IN THIS ISSUE HISTORIC LAS
VEGAS
RESTAURANTS By John A.
Curtas
NEW YORK CORNER
TRATTORIA MACHIAVELLI
By John Mariani
NOTES
FROM THE WINE CELLAR HISTORY AND
HENNESSY
By Mort Hochstein
❖❖❖
HISTORIC
LAS VEGAS RESTAURANTS By John A. Curtas
Fremont Street (1959)
It took me almost
two years, but I finally did it: I forced myself
to eat in every one of Las Vegas's venerable
dining establishments. The oldest restaurants in
town. Those slices of history that have hung on
for decades, bucking trends and stemming tides. And you
know what I found? They're all terrible.
Not terrible terrible as in inedibly
terrible, but so dated, shopworn and threadbare that
there is no appreciable culinary reason to go to any
of them. Some are worse than others. The Pamplemousse (left), which
opened in 1976, is such a dated salmon-colored mess
of faded Francophilia that it should be put out of
its misery like a dying horse.
The Golden
Steer, less than a mile up the
street, hasn't changed the menu or, perhaps, the
carpet since 1958. If you used to come here in the
‘80s and ‘90s, you'll see many of the same waiters,
but if you look closely you'll notice they haven't
changed their polyester tuxedos since then, either.
If you recall, I used to be a YUUGE fan of the
Steer, but two meals last year (tasting of brown
lettuce, poorly cooked meat and despair) left me to
conclude that it's now being operated as a tourist
trap. Bob
Taylor's Ranch House (1955) still
grills its steaks over an open flame, but a recent
one tasted like it had been waiting in the freezer
for me for that long, and the cheapness of the meat
(and all the other groceries) is palpable. A certain
type of quantity-over-quality foodie might not
object—like the kind that hang on Guy Fieri's every
word—but palates of a more sophisticated sort will
say "yuck."
And then there are Chicago Joe's
(1975) and the Omelet
House (1979). Two back-to-back meals
recently left me stupefied. Not by how bad they were
(although there were some noticeable clinkers), but
by how relentlessly, stubbornly stagnant both places
have remained. Like every establishment on this
tour, none of them has changed a thing about their
formulas (or the décor) since Ronald Reagan was
president. And then I realized maybe they weren't so
bad; maybe it's just that they are just so boring,
so predictable, so unchanged, and so old that I
can't stomach their tried-and-trite recipes anymore.
"They haven't
gotten worse, I've just grown up since I first
sampled all their wares over thirty years ago," is
what I thought to myself after biting into Joe's
"famed" over-breaded steamed artichoke. An
artichoke, by the way, that, for forty years,
they've refused to properly clean (by removing the
"choke") before over-breading it, baking it, and
serving it packed with a snowstorm of baked
breadcrumbs. And
did I mention that it comes stuffed with a lot of
bread? Okay, okay, it's not really that bad,
and once I quit removing the furry little insides
(and cursing the kitchen while doing it), I pretty
much polished off the whole thing. But sadly, that
thistle was the highlight of the meal; it didn't
have to be. If someone at Chicago Joe's (left) tried a little
harder, and gave a single damn about making this
place just a little
better, it would be a lot
better. As it is, they're content with smothering
the same old overcooked pasta with the same old
(decent) tomato sauce day after day, night after
night, and milking the old cow ‘til she dries up.
(And from the looks of things at a recent lunch, it
appears the customer base is drying up as well.)
Which is a pity because Chicago
Joe's is loaded with charm that is impossible to
duplicate. Its three small rooms may be a bit
cramped, but they are ultra-cozy, and everyone looks
great in this space at night. As far as I know, no
one has ever gotten whacked at Chicago Joe's, but if
you ever wanted to set up a sepia-toned, 1950s mob
hit, this would be the place. Like the three restaurants mentioned at the
top of the page, this place could trade on its
nostalgia and pack 'em in if it would bother to
upgrade its food. But that would take some
imagination, and a commitment to quality. Don't hold
your breath.
And
then there's the Omelet House. A place I used to eat
at once a week. . .back in 1983. Nothing has changed
about this place since then. Not the knickknacks and
tchotchkies on the shelves, not the booths nor the
barely functioning tables and chairs. No, the Omelet
House hasn't changed a thing since it opened, and
that suits its aging clientele just fine. It's more
homespun than Denny's or The Peppermill, and less
intimidating than PublicUs or EAT, so a certain
middle-class customer (think: schoolteachers and car
salesmen) feels right at home.
The problem I had with it was a
certain musty dustiness that you notice on those
shelves as you enter. That stuffiness permeates the
room, making the whole joint feel like it could use
a thorough steam cleaning. Look past that if you can
(and not too closely in the corners) and order one
of the omelets from a loooong list, if you're still
in the mood. After a lengthy absence,
we thought it safe to stick with an old reliable—the
"Rio Grande Surfer”—and were as disappointed with it
as we were with the hoary décor and menu titles like
“The Polack,” “Porky Pig,” “Don’t Let Your Meat
Loaf,” and “Farmer Juan.”
If
taste memory serves—and our taste memory is very
long—what used to come out was a fluffy three-egg
mash, oozing with greasy, Mexican chorizo and sharp
cheddar cheese. What you get now tastes like bland
ground meat and mild, yellow fromage.
Give me my grease, damnit! What's the use
of ordering a chorizo omelet if it isn't swimming in
a confluence of gooey cheese and unctuous, fire
engine-red lard?
So, the omelet was serviceable and the pancakes were
perfunctory. (One of our loyal readers said they
compared favorably with Du-par's
and he would be wrong.) Omelet House has its fans,
and nothing I say will detract them from the place.
Maybe they come for the home fries (delicious), or
the service (fast and fantastic), and maybe I'll
come back again if they start getting their
greasiness back.
So, have they changed or have I?
Those Omelet House eggs used to wow me back it the
‘80s; now they feel like they're just coming from a
cookie cutter. Is Chicago Joe's so bad, or have my
buds been conditioned byRao's,
Allegro, Ferraro's and others to expect much more?
It's
probably a bit of both, of course, but I can tell
you one thing: It will be a dark day indeed before I
ever deign to digest the disgusting drivel of the
Steer, Bob Taylor's or the dreaded "Grapefruit." The
Omelet House has perhaps disappointed me one too
many times, but I don't think I've seen the last of
Chicago Joe's. Especially if they'll remove some of
the bread (and properly clean) that friggin'
artichoke.
It may seem odd to name a
restaurant after the controversial Renaissance
man Niccolò Machiavelli, whose name, unfairly,
has long been associated with power politics.
But, then again, he was an extraordinary
intellect, philosopher, poet, dramatist,
historian and humanist.And
it’s such a mellifluous name for a trattoria. Perhaps that’s what restaurateur
Nathalie De La Fontaine had in mind for her
five-year-old Upper West Side trattoria, whose
sumptuous décor does indeed evoke the Renaissance,
not least in the series of murals taken from Paolo
Uccello’s 15th century masterpiece “The Battle of
San Romano.”De La Fontaine commissioned artisans,
woodworkers, ceramicists, sculptors and
blacksmiths to fashion the hand-carved chairs,
wrought-iron candelabras and marble-topped tables,
with Renaissance-style floor tile, wallpaper and
banquette fabrics.Certainly Macchiavelli himself would find
the place familiar in its opulence and be
comfortable sitting in one of the cross-framed “X”
chairs.There’s also live music, though the piano
selections tend more to be from the 1970s than the
1450s.
The menu is large and long, but
its distinction from so many others in NYC, via
Chef Gian Pietro Ferro, is in its tilt towards
northern Italian dishes from regions like
Trentino-Alto Adige and the Tyrol, Mantua, and
Veneto, all driven by the season.I do
think that more focus on those regions in a more
concise menu would be better than trying to offer
so many dishes of a kind unadventurous guests may
find up and down the West Side, like mozzarella
Caprese ($14.95). Still, Ferro does so many things
so well, I’ll forgive him for trying to please
everyone.
You may want to begin with
thin, yeasty breads called crescentine ($4.95)
or schiacciata
dusted with rosemary ($4.95) or the puffy bruschetta
($9.95), steamy hot from the oven, waiting to be
brushed through fine olive oil, to be accompanied
perhaps with a selection of cheese or charcuterie
($17.95).
But then there are a number of pizzas you may want
to share, including the luscious namesake, Pizza Machiavelli, lavished with
black truffle cream, mozzarella and wild mushrooms
($21.95); it can be split among four people.
Then
there are the antipasti,
and I highly recommend the Sformato di
Spinaci (right)
a delicate ricotta and spinach flan topped with a
classic fonduta
of melted fontina cheese and white truffle oil
($12.95).
Now your appetite will be
raging for a good pasta dish, and Ferro is justly
proud of all his hand-rolled artisanal pastas,
especially the delicately thin, stuffed versions
like Tortelli
alla Mantovana filled with pumpkin, ricotta,
and crushed amaretti cookies ($22.95), and the
tangy-sweet mostarda
di Cremona, glossed with butter and sage.I’m
always on the look-out for casunzei
ampezzani ($22.95), a pasta from the
Dolomites (below).Plumped
with beautiful purple-red beets and ricotta, they
cut open to mix with a butter and poppy seed
sauce.Thick
strozzapreti
noodles (“priest stranglers”)get a
robust toss of broccoli di rape and sweet Italian
sausage ($20.95), while Cacio e Mele
con Stufato d'Agnello are stuffed ravioli
with roasted Granny Smith apple, ricotta and
pecorino, dressed with sage butter, then
topped with deeply flavorful lamb ragù ($25.95).There
is also an interesting risotto cooked carefully
with amarone red wine and fresh grapes ($24.95),
though I need to go back to try that
Venetian-style dish.
The main courses don’t quite
live up to those preceding, but not for lack of
first-rate ingredients and generosity of spirit.It’s
just that Italian chefs in the U.S. tend to lavish
their entrees (secondi)
with heavy brown sauces, which is actually a real
virtue in the marvelous Brasato al
Barolo with a reduction of Barolo wine and
served over soft polenta ($31.95), the kind of
hearty dish you’d find in autumn in Verona.But
there was no necessity for the brown brandy cream
sauce with pink peppercorns poured on a perfectly
good ribeye steak ($35.95).Nor did
a similar sauce do anything but blunt the fine
taste of the Colorado lamb chops (below) with
herbs ($38.95).These were all good dishes that would be
even better with less fuss. And a sautéed fillet
of tuna with Vidalia onions in a white wine sauce
($31.95), ordered rosy in the center, arrived gray
inside that
evening.
Ask about the night’s desserts
and be surprised: The millefoglie
of crackling crisp puff pastry and pastry cream
($11.95) is outstanding.Machiavelli
has a serious Italian wine list, with both
well-known producers and smaller newcomers from
just about every region of Italy.The
mark-ups are not outrageous, but I wish there were
a lot more red wines under $70.(I
counted ten). The
Upper West Side is a better neighborhood than its
East Side counterpart when it comes to fine
Italian restaurants—Lincoln Ristorante, Caffe
Storicò, La Masseria di Vini, and The Leopard at
des Artistes handily prove the point—and
Machiavelli belongs on that admirable list, places
where you will not find the same ten Italian
dishes and the same twenty Italian labels. Gian
Pietro Ferro wants you to try what he loves best,
and what Nathalie De La Fontaine wants most is for
you to be among her most faithful clientele.
Machiavelli is open
Mon.-Fri. from 11 AM to 11 PM, and on Sat. &
Sun. from 9 AM; Brunch Sat. & Sun.
❖❖❖
NOTES FROM THE WINE
CELLAR
HENNESSY
AND HISTORY
By
Mort Hochstein
There are certain
names in the wine and spirits industry that are
almost generic for their category. In the United
States that would apply to Gallo and Mondavi for
wine,and
Maker’s Mark and Johnny Walker for Bourbon and
Scotch. In Cognac and brandy, one name
dominates, and that is Hennessy.
It figures in the titles of
more than 200 songs, in the lyrics of 700.And it
was James Bond’s favorite in the movie “On Her
Majesty’s Secret Service.”
Small wonder.The
firm has been around for 251 years and has
established a reputation for consistency. Hennessy
innovatedlevels
of Cognac that its competitors now utilize, such
as VSOP, forVery Special Old Pale, a grade created to
answer a request from the British Royal House in
1817 for a Cognac not sweetened or colored by
caramel or sugar. The new grade, based on spirits
that had a minimum age of four years, supplanted
VS, the entry level Cognac made from two-year old
spirits. Later in that century, Hennessy created Paradis
Impérial, inspired by the legend of a special
order that took place in 1818: the Russian
Empress Maria Feodorovna, in search of a
luxurious birthday gift, requested a unique
blend of rare Cognacs for her son, Czar
Alexander I.
Ever since
Richard Hennessy (right), a former mercenary in
French armies, first began selling Cognac in 1666,
he and his descendants have created a family of
levelsthat
include VS Black, as well as the eponymously named
Richard Hennessy.
Consistency in blending has
been vital. Hennessy master blender Yann Fillioux
(below)
has been overseeing wine production since 1966; he
is the seventh generation member of the Fillioux
family of blenders, who began with Richard
Hennessy when the firm was originally established.
Fillioux heads up a committee that meets each week to examine new and old
eaux-de-vie from the firm’s historic cellars in
southern France, and to determine which spirits
need more aging, which should go into selected
blends and which should be laid down for future
use and additional review.That
teamwork is designed to insure consistency, so
that a bottle of XO or VSOP or any Hennessy Cognac
has the same scent, taste and texture as its
predecessors. The
committee’s latest product was unveiled in late
October. Fillioux’s Master Blender Selection No. 1
is a very personal signature wine produced in a
single, limited batch. The French would term a
project like this a coup de
coeurs, defining it literally as a heart
stopper, love at first sight, a passion realized.
That may be a bit hyperbolic but that is how
Cognac fanciers talk about such offerings. It
could not have been developed without Fillioux’s
prodigious memory and recordings of raw spirits
examined blind by his committee of tasters. The
group singled out 100 eaux-de-vie, grouping them
per elegance, character and suppleness. The wines
were aged in old and young French oak casks and
bottled at 43 percent alcohol to showcase their
aromatic tones and spicy notes.
The limited-edition Cognac is
bright amber with a golden glow. On nose and
palate, it offers a subtle presence of grilled
unshelled almonds and candied apricot. For its
devotees, Selection No. 1 is available in two
sizes: 375 ml, at a suggested retail price of$45,
and 750ml at $80, approximately half the price of
XO. Prices can vary and much of the limited
bottling will be squirreled away in collectors’
cellars.
❖❖❖
FOOD WRITING 101: NO ONE GIVES A RIP
ABOUT YOUR COLLEGE ROOMMATE
“Fare la
scarpetta. Directly translated, it means
`make the little shoe.’ Long before I was aware of
the clever Italian phrase for the hedonistic
sopping up of sauce, I was guilty. In fact, a
snarky frat boy called me out on the `proletarian
habit’ in college. Twenty years on, I sat across
from my old college roommate (now an Italian
professor) during dinner at Pleasantry and we
swiped at one sauce after another with torn pieces
of Sixteen Bricks bread while she explained when
and how to make haste with said `shoe’—only among
friends or after an Italian has initiated the
act.”—Joanne Drilling, “Bottle Rocket,” Cincinnati Magazine
(10/16).
COME TO THINK OF IT, IT DID
SMELL A LITTLE LIKE ALMONDS
An
Indonesian court sentenced Jessica Kumala Wongso (right) to 20
years in prison for killing her friend Wayan Mirna
Salihin by lacing her Vietnamese iced coffee with
cyanide. Salihin took one sip of her coffee,
collapsed, and was pronounced dead hours later.
❖❖❖
Any of John Mariani's
books below may be ordered from amazon.com.
The
Hound in Heaven (21st Century Lion Books)
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 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:
Eating Las Vegas
JOHN CURTAS has been covering the Las Vegas
food and restaurant scene since 1995. He is
the co-author of EATING LAS VEGAS – The 50
Essential Restaurants (the fourth
edition of which will be published in early
2016), as well as the author of the Eating Las
Vegas web site: www.eatinglasvegas.
He can also be seen every Friday morning as
the “resident foodie” for Wake Up With the
Wagners on KSNV TV (NBC) Channel 3 in
Las Vegas.
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.