Virtual Gourmet

MARIANI’S

Virtual Gourmet

July 24, 2022 NEWSLETTER

Founded in 1996

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Vigo Mortensen and Mahershala Ali in "Green Book" (2018)

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IN THIS ISSUE
HOW SUSTAINABILITY HAS BECOME A
REQUISITE IN THE HOTEL INDUSTRY
By John Mariani

NEW YORK CORNER
SEA FIRE GRILL
By John Mariani

ANOTHER VERMEER
CHAPTER 29
By John Mariani

NOTES FROM THE WINE CELLAR
ITALIAN REDS FOR SUMMER
By Geoff Kalish

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On this week's episode of my WVOX Radio Show "Almost Golden," on Wed. July 27 at 11AM EDT,I will be interviewing Roosevelt Montás, author of Rescuing Socrates: WVOX.com. The episode will also be archived at: almostgolden.

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HOW SUSTAINABILITY HAS BECOME A
REQUISITE IN THE HOTEL INDUSTRY

By John Mariani

         The requisite amenities of luxury hotels has long been focused on the room—free WiFi, linens with high thread counts, widescreen HD TV and premium liquors in the minibar. Now, however, hotels have engaged more than ever in sustainable practices, not only to save themselves the effects and cost of climate change, but because their clientele are demanding it. How this has developed into a marketing necessity was the subject of my interview with Daniel Luddington, VP Development, Small Luxury Hotels of the World, which has introduced its new Considerate Collection line.

What are the elements of “sustainability” in the new collection?

    To select and showcase the very best sustainable hotels within Small Luxury Hotels of the World, we used the framework of the Global Sustainable Tourism Council, the GSTC. There is a strong relationship between the GSTC Criteria and the UN’s Sustainability Development Goals (SDGs). By uptaking the GSTC Criteria, our hotels are helping to meet the UN SDGs. Economic, environmental and societal dimensions are all addressed. So, Considerate Collection hotels must demonstrate high alignment across 3 pillars of sustainability:
    First, environment: We are seeking hotels that nurture nature, that maximize their positive impact to the environment. Environmentally conscious hoteliers must be passionate, not just minimizing negative impacts, reducing energy, water, waste and carbon, but also they must demonstrate positive regenerative impact (switching to green energy, organic farming, biodynamic gardens, conservation, rewilding and reforesting). EarthCheck Silver-certified Amilla Maldives is doing this well with an ongoing coral propagation project and a Long Tail Tropic Bird breeding program, complimentary bicycles, electric golf buggies, and an outdoor zero power gym.
    Next, hotels must be Cultural Custodians working tirelessly to protect, preserve and promote their cultural heritage for generations to come. Elements of local culture must be woven throughout the operation and the guest experience as well as the design, decoration, staff uniforms and, of course, the cuisine. Dar Ahlam in Morocco is a great example with their Memory Road project. Together with the Global Heritage Fund, they’re bringing abandoned villages in southern Morocco back to life, preserving the Berber way of life.
    Last but not least, we require our hoteliers to be Community Minded; ideally, the owners are locals. Local ownership means a great deal as they are custodians and likely to care more about the place and its people. Staffing local people in management is important. Hotels must invest in the education, healthcare, and training of their staff and their local families. Local procurement is also key, choosing to buy local food, of course, local fabrics, local furniture, local design, local art and experiences designed and driven by the local community. You will see a great reflection of this pillar at Bhutan Spirit Sanctuary, where almost all of the team are Bhutanese and are closely connected to their home communities.

In the past, what aspects of the industry paid no attention to sustainability and in what ways?

    I think our industry is still guilty of promoting frequent flier travel, which flies in the face of sustainable tourism. We should be focusing on making travel count, flying less but staying longer, slowing down, and investing more time in destinations that we know are not suffering from over-tourism and spending more in destinations where our money can go further and will make more of a difference. And this is where local independent hotels are crucial, because there is far more of a chance of the money staying in the destination rather than leaking out of the country to a foreign corporate owner.

Amilla in the Maldives

Is such a commitment more expensive for the properties and industry? Does it add to the consumers’ expenses ?

    There’s always an initial financial outlay for any business when setting up new systems; however, sustainable business drives go hand-in-hand with cost efficiencies. Hervé Houdré is one of the sustainable hospitality experts we collaborate with for the Considerate Collection and he puts it perfectly when he talks about encouraging hotels to adopt a business model integrating the Triple Bottom Line of Profit, People and Planet in their strategy.
    This model first and foremost starts with profit: When hotels become more efficient with energy use, water consumption and waste management, all of which are the foundation for a clean environment, we realize that hoteliers actually end up saving quite a bit of money, which should trickle down to the guests’ bottom line as well.
    Another thing for the industry to bear in mind is that the legislative landscape is evolving globally to meet with climate change targets, therefore it’s important to invest and take action now to avoid fines and reputational damage in the future.
    Finally, I think where there are increased costs for guests, it’s important for hoteliers to be transparent and to clearly communicate the added value of their sustainability practices to the environment and community, so that guests can feel part of the solution.

Will there be commitment in the future to eliminating all fossil fuels (except the kitchens) in heating, lighting, etc? Especially given the rise in fuel prices.

    Sustainability is very much a journey for all of us and, as mentioned, our criteria for the Considerate Collection is aligned with GSTC and the UN’s SDGs. I suspect there will be more stringent guidelines put in place, especially following the recent report “Fueling Failure” by the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty. The report really exposes the dangers of fossil fuels and how they undermine the SDGs. As the Considerate Collection grows and evolves its criteria, a commitment to reducing fossil fuels within all hotel operations is absolutely one of the immediate goals. Elimination is the ideal destination. While we cannot avoid the creation of pollution via transportation at the current moment, we can, however, offer travelers opportunities to discover sustainable hotels that choose more efficient renewable energy, water and waste management systems.

Has the public been clamoring for this?

    Prior to launching the collection, we surveyed over 1,500 members of our loyalty program, and nearly two thirds believe sustainability is more important now than pre-Covid (an increase from 16%), with 58% intending to make more sustainably-minded choices when they travel; yet 57% pointed out how hard it can be to find the information they need to make an informed choice. Over half are wary of hotels making claims that simply aren’t true. This is one of the reasons why we launched the Considerate Collection—as an answer to what forward-thinking travelers have been seeking out.
    Our curated collection makes planning stays at sustainable luxury hotels much easier, eliminating tedious research and greenwashing. There is a lot of that going on. My word, every hotel I am seeing launched now is using ‘eco’ in its marketing patter, and funnily enough, they are all being tagged as ‘green’ by OTAs that allow hotels to ‘self-assess.’ This doesn’t help the public because how can they grasp the truth? This is why third-party verification and certification are important in all of this and why Considerate Collection hotels have to demonstrate hotels are walking the walk.

How has the word “Luxury” changed in this century?

    Once upon a time, “luxury” was a material concept often defined by the biggest, shiniest and most expensive. Over the years, as people have become more discerning, luxury has become more about a state of mind. At its core, though, it's always been about status, but it’s shifted from material possession and is now more about “Who I am.” People want to show that they are more ethical, creative, connected and tasteful than the masses. With growing concerns about our impact on the environment, I think luxury and sustainability are almost interchangeable. For us here at SLH, sustainability is the new luxury.
    Interestingly enough, our Considerate Collection hotels that are managed sustainably also score the highest in our mystery inspection reports, which for the most part is measuring the luxury guest experience. Perhaps the people are happier working there; they are cared for, so they are more capable of caring for their guests.
    I recently returned from Castello di Reschio in Perugia (above). Achingly beautiful, utterly luxurious, wholly sustainable. They’re implementing heat pump energy, demonstrating zero waste; there are no plastics in sight. The hotel staff is about 90% local employees, and they are doing an amazing job to protect and preserve the old abandoned farmhouses that serve as the guest accommodations.
    Luxury is not and cannot be this wasteful excess with this nonsense of constantly replenishing stuff with new stuff, like linen and towels changed every day; having soap changed every time you wash your hands; having one hundred bathroom amenities, slippers wrapped in plastic, the fruit basket wrapped in plastic that nobody eats, the list goes on and on.
    We have to acknowledge the hypocrisy of this luxury. We can’t have our own private luxury in big shiny new-build resorts without depriving others in some way of their land, their resources. It’s an inconvenient and uncomfortable truth. Bigger, faster, shinier, warmer, cooler means more steel, more cement, concrete, more plastic, more AC, more diesel and gas, more water. More, more, more. This luxury is unsustainable. Why do we pander to it? When you have 200 rooms, local people are usually not in positions of responsibility, organization and management. On the flip side, if you are a property consisting of several small houses, you can have several small teams in charge and they can be local people. Small is the only way I see luxury.

Tell me about how the hotel industry is rebounding at a time when Covid still lurks and even re-appears?

    Everywhere you look, the headline “Travel’s Great Comeback” is in full effect, even though Covid still exists. Vaccination and breakthrough medications paired with a general sentiment for the population to simply move on means that people are increasingly hungry for travel, almost inarguably, now more than ever. Our current brand campaign, Transcend Your Travel Comfort Zone, speaks to this sentiment. We ran a survey that highlighted that people have been stuck in a “comfort zone” of fears, anxieties and uncertainties, naturally, because of the last two years, and for 64% of people, travel is the top-ranking means to help them step out of their comfort zone. Some of our hotels are experiencing their best season ever coming out of the pandemic because people are ready to move on and live with Covid. Hotels have had time to pause, reflect and refine their offerings and are ready to receive guests. We’ve seen some really creative concepts, for example the Wittmore Hotel in Barcelona is offering a “sleep beneath the stars” experience from May-October, where guests can exclusively book and sleep on the rooftop overnight.

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NEW YORK CORNER

SEA FIRE GRILL

158 East 48th Street

212-935-3785

By John Mariani

For some reason American seafood restaurants, whether in Oahu, Charleston or Boston, are often called “houses,” which suggests a big boisterous barn-like atmosphere and huge broadside menus. New York had that tradition, too, with creditable old favorites like The Gloucester House, along with a number of “clubs” and “grills,” like the ten-year-old Sea Fire Grill in Midtown.

Owned by Benjamin Prelvukaj and Benjamin Sinanaj (left), the same team that runs two Benjamin Steakhouses and Benjamin Prime, Seafire has much the same commitment to sophisticated dining, civilized décor, conscientious service and first-rate ingredients culled by chef Ismael Mendez.
When I entered Sea Fire Grill, down three steps, I had the same feeling I always have when I immediately recognize a civilized bar and dining room. From the lighting to the well-spaced, impeccably set tables and conversational sound level, I knew I would be basking as well as dining in surroundings conducive to an evening of good food and conviviality. That was immediately apparent from the greeting at the door to the amiable service of long-time pros in the dining room, including manager and sommelier Jay Dozza and G-M Alex Begolli. The 750-label wine list is

excellent, especially for a seafood-based menu. There is also a remarkable three-course lunch at $39.
At dinner, à la carte, you may begin with a daily selection of East and West Coast oysters with a peppercorn mignonette cocktail sauce (a sampler is $39), or either a bountiful colossal shrimp or jumbo crabmeat cocktail ($34). Tuna tartare ($27) was pristinely fresh and delicious, made from yellowfin with a citrus crème fraȋche, and the jumbo lump crabcake (a bargain at $29) was moist and loosely packed with an enhancement of red pepper coulis, tartar sauce, celery root remoulade and frisée salad that show a real generosity of spirit. The night’s special was softshell crabs (MP), big meaty ones, sauteed to retain their tenderness with a slight crunch upon biting. Tender, too, was the velvety grilled octopus with a thicket of onions, peppers and capers dressed with virgin olive oil ($26).

We had a middle course of trofie pasta with a lush mushroom and black truffle cream ($40 as an app; $80 as a main course).
Sea Fire has a caviar section ($95-$125), but, as everywhere else, these fish roe are not from the Caspian Sea, though taking the moniker “Kaviari.” I’ll pass.
Chef Mendez makes a point of serving sustainable and seasonal seafood, and right now the lobsters (MP) are sweet and fat, weighing in at a hearty two pounds and stuffed with crab meat, if desired, and clarified butter. A properly good thick swordfish ($49), caught off Montauk, was as juicy as the best I’ve had, subtly blackened with seasonings and served with tartar sauce and the novelty of avocado mousse.

       Mahi-Mahi (right) hasn’t been showing up on menus in New York recently, but it’s a fine fish, and Mendez prepares it with a deft hand, roasting the filet and siding it with a tomato risotto and surrounding it with a red wine-tomato reduction ($59). Tuna ($54), cooked rosy red (above), came with steamed bok choy, mustard greens and sesame-soy vinaigrette. Note that the accompanying vegetables are not the usual broccoli-cauliflower-carrots so many places scoop out of a pan onto the plate. At Seafire the vegetables are chosen to complement the main protein.
    For those who would choose to dine at Sea Fire Grill and not order seafood, the steaks and chops come from the same meat lockers as at their Benjamin restaurants.

You won’t go wrong with any of the meant-to-be-shared side dishes ($15), which include excellent addictive french fries, cream of spinach, fingerling potatoes with leeks and truffle cream, truffle mashed potatoes with roasted garlic and Parmesan cheese or lobster Mac and cheese ($23).
     One dessert will feed four people but two desserts will make everyone very giddy. Go for the chocolate soufflé topped with vanilla ice cream ($15); crispy bourbon pecan pie with vanilla ice cream; a finely textured New York cheesecake ($12); crème brûlée ($12); tiramisù ($12); or a creamy Key lime pie ($12)—all served with a big dollop of whipped cream, of course.
         Eating out is not the same thing as dining out, and for anyone who needs a lesson in the differences, Seafire Grill is an eminent place to begin.

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ANOTHER VERMEER

By John Mariani

To read previous chapters of ANOTHER VERMEER, go to the archive

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Getty Museum Villa, Malibu, California

         “The date and place of the auction will be set this week,” said the caller. “So proceed with the current plans unless you hear otherwise from me.”

         “It appears the media have been picking up on the story, now that the actual auction is coming up,” said the other voice. “But the principal auction houses have stopped all comment.”

         “That should work in our favor. There will be an element of mystery.”

         “Is there anything else you need me to do here?”

         “Not at this time. I will tell you all you need to know and nothing more.”

         After Labor Day the new arts season began in New York, and museums, theaters, ballet, jazz clubs, cabarets, and every other venue of the arts mounted their best productions, just as the movie studios brought out their “serious” movies for Oscar consideration after the barrage of summer blockbuster sci-fi movies.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art presented a spectacular “Glories of Byzantium” exhibit (left) , there was a Gianni Versace show, and a major Paul Klee retrospective; the Museum of Modern Art debuted a controversial Egon Schiele exhibition; and the Guggenheim had major shows on modern masters Robert Rauschenberg and Stuart Davis (below).
Autumn was when the auction houses brought out the works they believed would bring the most money, sometimes holding back a work for a year rather than sell it in the spring or the summer, when sales were dead.

         So the Vermeer sale was considered one of the major events of the auction season. The mystery of which auction house would put it up, and how well authenticated the painting would be, was the talk of countless parties in every art capital of the world. Catalogs, usually written months in advance, could not include the Vermeer; a brochure would have to do.
         Katie had kept herself busy interviewing anyone she thought would give her a good quote for her story—curators, Vermeer experts, auction house personnel, even people who were merely visiting such institutions—to ask if they knew about the Vermeer sale and what they thought if they did.
         The more people she interviewed the more she realized how adversarial the art world was and how business and profit trumped all other concerns. Time and again she was told that the moment a great master’s work was tossed from his CR, its value plummeted. And, if a painting was suddenly declared to be by a master—even a work that had been hanging in a museum for decades or stored away in its inventory—its value would soar. Paintings once considered of poor quality suddenly became masterpieces when attributed to a favored artist of the moment. This was all very big business, requiring tact, erudition and fiscal caution. The fall art auctions in New York were not “Antiques Roadshow.”

There were always those curators who would work, even beg, for years to garner support from rich patrons to buy a work that filled a void, perhaps a minor piece that nevertheless was a link between one period or another, something from Picasso’s Rose Period (left), perhaps, or a work in bronze that was the first of its kind in a century before Christ, or maybe a Medieval painting by Duccio that for the first time in western history showed a landscape outside of a window (below).
But those same museums and galleries and auction houses were also happy to acquire or sell works that had quite dubious provenance—more often than not, an ancient work too perfect to be true, suggesting it was created to spark all the right reactions and fool the experts. Such works might reside in the most favored rooms in museums—shown off as among the museum’s finest works—only to prove a forgery and be removed ignominiously after the press had its field day

of mocking the experts.
         Days went by when Katie and David did not speak, both confident the other was making slow progress on what would be a solid story. As a journalist, Katie saw everything unfolding with enough unsavory characters and finaglers to expose the underbelly of the art world. If a crime was committed, so much the better.
         David, on the other hand, found only the prospects of criminality of real interest, since he really didn’t care what the esoteric machinations of the art world involved. The funny thing was that he had come to see the distinctions between the mobsters he’d investigated while he was a cop and the crooks in the art world. He’d come to realize that while the mobsters had no taste whatsoever when it came to art, they had enormous sums of money to spend on cars, homes in the Bahamas and Vegas, and the garish décor they favored, like gold bathroom fixtures and gilded nude statuary around the pool.
      It would never occur to any of them to go out and bid on a work by an artist whose names they’d never even heard of, like Giacometti, de Kooning, or Warhol. A poor copy of da Vinci’s “Last Supper” hung above the sofa, or a piece of erotic sculpture a mob wife picked up for a couple of grand at a gallery that had for years been “GOING OUT OF BUSINESS” on Central Park South, was fine with them.
         On the other hand, the fine arts people fought over works of art either for simple investment or for bragging rights. One might specialize in pre-Raphaelite art, because composer Andrew Lloyd Webber (below) was collecting it, or contemporary photography, because rock star Elton John was building a formidable collection. Another might buy work guided by a consultant who insisted an artist was about to become a big deal very soon. Others in that world simply loved being involved with the social whirl of exhibition openings and charity galas, showing off their gowns and copies of their jewels.
         It all seemed to David that so little of it had to do with the true excellence of the work of art, rather than the price of everything out there. Money drives everything. As usual.
         Most of the mainstream U.S. newspapers, like The New York Times and The Washington Post, had not really covered the Vermeer story since it broke because they had nothing much to report on beyond who they thought would be probable bidders, which included a few on the list David had gotten from Gerald Kiley.

   Purely as a news story, the New York papers covered the hit-and-run incident that put Robert Lauden in the hospital, referring to him as the wealthy scion of the Lavande cosmetics family, philanthropist and art collector. Both the Times and the Daily News tried to find out more about the Chinese delegate involved but were stonewalled by the Embassy, leading the News to publish a raging editorial against the abuse of diplomatic immunity. The Wall Street Journal did a weekend story mainly about the money that would be involved in the sale and how no museum in the world, not even the Getty, could afford to spend its resources and endowments on a single $100 million work of art.
         Not surprisingly, The Times of London, which covered the art world more thoroughly than its American counterparts, had done several stories speculating early on about where the painting had been for more than 300 years, then, when it was announced in Art Today that the painting was being sold by the People’s Republic of China, the Times’s Hong Kong bureau began questioning every source it could dig up to find out more. Not much came of those inquiries, except rumors that ranged from the possible to the ridiculous.
         One source insisted the Chinese, without mention of the connection to alchemy in the painting, were selling the Vermeer for gold and would refuse to take U.S. dollars, pounds Sterling or Euros. The story told how almost all China’s gold reserves had been shipped to Taiwan after the revolution began, not only from banks but literally stripped from people’s fingers and wrists. As a result, the People’s Republic of China authorities tried any way they could to rebuild their gold reserves, so that even during periods of starvation under Mao Zedong, grain was being sold abroad for gold.
         Another Times story said the sale was to test the water for China’s entry into the world art market with something spectacular, and that, if the Vermeer sold for what it was expected to, they would bring more masterpieces—heretofore unknown—to auction. The source on that story even suggested the Chinese had a da Vinci painting, which would join only fifteen known to exist in the world.
         Other rumors spread that the painting was either a forgery commissioned by the Chinese, or one done to fool the Chinese and the world market. There were even suggestions of known forgers who might be behind such a ploy. One expert in such matters went so far as to say the Chinese had squads of painters ready to turn out Old Master paintings if the Vermeer sale went as well as was expected.
         Katie had been following the Times’s coverage, relieved that no one had made the connection to the Shui family in Taiwan. Since it was not something she could prove, and since she didn’t write for a daily newspaper, she was not offering up that part of her story.

“The Easiest Way to Improve a Slice of Mediocre Pizza” By Dayna Evans, Eater.com (6/21/22)

MARIANI'S VIRTUAL GOURMET NEWSLETTER is published weekly. Publisher: John Mariani. Editor: Walter Bagley. Contributing Writers: Christopher Mariani, Misha Mariani, John A. Curtas, Gerry Dawes, Geoff Kalish. Contributing Photographer: Galina Dargery. Technical Advisor: Gerry McLoughlin.