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NEW YORK CORNER
Jean-Louis
by John Mariani

NOTES FROM THE  WINE CELLAR
Burgundy’s 2012 Vintage: Small Crop,
Promising Quality, Soaring Prices, All Smiles
by John Mariani

picca cantina
5575 West Pico Boulevard
310-277-0133
www.piccaperu.com

 

    "Picca," notes the menu, means "to nibble," and that's the plan behind this very popular  small plates restaurant of 50+ modern Peruvian-Japanese dishes by Chef Riccardo Zarate (below), who also owns two, smaller Mo-Chica eateries that serve similar food..  One of the featured categories is the anticuchos--skewers of food--of which there are a dozen or so every night.  I loved the one made with scallops, aji amarillo aïoli, and wasabi peas. Spice rules here and chilies are everywhere.
    The evening I ate at Picca, there were three of us, so, try as we did do dent the menu, we were only able to try only a baker's dozen of dishes, starting with tuna tartare with avocado, lemon soy, sesame oil, and wonton chips.  The papa rellena was a stuffed potato (the white potato originated in Peru, by the way), with braised beef, boiled egg, and walnut pesto, a wonderfully sloppy dish to savor with a smile on your face. Just as sumptuous in its simple way was patita, a pig's trotter stew with chorizo, potato, aji pancam, and the crunch of peanuts.  Causa (sushi) shrimp came with a yuzu guacamole, salsa criolla, and cucumber, while seco de pato was a confit of duck's leg in a rich Peruvian beer sauce with aromatic cilantro rice.  Also highly recommended to the carapulcra of roasted black cod, sun-dried potato stew, peanuts, and chimichurri.
    There was lots more and next time I'll go with a passel of friends and plough through everything, for everything sounds equally appealing on a menu where some items go for five bucks and none for more than $17. The wines, all from South America and Iberia, are very gently priced.
    The place itself, on two spacious levels, is built for fun and quick turnover, and things get intensely loud throughout, even at our cozy corner table, which was somewhat shielded from the noise. It's also a neighborhood place, right near the 20th Century Fox lot, and most of the people around us were locals who said they never ventured downtown to eat.  I can understand why.  It could take weeks to eat everything on the menu here, then come back for favorites.    
Picca is open nightly.

Ink
8360 Melrose Avenue
323-651-5866
mvink.com

    First thing you have to know is that, if you think Picca is loud, you'll find  Ink is very, very loud. In fact, when I inquired of the manager if the pounding, piped-in music might be turned down a tad, he said (actually shouting to be heard), "Chef says, if he can't hear his playlist in the kitchen, it's not loud enough."  So much for caring for customers' creature comforts.
    There really isn't much to say about the décor, which looks unfinished--gray walls, gray concrete floor, raw wood pillars, bare tables, all hard surfaces adding to the noise.  This is another small plates place, though here the plates start at $9 and go up to $26, with a tasting menu of the night's specials of four dishes at $85, a tab that puts Ink in a price category with far more posh and consumer-friendly restaurants in L.A. Consider that the 7-course tasting menu at the elegant Valentino in Santa Monica is the same $85, an omekase meal at Matsuhisa is $90, and you could easily dine sumptuously for that amount at Spago in Beverly Hills.
    Chef Michael Voltaggio (right), with long experience at top American kitchens, including Bazaar in L.A., is best known for winning the prize on TV's "Top Chef." At Ink, he calls his cooking "modern los angeles cuisine" intended to "re-purpose the term `fine dining.'"  I can't quite see how this has been accomplished, for while there are many tasty dishes at Ink, including shishito peppers with almond-bonito "sand," tofu and mustard;  an excellent crispy softshell crab with tarragon mayo, capers, and tomato; and deliciously decadent pork belly with "charcoal oil," "bbq flavor" and corn,  there are other dishes that just fall flat, like his already rich, cream-filled burrata cheese complicated with an oozing egg yolk, lettuce, and lemon dressing;  his halibut with cold "embers' of zucchini and potato with sesame, mayo, and black vinegar is pretty weird.  Most dishes fell in between highly appealing and out of the ordinary in a less than savory way, like his "burnt wood ice cream." which tasted, well, like smoky ice cream, not a flavor likely to make it onto Ben & Jerry's roster.
     Had Voltaggio done no more than Picca in the small-plates leagues, Ink might be far more lovable. But where Picca’s food seems a mélange of scintillating, natural flavors, Ink’s often seems strange, and at a much higher price, none of which constitutes a re-purposing of fine dining.”

Ink is open nightly for dinner.

Soleto Trattoria & Pizza Bar
801 South Figueroa Street
213-622-3255
www.innovativedining.com/restaurants/soleto

    Things have been getting more gastronomically interesting in downtown L.A., with the opening in recent years of John Sedlar’s Rivera and Wolfgang Puck’s WP24.  Soleto Trattoria & Pizza Bar, if not unique, is a welcome new Italian place in the Financial District with a really handsome, 1,100 square foot patio outdoors.  Inside there is a huge, 360-degree hickory bar and brick-walled lounge that gets a midday and after-six crowd.
         Soleto is the newest of the Innovative Dining Group’s restaurants, which operate Boa Steakhouse, Sushi Roku, and other spots around town.   Executive Chef Sascha Lyon oversees Soleto’s menu, which features good, crisp, well-topped pizzas, panini, a burger (of course), and bar food type items throughout. One of the pizzas, with fig, prosciutto, mozzarella, arugula, and Gorgonzola dolce is a bit too much of a good thing, but it is indeed a good thing.
         But I’ll go for the generous Italian dishes, none innovative but just about all well rendered, from a good crispy mozzarella marinara in casserole with a basil pesto to impeccably fried calamari with grilled lemon and two sauces.
         You won't find better pumpkin ravioli, with mushrooms and hazelnut sage, in town than Soleto’s, and his  al dente rigatoni with a rich ragù and sweet sausage and escarole is a winner, too. Orrechiette diavolo with spicy sausage, rapini, and chile flakes didn't meld very well.
         My favorite among the entrees was a branzino milanese, with arugula, lemon, and grana padana, a recipe that proves fish, with a crust, can take to grated cheese well.  A herb-roasted half chicken with Yukon potatoes was just fine, if hardly out of the ordinary when roast chickens are everywhere.
         For dessert go with the chocolate budino pudding, creamy and cool to savor as you sit in the L.A. sun, sipping a cup of espresso.
         The wine list is suffused with overly familiar name brands like Santa Margherita and Jordan.  It should be better, but there are plenty of bottlings under $40, which makes  good sense.
         Soleto serves its purpose well, which is to delight downtowners, those who work there, and those about to head home.  Chef Lyon is making sure that the Italian food he produces is in the right groove for the neighborhood, and the place took off fast because it seemed so well poised to do so.

Soleto is open Mon.-Fri. from 11 a.m.-11 p.m., Sat. & Sun. 5-11 p.m.

WOLFGANG PUCK AT THE BEL-AIR
Bel-Air Hotel
701 Stone Canyon Road
310-909-1644
wolfgangpuck.com

    The two-year,  $100 million dollar renovation of the Bel-Air Hotel has succeeded very admirably in turning a once alluring dowager into a young white swan--think of Ava Gardner transformed into Scarlett Johanssen. In fact swans swim in meandering streams  surrounded by dense foliage. 
    The Hotel, now part of The Dorchester group,  had acquired that patina of age whereby it was beginning to look dowdy, and now it has become one of the most romantic and beautiful designs among California hostelries, with light colors, wall finishes you hardly notice till you touch them, excellent use of modern furniture, sumptuous fabrics, and reminders everywhere of the water and seclusion that the hotel has always provided, hidden as it is up the winding Stone Canyon Road, which  might even defy a GPS. (Its location keeps out the idle curiosity seekers.) Always glamorous, the hotel now has a shiny new posh for a younger crowd.
    The outdoor patio dining area  (left) has always been as iconic to L.A. dining as the Polo Lounge at the Beverly Hills Hotel, and now, the interior restaurant has been reclaimed as a swank bar and lounge (right), enticing on its own.  Into these spaces, the owners have brought a name brand--Wolfgang Puck, whose track record in fine dining begins with Spago in Beverly Hills but has not of late been among his company's empire-building of more casual concepts.  So, everyone was waiting to see what Puck could produce that would wow the fine dining crowd without copying Spago, itself just recently renovated into something quite different from what it once looked like.
    The Bel-Air's exterior space is as winsome as ever, with director's chairs and overstuffed banquettes ladies sink into at lunch.  I can't say I'm crazy about those huge torchlight heaters that dot the place. If it's too cold to dine out, why not go inside? By the way, the floors are also heated outside.
       The menu plays it pretty safe--Puck and his partner Lee Hefter also run the breakfast and functions of the hotel--and there is a $39 "60 Minute Power Lunch" available.
      Everything, including the irresistible pretzels, are made on the premises.  There are flights of rich man's fantasy here, like the osetra caviar with crème fraîche "snow."
    I dined there early on when it opened, and I thought the menu needed some snap, but I could not have enjoyed more the tortelloni with spring peas that truly tasted as if just plucked from a garden. Fromage de tête showed Puck's enduring affection for French home cooking, sweetbreads were full of flavor, plump Dover sole was impeccably cooked, and the red snapper crudo was a success, tangy with blood orange and shaved fennel with a touch of avocado for sweetness. Goat's cheese-encrusted saddle of lamb was of excellent quality and cooked to a rosy turn to retain all the juices.
    Again, it was early on, so the service staff that evening was lax, cocktails and wines took forever to bring to the table, and the winelist itself is in the stratosphere with its prices.     
    If invited by some Hollywood poobah, I'd certainly return, if only to bask in that quiet pastoral that makes the Bel-Air unique.  I trust, too, that the food may be more enticing and the service staff up to snuff.

Open for breakfast daily; lunch Mon.-Sat.,  Sunday brunch; dinner nightly, Dinner appetizers, $15 to $26; main courses, $28 to $55; four-course tasting menu, $110; six courses, $145.

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NEW YORK [SUBURBAN] CORNER
by John Mariani

JEAN-LOUIS
61 Lewis Street
Greenwich, CT
203-622-8450
www.restaurantjeanlouis.com

If you have never dined at Jean-Louis in Greenwich, CT, there’s little time left to do it.  After December 22^nd, Jean-Louis and Linda Gérin will close the doors to their little jewel box restaurant that has for three decades been one of the finest in the region.
    My reason for writing about it at all, then, is as a paean to the Gérins for so many years of superb cuisine and service as well as to say something about the state of such French restaurants as this one, tucked away in the increasingly frenetic dining scene of Greenwich. To paraphrase the ending of “Death of a Salesman,” “Attention must be paid to such a chef.”
    The short history of the award-winning Jean-Louis is that he came to Greenwich as a young chef under Michelin-starred master Guy Savoy back in 1983, who a year or so later sold the restaurant to the Gérins. Over the years, Gérin showcased his mentor’s nouvelle cuisine style but eventually made the kitchen his own, and, over that long period of evolution, changed his own style, which ranged from classic French cooking to a fusion of French and American dishes.  There was even a period when he decided to cut out much of the fat from his cooking, but that fortunately didn't last long.
    Back in the 1980s the NYC suburbs had a number of excellent, serious French restaurants, a couple of which—La Crémaillière in Banksville, NY, and La Panetière in Rye, NY—are still around, joined, since Jean-Louis opened, by several others, including Thomas Henkelmann at The Homestead Inn and L’Éscale in Greenwich.  All these are much larger restaurants, while the Gérins never expanded their dining room, which even today has only  50 seats, most filled with regulars who have come here for more than one generation.
    It is a dining room where most men wear jackets and the women dress up in the name brand fashions now sold in the pricey boutiques along Greenwich Avenue.  The lighting is perfect, the noise level civilized. Linda always greets guests and Jean-Louis comes into the dining room several time during the night, knowing most everyone in the room. The wine list is one of the finest in the region, and Jean-Louis’ kitchen has been a graduate school for young chefs over the years.
    The current menu reprises the “Best of 30 Years,” both in a dégustation of 7 courses ($79) or as a 3-course “Anniversary Ballade Gourmande” ($69). My wife and I had the “Best” menu, beginning with an endive salad with caviars, then a terrine of foie gras with salad, fruit and nuts. The fish course was scallops seared on a cast-iron skillet, served with truffled risotto and a poultry jus, followed by Vermont quail with dried fruits and celery puree.  The main course of game was a medallion of venison with a classic, wine-rich Grand Veneur sauce.  For dessert, four different sweets were presented, along with petit-fours and chocolates.
    It was the kind of well-paced meal I had come to expect of Jean-Louis, rich without being filling, impeccably served on fine signature china and thick, soft linens.  Clearly it was a night tinged with a certain degree of sadness and nostalgia but with no regrets.  We enjoyed every minute being there, even when saying goodbye to the Gérins.
    So why is Jean-Louis closing, especially since the restaurant and his ancillary catering business has been doing very well?  It’s the same old story, which is not about the so-called "death" of French cuisine.  It’s about the cold, hard rent, which the Gérins’ landlord has multiplied to a number no restaurant could possibly meet.  By the same token, Jean-Louis has been asked to join the New England Culinary Institute, which will take him for most of the week to Montpelier, Vermont, where he will direct and teach, something he has long wanted to do.  Meanwhile, he will keep his Greenwich residence.
    So this is not a mournful story of how yet another French restaurant was driven out of business for lack of it.  What it does show is how difficult it is for any small mom-and-pop venture to thrive in the face of rising real estate.  Who knows, maybe the landlord can rent it out to a Lenscrafters or Verizon store.  If true, that is clearly Connecticut’s loss.
    Had Jean-Louis been an Italian or American or Asian restaurant, the story would have turned out the same.  So I do not lament the closing of a French restaurant; I lament the closing of an era when two very committed people can do such a wonderful thing for so long in such a small personalized way.  It is not encouraging for the future of dining out in America  to see pl,aces like Jean-Louis disappear.
    Still, if Jean-Louis the Restaurant is gone, long live Jean-Louis the Educator!  He has much to teach more young cooks about the right way to do things and why cuisine is more than a flash in the pan as shown in TV.
    Jean-Louis will serve dinner until Dec. 22 when he holds a last night farewell party for invited guests only.

   

 
NOTES FROM THE  WINE CELLAR

Burgundy’s 2012 Vintage: Small Crop,
Promising Quality, Soaring Prices, All Smiles
by John Mariani

     Despite losses of up to 40 percent of their crop for the 2012 harvest, the vintners and merchants of Burgundy are smiling and doing a bit of winking, too.
     In Burgundy, whose wines compose only about 3 percent of France’s total production, the wineries sell just about every drop they make, even in abundant years. But they haven’t had an abundant year since 2009: in 2010 quantity was down 40 percent, in 2011 it was 15 percent.  This year winter’s frost combined with mildew and hail later on destroyed more than half the crop in prestigious vineyards like Château de Pommard.
     At the charity wine auction at the Hospices de Beaune (left) held each November in the city of Beaune, which has taken place since 1851 and, since 2005, been organized by Christie’s, Burgundy officials, vignerons, and negoçiants spoke of the situation with a curious mix of regret and bonhomie. “The damage of up to 50 percent in the Côte de Beaune was a disaster!” moaned Michel Baldassini, President Délegé and Acting Chairman of the Bureau Interprofessionnel des Vins de Bourgogne (BIVB), but then brightened with the announcement that “the highlight in 2012, however, is that the reds have fantastic concentration with silky, powerful tannins.”
    Pierre-Henry Gagey, President and Chairman of the BIVB, was positively buoyant, saying, “Prices are always a question of supply and demand, and Burgundy is selling very well these days. Prices will definitely be higher for the 2012s, but if we get a big harvest in 2013, it may dampen the consumers’ shock.”
    Louis-Fabrice Latour, President and Chairman of the Federation des Négociants-Éleveurs de Grande Bourgogne, added to the high spirits by noting that “Burgundy has been recession proof the last two years.  The U.S., our biggest market, was up 10 percent for 2011, and is our biggest priority right now because the dollar is getting stronger. At the moment exports to Japan are up 35 percent in value for 2011, and it soon could surpass the UK as our second largest market, which needs a re-boost.  Number four is Canada, then China, where all the wine goes through Hong Kong.”   Latour also said higher prices were inevitable and warned, “There just won't be any burgundies available at under $10 a bottle.”
    Back at the wineries around Beaune, I found a more guarded degree of optimism, since farmers hate more than anything to lose crops, especially three years in a row. “In the last twenty years we have tried to educate’ the vines to grow less grapes but of better quality,” said Marie-Andrée Mugneret, who, with her sister Marie-Christine, owns Domaine Georges Mugneret-Gibourg (right) in the Vosne-Romanée region. “Still, we weren’t expecting to lose nearly half our production,” pointing to two stacks of aging wine barrels, whereas in a good year they would nearly touch the ceiling. “Last year, we made 85 barrels; this year we have only 68.”
    Mugneret knows she can easily sell her wines for more money, and the 2010s will begin appearing in the market next year.  “I am relieved that the higher prices will help blunt the lower supply,” she said, “but I’m skeptical that Burgundy prices can just keep rising so much with demand. We may price ourselves out of the market at some point.”
    At Domaine Arnoux Père et Fils in Chorey-les-Beaune, owner Pascal Arnoux  (left) told me, “The last good year for both volume and quality was 2009.  That was ideal and helped keep prices at a reasonable level.  This year my volume is down 40 percent, but I think the wines will turn out to be excellent.” He asked if I wanted to be the first American journalist to taste the wines out of the barrel, and I was fortunate to sample most of the 15 wines Arnoux makes.  I found the Aloxe-Corton the most advanced—for a wine made from grapes picked less than two months ago—and overall the wines had lots of fruit and spice.
    “I like my wines with lots of fruit,” said Arnoux, "because we drink burgundy younger now. Do I know, really, what these wines will develop into? No, but I’m meeting this afternoon with my colleagues to discuss the new vintage. I’m optimistic about the quality.”
    In any other luxury industry, the impetus to increase holdings to increase sales is basic business, but in Burgundy, where simply buying more land, even the next acre over, does not guarantee quality, and the pride of maintaining distinctive excellence is the driving force. “My sister and I have been asked many times if we are interested in buying other lots to add to ours, which have been in our family since 1933,” said Mugneret. “But I don't want more and more land or money. Through good and bad times, my quality of life has no price.”

John Mariani's wine column appears in Bloomberg Muse News, from which this story was adapted. Bloomberg News covers Culture from art, books, and theater to wine, travel, and food on a daily basis.

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