped in and bought the project, sans proposal, based on the idea, the blog posts, and on her and the company’s enthusiasm for Harold and what he does. We couldn’t be happier: while it’s always a useful exercise to write a proposal, the notion that we get to jump right in and start writing the book is incredibly appealing.
The way this all came together, with a series of phone calls and emails between Amanda and our agent, David Black, brought up a little fact of publishing life that I always find amusing: It’s very common to sell projects to an editor without having met her or him. Every once in a while you engage in a series of face-to-face meetings with editors or perhaps entire conference-rooms full of publishing and marketing executives at various houses, but it’s just as, if not more, common to sell the book to somebody you’ve never actually met, which is kind of funny when you think about how intimate the editorial process is. Amanda and I spoke for the first time just a few minutes ago (we hit if off – whew!) and she, Harold, and I will meet over coffee some time in the coming weeks.
Herewith, the publisher’s announcement:
Grand Central Publishing is delighted to announce that it has acquired world rights to HAROLD DIETERLE’S KITCHEN NOTEBOOK by Harold Dieterle and Andrew Friedman. The book, tentatively scheduled to be published in Fall 2014, was acquired by Amanda Englander from David Black at David Black Literary.
HAROLD DIETERLE’S KITCHEN NOTEBOOK will feature approximately 100 recipes based on the new American influences found in Dieterle’s food, each with one “star” ingredient or preparation highlighted on a notebook page that shares an essay on that component and more recipes and tips for using it.
Harold Dieterle is the chef-owner of Kin Shop and Perilla restaurants in New York City. Dieterle was the winner of season 1 of Top Chef. Andrew Friedman is a prolific cookbook collaborator who has worked with chefs such as Alfred Portale, Laurent Tourondel, and Michelle Bernstein. He is also the founder and chief contributor to Toqueland.com.
As I’ve mentioned before, this is the first collaboration I’ve set up with a publisher since launching Toqueland; Harold and I look forward to giving readers a glimpse into the entire writing and production process, from now through the book’s publication in 2014.
- Andrew
Welcome to Toqueland. Join me as I cover and collaborate with some of the best chefs around, trade notes with fellow observers and enthusiasts, and offer insights on the industry we all love to follow.
If you worked in prominent American restaurants in the 1970s or 1980s (kitchen or front of house), I'd love to hear from you and possibly interview you for my forthcoming oral history of that era. Please email me at andrew@toqueland.com.
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Andrew Friedman
@toquelandandrew
