IN THIS ISSUE DINING OUT IN
LONDON, Part One
By John Mariani
❖❖❖
THE URBAN MYTH ABOUT
DARK, QUIET RESTAURANTS
By John Mariani
NEW YORK CORNER OCEANA
By John Mariani
NOTES FROM THE WINE CELLAR
WAY UP IN THE ANDES MONTES
MAKES WONDERFUL WINES
By Mort Hochstein
❖❖❖
DINING OUT IN
LONDON,
Part One
By John Mariani
The otherwise powerful U.S.
dollar has yet to make a dent in the pound
sterling, so prices have not made London quite so
easy to love these days as Paris, Rome or Madrid.Nevertheless,
a recent trip to London indicated that
restaurateurs and hoteliers are more sensitive to
price in order to compete for the record 17
million people who now visit the city annually
(NYC gets 55 million).This means more hotel
package deals, a lot more creature comforts, and
better fixed-price meals.
London’s
older hotels seem perpetually in a state of
renewal and change owners frequently, depending on
which Arab sheik is in the mood to pick up a city
trophy.The
cherished dowdiness that once characterized some
of the classic London hotels like the Savoy,
Connaught and The Ritz has all been swept away
while trying to maintain the original character of
historic properties.
One
of these is the Hotel Café
Royal, which was opened in 1865 on the
curve of Regent Street (left) by a French émigré wine
merchant who Anglicized his name to Daniel Nicols.Within
the hotel he built what was said to be the world’s
largest wine cellar of its day.
Over the next century the Café
Royal had more than its share of celebrated
visitors, everyone from Arthur Conan Doyle and
Graham Greene to Brigitte Bardot and Louis
Armstrong.It
was here, in 1867, that the original National
Sporting Club founders, the Earl of Lonsdale and the
fifth Marquis of Queensberry, set down “The
Queensberry Rules for Boxing.”The hotel
even had its own boxing ring.
Since the 1970s the property has
had its ups and downs, and in 2008 the hotel was
shuttered,its
fittings and furniture sold at auction.Fortunately,
Alrov Properties bought the building, poured money
into it, and transformed it into one of the most
modern luxury hotels in the
city’s center, just off Piccadilly.It
re-opened in December 2012 with 160 rooms, including
49 suites and six signature suites, high-tech meeting rooms,
spa and a large lap pool.
Landmark buildings are always
under scrutiny in London, by bothcommissions
and critics, and David
Chipperfield Architects have deftly managed to
retain the grand historic public rooms of the 1860s
and 1920s, while the new rooms are done in sleek
finishes of mahogany veneers, copper and stone, with
large bathrooms and top-notch electronic amenities.Bringing
in veteran hotel manager Anthony Lee (formerly ofThe
Mayfair and The Connaught) eighteen months ago shook
things up in the most genteel way, after early
reports of sluggish service and unimpressive food.Lee has
brought Hotel Café Royal to where it was intended to
be from the start, and he’s always around for you to
pester if it isn’t.
The resplendently gilded Grill
Room here has been left in much the shape and Louis
XVI style it was a century ago, when Sam Harris told
his friend Oscar Wilde not to proceed with his libel
case against the Marquis of Queensbury, which in the
end resulted in Wilde going to prison for the crime
of homosexuality. Today the room is named after
Oscar Wilde; Tuesday through Saturday evenings it
offers a program of live entertainment and, on
occasion, cabaret shows.There is also a much-sought
out private Club at the hotel with its own eclectic
dining room called Domino.
The
main, informal restaurant (for three meals a day) is
named Ten Room (left),
where executive chef Andrew Turner focuses largely
on modern British fare under the influence of French
tradition.Thus,
you may begin with a Paris mushroom and truffle soup
(£7) or a finely crafted terrine of foie gras and
smoked magret of duck (£14).Given the
quality of the ingredients used, the dressed Cornish
crab (£14) is the ideal way to begin a meal here in
this wide, classy room with walls the color of café
au lait and some of the most comfortable
chocolate-colored banquettes in London.(They
were once lipstick red with red carpets, which
seemed to sun-blind the London critics.).Table
settings are of prime quality, with flowers on each,
and the room is well set for conversation, which
makes it rife with business people at breakfast and
lunch.
There is a flavorful wild sea
bass ceviche treated to chili, coconut and acidic
lime (£13) among three raw items on the menu.Lobster
Pompadour (£30) is something of a colorful
throwback, full of English cream, butter and
saffron, yet somehow not really very heavy, since
Turner aims for lightness in his cuisine.Seared
wild bass fillet came simply with olives and peppers
(£30), and a grilled veal cutlet was equally simple,
sided with a tangy-hot caponata
(£28).Best
of the dishes I had was chicken “Royal” with a
confit of chicken leg, and a brisk, sprightly salsa verde,
a dish that can serve one or two people (£24).The
prices here are fairly modest for such refinement
and location, certainly lower than at competing
luxury hotels. You
may well and wisely be tempted by the selection of
French and British cheeses (£12), but I wouldn’t
want you to miss the honey parfait with soft toffee
and Earl Grey cream (£8) or, especially if you have
an American sweet tooth,the chocolate brownie with
caramel popcorn and Muscovado ice cream (£8).
Incidentally, this month Café
Royal debuts a tiger-inspired art exhibition, to
raise funds forthe "Save
Wild Tigers" global conservation initiative, which
couldn’t happen at a more opportune time.
After dinner, from
the
terrace of your room, all of Piccadilly lies spread
out before you, which, after a night on the town,
gives you a tremendous sense of just how gloriously
bright this once-foggy town truly is.
After
a three-year closure the magnificently restoredSavoy
Hotel, set off the Strand right on
the banks of the Thames, is more
glamorous than it ever was in the days when Fred and
Adele Astaire danced here.The hotel originally opened as
a venue for Richard D’Oyly Carte’s
Opera Company, and with hotelier César Ritz and chef
Auguste Escoffier onboard, the Savoy could claim
eminence with the finest hotels in Paris at the
time. Post-war
complacency and change of fashion brought The Savoy
to the brink of irrelevancy, until 2005, when it was
purchased by a consortium headed by Prince Alwaleed
Bin Talal Bin Abdul Aziz Alsaud that hired Fairmont
Hotels and Resorts to run it. Two hundred twenty
million pounds later, the Savoy re-opened, as
declared by Prince Charles on November 2nd 2010, and
last year it celebrated its 125th anniversary. Today
there
are 268 elegantly appointed rooms and suites done in
either Edwardian or Art Déco style.There is
a spa, a 24-hour gym, and a private pool.Just
driving into its cul-de-sac entryway gives you a
sense of why The Savoy was once a hub of celebrated,
theatrical excitement, and the walls are lined with
those stars who stayed here--Gershwin, Sinatra, Lena
Horne, Charlie Chaplin, John Wayne, Ava Gardner and
HumphreyBogart.
The Beatles came later.
There are three restaurants at
The Savoy, including the legendary Simpson’s on the
Strand, Gordon Ramsay’s Savoy Grill, and Kaspar, a
glittering seafood restaurant (left) named
after the hotel’s black cat sculpture, which since
1927 is seated at a table with 13 guests to ward off
bad luck, after diamond magnate Woolf Joel chanced
fate to dine at such a table in 1898 and was shot
dead soon afterwards.
I dined at Kaspar with my wife,
enchanted by its 1920s art déco design of black and
gold and royal blue, its marble oyster bar, and
satin-finish floor inset with stylized fish scales.Sitting
at the bar or a table, the thing to do is to order a
plateau of iced shellfish (£38-£48), or a platter of
smoked and cured fish (two for £15, four for £22),
which may include star-anise scented salmon,
beetroot-cured halibut, and peppered monkfish. The excellent
quality of the seafood here is due to its coming
from British and European waters on a daily basis.For that
reason my wife and I stayed with some classic
dishes: Lobster Thermidor (market price), so easy to
mess up with a cloying sauce, was delicious, the
meat very tender, the reduction of cream and brandy
perfect, served with buttered spinach, while plump
Dover sole with a brown butter caper sauce--at a not
unreasonable £38--was everything I seek in a British
restaurant of this caliber. There are also some meat
items, but I can’t imagine anyone but a piscaphobe
would order them. The
wine list is not huge but more than suitable for a
seafood dinner, but mark-ups are high, often by a
whopping 300% over retail.
Also check
out the beautiful new Melba pastry and sandwich shop
for very stylish take-away.
After a mere
90 years, the space that is now Colbert(formerly Oriel) on Sloane Square has
expanded from one to three rooms to accommodate both a
constant barrage of clientele and a ballooning
number of art works, posters and photographs that
take up every inch of wall space.It’s a
popular place both before and after attendance at
the Royal Court Theatre next door. The owners also run the still fashionable
Wolseley on Piccadilly, and, wrote the ever-snarky
critic for The
Telegraph, Colbert is “so Chelsea it’s almost
a theme park,” whose diners wear “tweed blazers with
velvet collars, well-cut cords, autumnal scarves
featuring cute animals just begging to be hunted.”Cute, if
not entirely accurate, for Colbert gets a cross
section of Londoners and visitors from abroad, who
come for all-day service daily from 8 o'clock in the
morning to 11 at night.
Actually Colbert, which I assume
is named after Napoleon’s most faithful general, would easily fit into any
corner of Saint Germain in Paris. The look is the
same—tile floors, closely set tables, red
banquettes, bentwood chairs, and art déco
stylizations, a look that never grows old.Yet, it
is all very new looking, without that patina of
scruffiness that characterizes so many Parisian
brasseries.The
waiters are in long aprons and quick on their feet,
and the wine list is moderately priced (for London),
with nine Champagnes and about 30 each of red and
white wines. There are several all-day egg items,
including a generous portion of nicely runny eggs
Benedict (£14.50).
A toasted
croque
Provençal with grilled zucchini, eggplant, red
peppers, tomato and goat’s cheese was a bargain at
£8.50, and large shrimp were nicely grilled,
available either at £18.50 or £29.75 (many dishes
are available in small or large portions).The
hearty French classic cassoulet, which should be
richly flavorful, was here anemic, with too little
garlic and not enough fat (£16.75).Pommes
frites were as good as expected (£4).
The bar is busy, the hostesses
are gorgeous, and the people watching is wonderful,
all at a pretty fair price.And you
can pretend this is not Chelsea but Montparnasse, if
you like.
PART TWO WILL APPEAR
NEXT WEEK
❖❖❖
THE
URBAN MYTH ABOUT
DARK, QUIET
RESTAURANTS
By
John Mariani
The
continuing debate about modern restaurants with
the easily verifiable decibel levels of a
jackhammer is so full of nonsensical statements
about how “young” people love loud restaurants and
old “fogies” hate them that I think it worthwhile
to demolish them.
I was reminded of this
upon watching a report on CBS Morning News (Aug. 22)
with Gabe Stulman (right),
owner of several intentionally loud restaurants in
Manhattan, including Perla and Bar Sardine, and New York
magazine’s excellent restaurant critic, Adam Platt (left), who said
(perhaps as a joke) that he already had hearing loss
from going to such restaurants for the past ten
years. It
was
Stulman’s contention that his customers consider the
noise as entertainment ("soulful
interactions") and that he was never happier
than when a guest is nodding her head to his
playlist while eating his food. Platt contended it
was a generational issue, saying that it began when
downtown rents in New York got so high that
restaurateurs ripped out all soft surfaces like
carpets and tablecloths to save money, which is only
partly true: many established downtown restaurants
have kept those very accoutrements, including Il Mulino on
West Third Street, Il
Cantinori in Greenwich Village, Golden Unicorn
in Chinatown, Odeon
(left) in
TriBeCa and Delmonico’s
on Wall Street. None would be considered remotely
quiet. Platt
and Shulman both insisted that young people would go
screaming from "hush, darkened little parlors," which might be true if
there were such
places.For,
although there are a multitude of “fancy
restaurants” (an odiously vague term), there simply
are none
filled with "old people who pine for the murmuring
conversation."And there never really have been.If there
were, why might some people request “a quiet table
in the corner?”
The fact is, the dark, quiet
restaurant is an urban myth.In all my
years of dining out, I have never dined in such a
place except twice: once in Paris twenty years ago,
at an Alain Ducasse hotel dining room with a
funereal atmosphere where patrons spoke in a
whisper. Today, none of Ducasse’s many restaurants
around the world--not in Paris, London, Las Vegas,
or the Far East--are even remotely dark or quiet.They have
excellent lighting and a buoyancy that comes from
the effect of light on people’s demeanor. The
other
time was very recently at the Fearrington House Inn
in North Carolina, where the dining room was so
low-lighted as to stifle conversation.I
actually asked the manager if it were possible to
turn up the lights just a touch, he did, and you
could feel the ambiance and level of conversation
immediately rise.
Sticking just to NYC, as per
Platt and Stulman’s discussion,I would
defy them to find a “fancy” restaurant in the city,
uptown, midtown, downtown, with “darkened” lighting
and off-putting “quiet.”It’s as simple as visiting any
of the following restaurants to prove my point: Jean-Georges, Le
Bernardin, Daniel (below), Marea, Bouley, Lincoln Ristorante, Gramercy
Tavern, `21’ Club, Per Se, Aureole, The Four
Seasons, Batârd, Juni, Il Gattopardo, Ristorante
Morini, Le Cirque, Oceana (see article below),
Cipriani,
and many more.No one would ever accuse such places of being
“darkened,” although some can be fairly loud--from
conversation, not from booming music.Indeed,
the designers of these restaurants work hard to
provide a level of light that creates conviviality,
laughter, and conversation.(And all
these, for what it’s worth, are listed among the
“Most Popular” restaurants in NYC in Zagat;
none of Stulman’s restaurants is on that list.)
Not even that bastion of French
fogeyism, La
Grénouille (below), opened in 1962, is dark or
quiet.Instead,
the lighting is golden and the flowers, carpets,
tablecloths soak up noise, yet there is still a
palpable sense of ebullient enjoyment within the
dining room.
Even if Platt and Stulman were
thinking of fancy restaurants twenty, even thirty
years ago, their fantasy of them being dark and
quiet is nonsense. The last time restaurants were
dark, though not necessarily quiet, was before the
invention of the electric light bulb, when candles
or gaslight had to provide enough light to make it
possible for people to walk to their table without
bumping into another’s.Note that the lighting of
dining rooms in “Downtown Abbey” changed as electric
lights were added.
I’m looking
through a 1971 copy of Forbes
Magazine’s Restaurant Guide and find that
there are precious few restaurants that might in any
way be considered dark and quiet back then.Among
those given the highest ratings (four stars)--Café Chauveron, La
Caravelle, Lafayette, La Grénouille, Lutèce and `21’ Club—none
was dark or quiet.Lutèce, then considered by many as the finest
restaurant in the U.S., had a charming
orangerie-style dining room with coral-colored walls
and a barrel vaulted ceiling and perfect lighting,
allowing you to see the celebrated guests who came
through the door.The famous bar room section at `21’ Club,
with its white stucco walls and hanging toys, threw
deliberate light onto its tables, so everyone could
see everyone else.(There, one might ask for a quiet table in a
corner and be obliged.)
And
if you moved out of NYC across the country, the
dark, quiet restaurant was just as non-existent. A
1960 copy of Great
Restaurants of America by Ted Patrick and
Silas Spitzer exalts those dining rooms where good
fellowship and fine lighting are paramount to their
excellence, including places like Galatoire’s in
New Orleans, London
Chop House in Detroit, Maisonette in
Cincinnati, Ernie’s
in San Francisco, Perino’s
in Los Angeles, and Mario’s in Dallas--all of them known
for their atmospheric ebullience.
Finally, as to the notion that
young diners crave high noise levels, I’ve never
seen nor heard evidence to support the claim.I have
inquired of many young people (under 40) if they liked the
noise in a loud restaurant and have never heard
anyone say he or she did.Many say it’s their first and
last
visit, and, mind you, a lot of young foodies traipse
from one buzzy restaurant to the next without ever a
repeat visit: been there, done that.Those
restaurateurs who insist their guests do in fact
love the noise never seem to produce evidence that
they do, except those who say they bear it or
grudgingly accept it for the overall vibe.
Just last night at a very good but extremely loud
new restaurant in NYC, our waitress confessed
the addition of bombastic music wore her out by
night's end and that without it, people would
clearly enjoy themselves and the food.
Kim Novak
in "Vertigo" (1958) for which director Alfred
Hitchcock
recreated the dining room at Ernie's in San
Francisco.
For
the record, every host on CBS Morning News said they
hated loud
restaurants. And just in the past year in
midtown Manhattan, we've seen the opening of several
high-end, gorgeously designed restaurants like Gabriel Kreuther,
Chevalier, Polo Bar, and, soon, Vaucluse--none
of them catering to "old people who pine for the murmuring
conversation."
So, let’s not defend noise enough
to cause hearing damage with nonsensical claims that
people under 40 run screaming from "hush, darkened little
parlors." I might too, if I ever
run across one.
❖❖❖
NEW YORK CORNER
By John
Mariani
120 W 49th Street (off Avenue of the
Americas)
212- 759-5941 oceanarestaurant.com
Ben
Pollinger, executive chef at the 23-year-old
Oceana, has a fine cookbook, School of
Fish (Gallery Books, $35), that shows page
by page how evolved seafood cookery has become
over those years.Of course, he was one of the pioneers of a
movement that brought such cuisine out of the
doldrums of a time when first-rate product was
difficult for chefs to find, even in the NYC
market (it remains so in most of the U.S.).If the
late Gilbert Lecoze of Le Bernardin was the very
first to prove that very little need be done to
perfect product, then Pollinger learned that
lesson early on.
As he details in his book, when
he worked at Alain Ducasse’s Louis XV in Monaco,
he would “plead for” the locally caught bass to go
through rigor mortis “just so I could get it
filleted and into the pan on time.” He writes
about shrimp in Genoa “still quivering” and how to
cook only according to the season.All
that, and what he learned in NYC from master chefs
Jean-Jacques Rachou and Christian Délouvrier, is
invested in his cuisine at Oceana, and he passes
that knowledge on to his readers.
So the publication ofthe
book by this New Jersey native (left) seemed
a good reason to revisit Oceana after three years’
absence. The 150-seat restaurant sits across from
Rockefeller Center and Radio City, with a big
marble raw bar up front and dining rooms done in
polished cherry wood, marine artwork, and a
beautiful glass-enclosed private dining space in
the middle of the room.Tables are spacious and well
set, though for some mystifying reason four of
them in the middle have no tablecloths.Sound
levels in the bar are high but wholly civilized in
the dining room.
Oceana is another of the
Livanos family of restaurants, with managing
partner Paul McLaughlin, so the attention to
detail, even in a restaurant this large, is
impressive. Wine director Pedro Goncalves, from
Portugal, has expanded the list at Oceana to more
than 1,050 selections, with 30 wines by the glass
(none over $20) and starred selections “offer the
best value.”There are also six sakes. Goncalves is a
man to consult on what's new and interesting.
Our table of four tried to order from the various
categories of a menu that need not be quite so
extensive--Oysters, Chilled, Seafood Tower,
Appetizers,Main Courses (nine of them), Seafood Paella
for two ($78), Fish in a Plate, Meats, Sauces,
Sides, Vegetarian, and Desserts.A
little editing would not hurt a kitchen that can
also do up to 500 people for parties.
The array of oysters alone
numbers eleven species, all from North America
($3.50-$4 per piece), and while you may also order
chilled seafood on its own, there is a seafood
tower for one ($28) to up to six ($145).
Our party couldn’t
resist ordering jumbo lump crab croquettes ($19; right) of
remarkable lightness, a virtue also in the fried
cornmeal-crusted calamari ($18).Squid
ink corzetti
pasta (shaped like coins) with baby cuttlefish,
radicchio and a pistachio-mint sauce ($21) were
marvelously flavorful, without being in the
slightest fishy tasting, as this dish often is if
the cuttlefish are not in peak condition.Unexpected
on such a menu were some delicious, puffy stuffed
sweet plantainswith bacalao, tangy lime cream and a
house-made barrel-age fermented hot sauce ($17).
All these were new tastes to my
friends, winemakers from Slovenia, not least the
last of the season’s crispy soft-shell crabs
($36), which amazed them when I said you eat the
whole body and claws.I also took the liberty of
ordering a three-pound steamed Maine lobster ($35
per pound, which is a bit steep) with clarified
butter and a romesco sauce. My friends contended
there was no way they would finish such a huge
crustacean, but, with a little help, they of
course did with
delight.
Photo by
Paul Johnson
Sea
scallops à
la plancha ($33) were impeccably cooked, and
wild Alaskan King salmon with buckwheat, tomato,
dill and cucumber jus ($46) proved yet again what an
abomination farm-raised salmon are.This
fish had delicacy, near translucence, and a flavor
that reminded me of what Pollinger had said he
learned in Monaco and Genoa. French fries ($9)
were excellent, as was creamed spinach laced with
roasted garlic, lemon and crème fraîche ($11). Executive Pastry Chef Colleen Grapes turns
out a wonderful cookie plate ($12-$21) and a
rum-fudge sundae ($12), while there is also a
commendable cheese selection (three for $14, five
for $19).
It’s difficult for me to
conceive of anyone going to Oceana for a meat or
vegetarian meal, which is like going to an
exhibition of Rembrandt and only looking at his
etchings.There
are great chefs doing great seafood all over NYC,
but Oceana, along with Le Bernardin, Sea Grill,
Milos, and Marea, is a paragon for the form and
Pollinger an acknowledged master among few.
Oceana is
currently open for Breakfast and lunch
Mon.-Fri., for dinner Mon.-Sat.
Photo by Noah Fecks
❖❖❖
NOTES FROM THE WINE CELLAR
WAY UP IN THE ANDES MONTES MAKES
WONDERFUL WINES
by
Mort Hochstein
They say
every winery needs a story.Aurelio
Montes Sr. found his inspiration soaringabove
the Andes as he watched the caiquenes,an
almost vanished species ofwild
geese that fly over the towering pinnacles of
the mountain range that runs like a spine
between Chile and Argentina. Montes,
winemaker and founding partner of Viña Montes in
Chile, followed the route of the wild geese in
2001, when he purchased an ancient facility in
Mendoza, Argentina’s primary viticultural region,
similar to Bordeaux and Napa, though much more
widespread than either. He named it Kaiken, and a
dark aboriginal sculpture of the Kaiken presides
over the wine barrels resting in the cellar of the
estate.The
home estate has two historic plots, one of which
is home to Malbec planted in 1913 duringthe
First World War, the other with Cabernet
Sauvignon, first rooted in the 1930s. Aurelio Montes Del Campo Jr. (right) who
trained at wineries in Australia, California and
Europe, is chief enologist at Kaiken.In
addition to Malbec--Argentina’s foremost varietal
is dominant in the area--he also produces the
indigenous grapes Torrontes and Bonarda as well as
Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Chardonnay,
Pinot Noir, Petit Verdot and Syrah at other estate
vineyards in the Mendoza region and from
non-estate vineyards far to the north near the
Bolivian border.The northernmost vineyard sits more than a
mile high, and its vines, largely Torrontes, have
an average age of 80 years.
Montes Sr., with three decades
of winemaking behind him, lives in Chile and
leaves the basic management of the Argentine
venture to his son. Though the two countries are
close neighbors, they differ widely. “Chile,” he
said, “is very like Switzerland.It is
very organized, the people work hard and pay their
taxes, but can be very boring.The
Argentineans are incredibly passionate people.They
are a rich country, a land of contrasts and
disorganized.” When
he first moved to Argentina, he knew no one other
than the winery employees. One day, a worker
invited him to a barbecue. Montes was slightly
shocked, telling a writer, “It is rare to invite a
stranger to your home in Chile. You must get to
know them first.But the worker invited me with open arms
and put on a feast.In Argentina barbecues last all day long.
You estimate about 2.5 pounds of meat per person,
beginning at noon with drinking and eating and not
finishing until well after midnight.” In New York with Aurelio Jr., I tasted six
wines, starting with Kaiken Brut, made with Pinot
Noir and Chardonnay, nurtured in the traditional
champenois method. It is a spirited wine but a bit
overly acidic. What
wines go best with our main course of lamb?Whatever
you have on hand, Montes observed, so we had a
flowery Torrontes, rich in orange and pineapple
flavors,to
kick off a series of vegetarian plates thatbegan
with heirloom tomatoes and farmer’s cheese,
progressing to a vegetable escabeche of green and
yellow beans, chickpeas, carrots and cauliflower,
culminating in roasted new potatoes and green
onions crema
fresca. We
transitioned to red, enjoying a 2012 Cabernet made
in classic Bordeaux style with Malbec subbing for
Merlot and a touch of Petit Verdot.Red,
dark and brooding, it went well with the veggies
and was on point with the main course, an
overflowing meat plate in the Argentine manner,
featuring beef steak, chorizo and roasted lamb
rack. I
preferred the Cabernet blend to the reds that
joined in the carnivorous festivities, a basic,
spicy Malbec, loaded with black pepper accents,
and two top-of-the-line reds, a 2012 Kaiken Ultra
Cabernet Sauvignon and a 2012 Ultra Malbec.The
Malbecs, both, of course, robust and hardy, were a
perfect match for grilled meats; here again, I
preferred the younger, less expensive version.
Those last two have a suggested retail price of $25,
while the preceding wines were near the current
sweet spot of about $17, though all can probably
be found discounted in the market. You hear from Montes an exposition common
to winemakers: “We are committed to cultivating
grapes that express the unique terroir and climate
of our vineyards, whether from terraced plantings
more than a mile high, sloping hills or low-lying
plantations. We follow biodynamic practices almost
religiously and aim for complete sustainability.
We hand pick and do rigid individual sorting of
the fruit, practically grape by grape.”
Only about 20% of the wine
produced in Argentina escapes the local market,
and Kaiken is among the top 20 export brands,
reaching retailers and restaurateurs in much of
Europe as well as China and other Pacific lands."
❖❖❖
SCRUNCH
DOWN, BOBBY!
A
Korean barbecue restaurant in the U.S. charges $18.99
for adults to access their all-you-can-eat dinners,
while children must stand up against a measuring stick
to judge how much they will pay by height, e.g., those Kids
between 33 and 41 inches, or 2’9” and 3’5”, pay
$9, between 42 and 52 inches, or 3’6” and 4’4”,
pay $11 and 4’5” and over are presumably charged
like adults.
EXISTENTIAL RESTAURANT
REVIEWS
“Years ago,
when I was making a barefoot pilgrimage along the Camino
de Santiago, I met a small boy who was sitting on a
rock. `What is the best sandwich?’ he asked me. At that
moment I realized the world holds so many secrets I may
never unravel. I also realized I’d never eaten the best
sandwich. And that was because I’d never been to
Clare’s.”—Molly Gore, “Clare's,” SF Examiner
(8/6/15)
❖❖❖
Any of John Mariani's
books below may be ordered from amazon.com.
I'm proud and happy to announce that my
new book, The Hound
in Heaven (21st Century Lion Books), has just
been published through Amazon and Kindle.
It is a novella, and for
anyone who loves dogs, Christmas, romance, inspiration,
even the supernatural, I hope you'll find this to be a
treasured favorite. The story concerns how,
after a New England teacher, his wife and their two
daughters adopt a stray puppy found in their barn in
northern Maine, their lives seem full of promise. But when
tragedy strikes, their wonderful dog Lazarus and the
spirit of Christmas are the only things that may bring
back his master back from the edge of despair.
“What a huge surprise turn this story took! I was
completely stunned! I truly enjoyed this book and its
message.” – Actress Ali MacGraw
“He had me at Page One. The amount of heart, human insight,
soul searching, and deft literary strength that John Mariani
pours into this airtight novella is vertigo-inducing.
Perhaps ‘wow’ would be the best comment.” – James
Dalessandro, author of Bohemian
Heart and 1906.
“John Mariani’s Hound in
Heaven starts with a well-painted portrayal of an
American family, along with the requisite dog. A surprise
event flips the action of the novel and captures us for a
voyage leading to a hopeful and heart-warming message. A
page turning, one sitting read, it’s the perfect antidote
for the winter and promotion of holiday celebration.” – Ann
Pearlman, author of The
Christmas Cookie Club and A Gift for my Sister.
“John Mariani’s concise, achingly beautiful novella pulls a
literary rabbit out of a hat – a mash-up of the cosmic and
the intimate, the tragic and the heart-warming – a Christmas
tale for all ages, and all faiths. Read it to your children,
read it to yourself… but read it. Early and often. Highly
recommended.” – Jay Bonansinga, New York Times bestselling
author of Pinkerton’s War,
The Sinking of The Eastland, and The Walking Dead: The Road To
Woodbury.
“Amazing things happen when you open your heart to an
animal. The Hound in
Heaven delivers a powerful story of healing that
is forged in the spiritual relationship between a man and
his best friend. The book brings a message of hope that can
enrich our images of family, love, and loss.” – Dr. Barbara
Royal, author of The
Royal Treatment.
Modesty forbids me to praise my own new book, but
let me proudly say that it is an extensive
revision of the 4th edition that appeared more
than a decade ago, before locavores, molecular
cuisine, modernist cuisine, the Food Network and
so much more, now included. Word origins have been
completely updated, as have per capita consumption
and production stats. Most important, for the
first time since publication in the 1980s, the
book includes more than 100 biographies of
Americans who have changed the way we cook, eat
and drink -- from Fannie Farmer and Julia Child to
Robert Mondavi and Thomas Keller.
"This book is amazing! It has entries for
everything from `abalone' to `zwieback,' plus more
than 500 recipes for classic American dishes and
drinks."--Devra First, The Boston Globe.
"Much needed in any kitchen library."--Bon Appetit.
Now in Paperback,
too--How Italian Food Conquered the
World (Palgrave Macmillan) has won top prize from the
Gourmand
World Cookbook Awards. It is
a rollicking history of the food culture of
Italy and its ravenous embrace in the 21st
century by the entire world. From ancient Rome
to la dolce
vita of post-war Italy, from Italian
immigrant cooks to celebrity chefs, from
pizzerias to high-class ristoranti,
this chronicle of a culinary diaspora is as
much about the world's changing tastes,
prejudices, and dietary fads as about
our obsessions with culinary fashion and
style.--John Mariani
"Eating Italian will
never be the same after reading
John Mariani's entertaining and
savory gastronomical history of
the cuisine of Italy and how it
won over appetites worldwide. . .
. This book is such a tasteful
narrative that it will literally
make you hungry for Italian food
and arouse your appetite for
gastronomical history."--Don
Oldenburg, USA Today.
"Italian
restaurants--some good, some glitzy--far
outnumber their French rivals. Many of
these establishments are zestfully described
in How Italian Food Conquered the World, an
entertaining and fact-filled chronicle by
food-and-wine correspondent John F.
Mariani."--Aram Bakshian Jr., Wall Street
Journal.
"Mariani
admirably dishes out the story of
Italy’s remarkable global ascent
to virtual culinary
hegemony....Like a chef gladly
divulging a cherished family
recipe, Mariani’s book reveals the
secret sauce about how Italy’s
cuisine put gusto in gusto!"--David
Lincoln Ross,
thedailybeast.com
"Equal parts
history, sociology, gastronomy, and just
plain fun, How Italian Food Conquered the
World tells the captivating and delicious
story of the (let's face it) everybody's
favorite cuisine with clarity, verve and
more than one surprise."--Colman Andrews,
editorial director of The Daily
Meal.com.
"A fantastic and fascinating
read, covering everything from the influence
of Venice's spice trade to the impact of
Italian immigrants in America and the
evolution of alta cucina. This book will
serve as a terrific resource to anyone
interested in the real story of Italian
food."--Mary Ann Esposito, host of PBS-TV's
Ciao
Italia.
"John Mariani has written the
definitive history of how Italians won their
way into our hearts, minds, and
stomachs. It's a story of pleasure over
pomp and taste over technique."--Danny Meyer,
owner of NYC restaurants Union Square
Cafe, The Modern, and Maialino.
❖❖❖
FEATURED
LINKS: I am happy to report
that the Virtual
Gourmet is linked to four excellent
travel sites:
I consider this the best and
savviest blog of its kind on the web. Potter is a
columnist for USA
Weekend, Diversion, Laptop and Luxury Spa Finder,
a contributing editor for Ski and a frequent contributor
to National
Geographic Traveler, ForbesTraveler.com
and Elle Decor.
"I’ve designed this site is for people who take
their travel seriously," says Potter. "For
travelers who want to learn about special places
but don’t necessarily want to pay through the nose for
the privilege of staying there. Because at the end
of the day, it’s not so much about five-star
places as five-star experiences." THIS WEEK: 5
MYTHS OF ADVENTURE TRAVEL; PARMA, ITALY
Eating Las Vegas
is the new on-line site for Virtual Gourmet
contributor John A. Curtas., who since 1995
has been commenting on the Las Vegas food
scene and reviewing restaurants for Nevada
Public Radio. He is also the
restaurant critic for KLAS TV, Channel 8 in
Las Vegas, and his past reviews can be
accessed at KNPR.org.
Click on the logo below to go directly to
his site.
Tennis Resorts Online:
A Critical Guide to the
World's Best Tennis Resorts and Tennis Camps, published
by ROGER COX, who has spent more than two decades
writing about tennis travel, including a 17-year stretch
for Tennis magazine.
He has also written for Arthur Frommer's Budget Travel, New York Magazine, Travel &
Leisure, Esquire, Money, USTA Magazine, Men's Journal,
and The Robb
Report. He has authored two books-The World's Best Tennis
Vacations (Stephen Greene Press/Viking
Penguin, 1990) and The
Best Places to Stay in the Rockies (Houghton Mifflin,
1992 & 1994), and the Melbourne (Australia) chapter
to the Wall Street
Journal Business Guide to Cities of the Pacific Rim (Fodor's
Travel Guides, 1991).
nickonwine:
An engaging, interactive
wine column by Nick Passmore, Artisanal Editor, Four
Seasons Magazine; Wine Columnist, BusinessWeek.com;
nick@nickonwine.com; www.nickonwine.com.
MARIANI'S VIRTUAL GOURMET
NEWSLETTER is published weekly. Editor/Publisher: John
Mariani. Editor: Walter Bagley. Contributing Writers: Christopher Mariani,
Robert Mariani,Misha
Mariani,
John A. Curtas, Edward Brivio, Mort Hochstein,
Andrew Chalk,Dotty Griffith and Brian Freedman. Contributing
Photographers: Galina Dargery, Bobby
Pirillo. Technical Advisor: Gerry McLoughlin.