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THIS WEEK
TWO WESTCHESTER TRATTORIAS
RANK WITH NEW YORK'S BEST
By John Mariani

NEW YORK CORNER
THE PRESS CLUB GRILL
By John Mariani

GOING AFTER HARRY LIME
CHAPTER 27
By John Mariani

NOTES FROM THE WINE CELLAR
NEW MEXICAN SPIRITS GO UPSCALE
FOR THOSE WILLING TO PAY TOP DOLLAR
By John Mariani

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TWO WESTCHESTER TRATTORIAS
RANK WITH NEW YORK'S BEST

By John Mariani

 

Goat's cheese-stuffed ravioli at Augustine's Salumeria

 

AUGUSTINE'S SALUMERIA
213 Halstead Avenue
Mamaroneck NY
914-315-6541

 

         Just one year ago Marc Taxiera and Breanne Myers opened this cozy, two-room trattoria across from the Mamaroneck train station, doing a reverse commute from their home in New York. Within months the Michelin Guide included it as a “Bib Gourmand,” indicating (without a star) a restaurant with good food and moderate prices. Since then, the wait for a Friday or Saturday reservation can exceed a month.
         Fortunately, lunch and weeknights are pretty easy times to snag a table and to truly relax, especially if good weather allows the front windows to open.
         Chef Taxiera, formerly of the Russian Tea Room, is deadly serious about Augustine’s being a place for self-expression (the name comes from his grandfather), hence, adding “salumeria” to its name because of the salamis, sausages and cheese made fresh daily, all of which are a great way to start a meal.
        At lunch there are a number of generous Italian-style sandwiches available, like slow-roasted Italian beef ($20) and “Italian Festival style” of grilled sausage and peppers ($18). You might even begin with a platter of fried potatoes smothered with Parmigiano fonduta and bits of bacon ($10).  Taxiera and Myers, who are married, shop the local markets as well as Union Square Market, so right now, as a delightful starter, they are doing zucchini flowers stuffed with goat’s cheese ricotta and graced with a Calabrian chile aïoli ($20).
        But the real stand-outs are the unusual pastas in very hearty sauces, like the paccheri macaroni, rich with slow-roasted pork, tomato, soffrito, chili and crispy garlic ($27) and the mafalda with stewed beef, red wine, tomato and whipped goat’s cheese ricotta ($28). The Puglian ear-shaped pasta orecchiette ($27) is equally sumptuous, bulked up with that house-made sausage, spring onions, peas and a lovely green spring garlic pesto.
        You don’t often see a rabbit ragù on New York menus, but here it teams wonderfully with entwined gemelli pasta tinged with cinnamon and curry ($27). Ripiena ($28) is the pasta of the day, and recently it was a dazzling amalgam of tender pyramid-shaped ravioli filled with goat’s cheese ricotta and lemon zest, tossed in garlic scape butter with summer’s sweet asparagus.
         Main courses are, wisely, simpler—fish of the day, pork chop with sweet potatoes ($34); lamb t-bones with pomegranate molasses ($40), along with a farro risotto ($30) made with Tuscan cavolo nero, mushrooms and tomato.
         You might think the kitchen would go easy with desserts, but the exceptionally rich chocolate tart topped with a candy bar ($15) was enjoyed by three of us down to its last crumb.
se, not just for stocking many unfamiliar wines but offering so many good choices under $50.
         Brianne, who has been General Manager at BLT Steak and Loring Place, is always on premises, not missing a beat at the bar or overseeing the dining room, although she needn’t fret over a very well trained, amiable staff.

 

Open for lunch Wed.-Fri., dinner Tues.-Sun.; brunch Sat & Sun.

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NEW YORK CORNER

THE PRESS CLUB GRILL

1262 Broadway

646-838-9020

 

 

         New York has never lacked for first-rate restaurants within hotels—admirable new additions include Sweetbriar in the Park South Hotel, Le Cou Cou in 11 Howard, Duomo 51 in The Doubletree, Lindens in the Arlo, El Quijote in the Chelsea—and now it’s got another in the Herald Square area, within the Beaux Arts-style Martinique Hotel, opened in 1897 and recently completely refurbished.
        The Press Club Grill takes its name from the neighborhood being an historic nexus for the Times, the Herald and the Tribune and its atmosphere hearkens back to the late ‘50s and ‘60s with a menu that lists what used to be called (not admirably) “continental cuisine.” In chef Franklin Becker’s hands, it becomes a welcome return of once favorite dishes like Waldorf Salad, chicken Kiev and cherries jubilee. 
        Becker, Stephen Loffredo (former owner of Zoë) and Torah Matsuoka of the Hospitality Dept. have taken two floors of the Martinique and kept to the retro theme in the most modern way, largely dependent on excellent lighting. The downstairs dining room and bar do have the cast of restaurants of mid-century New York, with big roomy booths and a mural of famous New Yorkers (right). Would that they maintained the tradition of once ubiquitous white tablecloths that would tamp down the noise, added to by music that guests must talk over.
        The upper dining area  is a handsome space with walls hung with every important personage of the bygone era, while the private dining room (above) is sophisticated with a slight air of secrecy about it.
        I’ve followed Becker’s career for two decades now, and he shows himself to be one of those consummate, experienced chefs whose command of technique means he can create or re-create with engaging discernment. He also likes to have some fun, so that a dish like jumbo shrimp cocktail ($29) is more than you assume: the shrimp poached in a court bouillon, split and filled with cocktail sauce and freshly grated horseradish.
        “Buffalo carrots” ($16) is a twist on Buffalo chicken wings. Becker says he wanted to put a vegetarian option on the menu, so he uses roasted carrots instead, with celeriac and hot sauce-Maytag Blue dressing.
“Springtime in New York” ($22) is a bright new idea, combining mushroom sable with a black truffle buttermilk dressing. “Mama’s Chicken Soup” ($16) has a charming back story: At one time Becker’s mother was ill and he became cook in the family, crafting a chicken and matzoh ball soup Mama would eat with gusto and gratitude. So will you. This is one of the most deeply flavorful versions of this Jewish-American staple I’ve ever had, with ethereally light floating matzoh balls, parsnips and a little dill.
        But before you even get to the appetizers, enjoy the rye sourdough bread ($8), a bocce ball-size loaf with a perfect balance of crunchy crust and moist, airy inside, which you slather with the house-made butter with cultured salt cut like tȇte de moines cheese in flowery spirals.
        Crab Rangoon is one of those old Trader Vic’s-style pu-pu platter stand-bys shaped like a wonton that Becker transforms with jumbo lump crabmeat, rich scallion cream cheese filled inside with a pastry brick dough shell that has been lightly fried and served with a gel version of sweet and sour sauce ($36).
        So, too, ravioli stroganoff, a riff on the 19th century beef and sour cream dish named after a hugely rich aristocratic merchant family in Russia. Becker makes it into a pasta dish resembling pelmeni dumplings with a juicy short rib filling ($28).
        There are, of course, various beef cuts available, and I ordered the hanger steak with terrific frites ($39), which was quite a bargain compared with the NY strip ($69). Sea scallops of pristine freshness were enhanced by woodsy morels, sweet peas and a spring onion consommé ($42).
        I am not sure beef Wellington is a dish that needs redemption from the buffet lines of long-gone continental banquet rooms. Named after Britain’s famous Duke of Wellington but of uncertain source and not even mentioned until the 20th century in any cookbook, it was a big show-off dish of beef filet layered with a duxelle of mushrooms or pâté, wrapped in puff pastry and served with a red wine or Madeira sauce. Becker’s is as good as any I’ve ever had, with the addition of prosciutto, but, as usual, the beef was a bit steamy, the mushrooms added little and the pastry wrap, while buttery and crisp, seemed an unnecessary stretch.
        I’m a pushover for old-fashioned gooey desserts, so I was very happy with Sam Mason's Bananas Foster crème brûlée with brown butter, rum and caramel ($16). I was skeptical, though, of cherries jubilee for two ($28), that pyrotechnic display of brandied cherries served over vanilla ice cream, a dish created by Auguste Escoffier for the 1897  Diamond Jubilee for Queen Victoria. Becker makes it even more fun by presenting a huge cherry confection shell that is melted, causing a softening flow of  vanilla-miso ice cream with toasted almonds, a witty tour de force to end a sumptuous dinner with a grand flourish.
        Last but not least in my book of nostalgic foods is Max Green's  creditable egg cream, that New York blend of U-bet chocolate syrup, cold milk and seltzer, a frothy confection I drank every year of my boyhood, and now, like my boyhood, has vanished like the corner candy stores that made them.
        The wine list, by wine director Luke Boland, is excellent in two respects: First, it is extensive and well selected; second, it has a remarkable number of bottles under $100, even below $70, at a modest mark-up; even a trophy wine like Domaine Leflaive Chevalier-Montrachet Grand Cru 2020, on the list at $2,500, is actually less than you might pay at a wine store or on-line. The cocktails by beverage director Green all have punning names like “Page Turner” and “Hush Money” and a good dose of bitters.
        Ironically, neither Becker nor Loffredo, much less most of their  clientele, was even around in the Mad Men era, so their menu seems fresh and novel against a backdrop that is swank in a sentimental way some of us still miss.

 

Open for breakfast, lunch and dinner daily.

 

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GOING AFTER HARRY LIME
By  John Mariani

 

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

 

      David left the hotel after inquiring where he’d find a drug store. “You mean a pharmacy?” asked the concierge, who said there was a Boots just a few doors down on Brompton Road. “They seem to be on every block. Comes in handy when you’re a concierge and a guest needs his pills.”
         David remembered seeing a lot of white and blue Boots storefronts during his time in London. He entered to find Boots to look a lot like a CVS in New York, with the pharmacy to the rear. David waited for an elderly woman to get her prescription, then ask question after question about it, which he also recognized as typical of all pharmacies everywhere.             
      Finally, a pharmacist with a Central Asian accent, maybe Indian or Pakistani, asked David how she could be of help.
    “I’m trying to find out about this drug a friend of mine asked me to get for him,” said David.
        “You don’t have his prescription?” she asked.
         “Sorry, no. Actually he lives in Moscow, ran out and can’t seem to get these pills any more, so he asked if I could buy some for him in London.”
         “Well, if they’re on prescription, I can’t sell you any.  It would have to be written by a British physician, but let me have a look.”
         David had written down the name Philby had given him, EmeeniFed and HgaRX.  The pharmacist squinted and said, “I don’t recognize the name of the drug, but sometimes they are given different names in different countries. Let me check my files. Please wait a moment.”
         David looked around the store, marveling as always at the number of cosmetic and hair products a pharmacy carries. It had been a long time since he’d seen a soda fountain in a drugstore. He also noticed it did not sell cigarettes, never available in a pharmacy in England.
         “I’m sorry to keep you waiting,” said the pharmacist, returning with a slip of paper in her hand. “I checked my directories and couldn’t find anything by this name or cross-referenced to another name. Are you sure this is the correct spelling?  Do you know what kind of drug this might be for?”
         David shook his head.
         “The name HgaRX, however, is the name of a major Hungarian pharmaceutical company. I checked where it’s headquartered and found this information. Would you like me to contact them and see if they make this EmeeniFed?”
         “Could you do that? That would be great. How long would that take?”
         She looked at her watch. “I’m a bit busy now, but by tomorrow morning I can have an answer. Can you tell me how I can reach you? My name is Ms. Singh.”
         David gave her the name and room number of his hotel and his cell phone number.  He thanked her and left the store, next to which was an electronics retailer. In the window he saw several pocket recorders for sale. Brand names he knew. He went in, spoke with a salesman and walked out with a new Olympus Digital recorder, which he believed was the brand Katie had. 
         Not knowing if Katie was still asleep, he went back to his room to await her call, anxious as a schoolboy eager to give his girlfriend a gift.
         Jet lag was kicking in on him now, so he lay down on his bed and started thinking of what might lie ahead for Katie and him. Ever since leaving Philby’s apartment he’d been juggling over the question of who was telling the truth or what part of it was deliberate dis-information of a kind he had to sift through as a detective. 
         David found it most effective to assume that everyone in a case was telling multiple lies for self-protection, with the truth sometimes popping out between the ambiguous alibis and convenient memory lapses.  Among the New York gangsters David had dealt with he found an extraordinary ineptitude in fabricating stories, unless they had been concocted by their lawyers. The true parts always sounded more believable. Even then, the guys being interrogated had a hard time sticking to those stories, embellishing them to the point where they sounded completely phony and tripping themselves up by forgetting what they’d just said five minutes before.  It was always better either to shut up completely and cite the Miranda Act or to come right out and tell cops what they wanted to hear, which usually had a grain of truth to it.
         But questioning people like Philby, Lentov and Southey was very different. These men were trained to lie and to do it very convincingly, even under torture, which they alleviated by telling the interrogators enough true information to stop the torture, giving them time to check out the stories and names that the spy was given the leeway to reveal.  A good interrogator did not want to risk a possible source by bringing him to death’s door or drugging him into delirium, when he would say anything, most of it useless.
         In the moments before David dropped off to sleep, he tried to go back over what Southey had told him about Lentov, and what Lentov had told him about Philby.  Southey had called Lentov, what? A pig? Scum? But why was he so helpful in arranging the meeting with Lentov?
         And why did Lentov called Southey “my friend” more than once. Just being sarcastic? And what did he say about Philby having an endgame? David didn’t struggle to stay awake. He drifted off, hoping his subconscious would do some of the work for him. He fell into a dream of a drugstore soda fountain in his old neighborhood in the Bronx.
         At five o’clock his phone rang.
         “David, hey, it’s me,” said Katie. “God, I slept like a log. I can’t believe what time it is.”
         “Yeah, I fell into a deep sleep, too,” said David, looking at his watch.
         “So’d you find out anything about those pills?”
         “Not really. Let me tell you about it over dinner, okay? An hour from now?” Still foggy, David had to remind himself he was not still in Moscow, being bugged.
         “That’s fine, we can go back to that Indian place if you like.”
         “Suits me. See you in the lobby at six.”
         David took a shower and put on clean clothes, tossing his jacket over his arm.  He met Katie downstairs, right on time. She was wearing the burgundy color turtleneck he liked, with black gabardine slacks. A little lipstick. Looked like a college girl. Clean as a whistle, with that shiny hair of hers.
         They walked to the restaurant, got the same table as last time, and ordered quickly, including two Indian beers.
         “So,” said Katie eagerly. “Tell me what you found out.”
         “Well,” said David, taking out the scrap of paper he’d written the drug name on, “the pharmacist tried to be very helpful but she never heard of the drug. She did recognize that the word ‘HgaRX’ was the name of a big drug company in Hungary, and she was kind enough to say she’d call them in the morning to see if they made a drug called EmeeniFed. Said she’d let us know first thing in the morning.”
         “Hm, that’s weird. Why would Philby give us the name of a drug that doesn’t exist?”
         “The pharmacist said it might be under a different name in another country, but she couldn’t find it in her directories. We’ll know tomorrow.”
         “Well, till then,” she said, “I guess we just enjoy dinner and see what happens. And if nothing does, we might be on the next plane back to New York.”

 

   

 

NOTES FROM THE SPIRITS LOCKER

 

    Let’s face it: Were it not for the margarita cocktail, tequila might still be regarded as the stuff Mexican cantinas served in western movies where gringos like John Wayne and Joel McCrea knew enough to ask for “the good stuff.” These days tequila, along with its brash cousin mezcal, are ringing up $8 billion in sales of 30 million nine-liter cases, with U.S. consumers drinking up eight million—José Cuervo is the top seller. Of that only a fraction is “sipping tequila,” meaning it escapes getting blended with Triple Sec, lime and cracked ice.
         But that category is where the competition has gotten fierce, with bottles selling for more than $100 for top tequila labels and not much less for mezcal.
         The difference between the two  spirits is that both are made from the agave plant, but tequila must use only 100% blue agave. It is not true that mezcals are by taste smoky, which many mezcal connoisseurs sniff at as being a gimmick for the American consumer who likes to think of mezcal as a more macho spirit. Today mezcal is made in more than 20 states of Mexico under strict regulations. And if you find a worm in the mezcal, it’s still another gimmick.
      I’ve been tasting a lot of tequila and mezcal lately that is not meant (solely) for the margarita blender. Here are some I found of most interest.

 

DEL MAGUEY VIDA® PUEBLA MEZCAL ($40)—This is a single-village mezcal produced in San Luis del Rio, Oaxaca, located in Axocopan. Visual artist Ron Cooper, who’s lived in Mexico for 25 years, founded Del Maguy to make artisanal mezcals in an array whose master distillers proudly appear on the brand’s website. Paciano Cruz Nolasco is the man behind Vida, which is bottled at 40% alcohol. The village of Puebla is printed on the bottle, as are the other villages. It has fine floral bouquet and peppery finish.

 

CALIROSA REPOSADO TEQUILA ($60)—The distinction of Calirosa, evident in its name, is that the tequila is aged for nine months in red wine barrels that impart a rose color. The Real family has been making their spirits for 80 years, and, with Adam Levine and Behati Prinsloo as partners, Calirosa launched in 2021. The reposado (aged for nine months; $69), an añejo (three years; $75) and a Cinco Anos Extra (five years; $200). Each successive bottling adds nuance and leathery notes, making them true sipping tequilas that would get lost in a cocktail.

 

CENOTE BLANCO ($43)—Cenotes (“sacred wells” to the Aztecs) are natural subterranean holes formed by the collapse of limestone bedrock that filters the water used in this aqua blue-colored tequila. It spends only three weeks in American oak barrels but acquires pleasing citrus notes. It is a very good tequila for margaritas, though its iterations as reposado ($50) and añejo  ($60) make more sense on the rocks or served neat.

 

AMARÁS MEZCAL ($22)—Santiago Suarez and Luis Niño de Rivera founded the company in 2010 as the world’s first carbon-neutral mezcal company, planting 10 agaves harvested from three mezcal regions: Oaxaca, Guerrero and Durango. Additionally, 20% of the net sale of each bottle is allocated to the development of internal initiatives associated with social and environmental responsibility. It is made from agave cupreata in the Rio Balsas Basin. They make several kinds, including a verde ($35), reposado ($49), an Espadin ($40), a Cenizo ($60) and tobala ($148).

 

TEQUILA KOMOS—Former sommelier Richard Betts began making tequila ten years ago in conjunction with the not-for-profit Komos Foundation, which repurposes byproduct waste from tequila production and turns it into adobe bricks given to the community to build housing, schools and hospitals. The bottles are handmade vitrified porcelain, also recycled, in four varieties: Añejo Cristalino, aged for 12 months in French Oak ($100); Reposado Rosa ($106), aged in French oak red wine barrels; Añejo Reserva ($180), aged for a year; Extra Añejo ($360), aged for three years in both French white wine barrels and classic bourbon barrels. Before bottling the tequila is aerated to soften the spirit.

 

CHINACO—Guillermo González Diaz Lombardo created Chinaco, (“warrior”), a nickname for his great-great-grandfather who was the president of Mexico in1880-1884. Guillermo’s son Germán became manager of the estate, not in Jalisco but Tamaulipas (his father died in 1996). Initially just for some friends, he set out to create a special reserve never intended to be sold. That idea didn’t last long and, under the new name “Tears of Llorona” (named after a ghost story his father told him) it became the first premium tequila sold in the U.S. as of 1983. Today the company makes a blanco ($42); reposado, aged 12 months ($42); añjeo ($80), 35 months; and a Limited Edition ($700), made from one-third of the last batch and two-thirds of the finest from two decades, with only 600 bottles sold and only in Mexico and the U.S.

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