Joel McCrea and Veronica Lake in "Sullivan's
Travels" (1941)
❖❖❖
IN
THIS ISSUE DINING OUT
IN RALEIGH, NC Part Two By
John Mariani
NEW YORK CORNER ONE BIG, ONE SMALL: TWO NEW STEAKHOUSES
FOUR CUTS and EMPIRE
By John Mariani
❖❖❖
DINING
OUT IN RALEIGH, NC Part Two By John
Mariani
La Farm Bakery
It’s
to be expected that a major Southern city like
Raleigh, N.C., would have a strong traditional
basis for its food.The fact is, you have to do a bit of
research and ask a lot of questions to find what
you might think of as old-fashioned, down-home
fare in the South.Barbecue smoke is not pouring out of every
downtown storefront, there are more KFCs and
Popeyes than there are indigenous fried chicken
places, and really great biscuits are hard to
find.As I noted a few weeks ago about
Raleigh, the city is very much on the move and has
grown a crop of first-rate contemporary and ethnic
restaurants, although it is woefully lacking in good
Italian places to dine.And now there are some
terrific bakeries and cafés, along with the kind of
down-home places you might have thought would be
everywhere in town.On a recent trip to Raleigh, I found all I
was looking for.
BIG ED’S CITY
MARKET RESTAURANT
220 Wolfe Street
919-836-9909
bigedscitymarket.com
For something very traditional
indeed, your first stop in town should be for
breakfast or lunch at Big Ed’s City Market
Restaurant, founded in 1958 by Ed Watkins, whose
family once produced tobacco and other crops in Wake
County.As
part of the revitalization of the City Market in
1989, Watkins was coaxed downtown, where his wide
open dining room has all the trappings of what you’d
hope to find in a Southern city like
Raleigh.
The room is festooned with
artifacts and gewgaws, flags, and road signs.The
tables are covered with gingham oilcloth and Big Ed
himself (right)
is usually decked out in a gingham shirt and blue
overalls.Yet
nothing about the place seems, to
use a Yankee word, kitschy.The
friendliness of the greeting and the helpfulness of
the waitresses (who will tell you that you ordered
way too much) add vitality to a very mixed crowd of
people, high and low, for whom eating here is the
thousandth or first time. The menu is enormous but
the prices are, like those for a gallon of gas, what
you thought you’d never see again: two eggs with
country ham and red-eye gravy $8.89, fried catfish
with one egg $9.99, fatback with a biscuit $1.99,
and a biscuit with sausage gravy $3.89.
Now, the
trouble with some places like Big Ed’s is that they
use inferior and cheap ingredients to keep prices
low, but I’d stack up Big Ed’s local eggs, grits,
Nahunta pork sausage, Carolina Packers smoked
sausage, corned beef, pickled beets and “real”
creamed potatoes against all competitors'.
You can get tender fried chicken
livers over rice and gravy ($8.49), excellent, crisp
Southern fried chicken ($8.59), chicken in house
pastry ($8.49) and just-baked strawberry short cake
and banana pudding,all in daunting portions.
And then there’s Ed’s justly
famous hotcakes (left)—one
of which ($7.89) is plenty for breakfast, lapping
over the edges of the plate, so that if one person
can eat three ($9.89), he gets a free t-shirt—are
perfect flapjacks, tender enough to soak up the
butter and syrup, evenly golden brown, with a
wonderful downhome aroma.
I’ve only really hinted at the
complete menu at Big Ed’s.There’s a great deal more, all
done with the same degree of quality, just like that
of the hospitality of the people who work here.You get a
big smile coming and going.
THE
PIT
328 W. Davie Street
919-890-4500
http://www.thepit-raleigh.com
The Pit, in Raleigh’s
warehouse district (with a branch in Durham), is a
lot more than a barbecue joint, for it has an
extensive menu of other items and is warehouse-large
in size.But
the premises are built around whole hog pit cooking,
with all the pigs used raised in North Carolina
using free-range farming practices.
Owner Greg Hatem grew up raising
pigs in Halifax County, and he also knows a great
deal about how to cook them, in addition to
Texas-style brisket, barbecued turkey, and a
first-rate fried chicken (below).Additionally, he goes outside
the ‘cue box by stocking an amazing array of wines,
beers and 21 bourbons. The long menu offers
everything from skillet cornbread with house-made
butter ($3.99) to fried
green tomatoes with goat’s cheese and smoked tomato
vinaigrette ($6.59) and Brunswick stew ($4.99). And
one good way to appreciate The Pit is to order the
Sampler ($13.99), a big platter of smoked wings, BBQ
soul rolls, deviled eggs and potato fritters.
Frankly, I prefer a little more smoke to my
barbecued ribs (above)
than those I had at The Pit, but you can try
different styles, including Eastern NC pulled pork
($13.99),beef
brisket with Western NC BBQ sauce($17.99),
and others.
Desserts
($6) are all very sweet, but share at least one—Aunt
Hattie’s double “chocolate chocolate” cake, or the
moist, old-fashioned carrot cake with candied pecans
and molasses cream cheese frosting,or the
chef’s hand pie with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.
You’ll probably leave The Pit
with a doggie bag and your next meal will be in it.
La Farm Bakery has a unique
charm, for in Southern cities you don’t usually find
such serious bread and pastry making based on French
classic models.But after
years traveling the globe in search of bakery
secrets, including the artisans’ guild Les
Compagnons du Devoir, Lionel Vatinet (right) and his
wife, Missy, were smart enough to see a niche in the
Research Triangle and filled it handily back in
1999.The
place has rarely seen an empty chair since.
Wedged into a nondescript
strip shopping center, La Farm offers 15 different
styles of daily breads and an additional 20 seasonal
breads throughout the year, all slowly leavened over
three days and baked in a European-style hearth
oven.It’s
the smell of that bread baking that hits you when
you open the door.The
Vatinets proudly use only local flours, honey, jam
and ham, and the taste of the South is truly in
everything they produce.
More amazing is the Vatinets’
expansion into lunch and dinner dishes like shrimp
rémoulade ($7.95) and sandwiches, but the heart and
soul of La Farm is in the breakfasts, where I had
the most delicious croque monsieur
and croque
madame sandwiches ($8.95), bubbling with
cheese and oozing Mornay sauce,as good
as any I’ve found this side of Paris. The tartine Diablo
($8.95) is a beauty—fluffy scrambled eggs with tasso
ham, spinach, cheddar, tomatoes and jalapeños on
crisp Asiago Parmesan bread.
This is a
place easy to love, and the people of Raleigh and
the area have shown an unquestioned pride in La Farm
for the work of people who had a dream and made it
work better than anyone might have hoped, right in
their hometown.
LUCETTE
GRACE 235 South Salisbury Street
919-307-4950
http://www.lucettegrace.com
South Salisbury Street, which
runs past the state capitol grounds, is slowly
coming alive, and in the most endearing way Lucette
Grace is making things
simmer.Chef-owner Daniel Benjamin, born and
raised in Indiana, trained for years with some of
America’s best pastry chefs, and the finesse he
picked up shows in the quality, beauty and color of
the myriad cakes and tarts and cookies and cupcakes
and macaroons displayed in the well-lighted glass
cases and counters in his small, cheery shop.
You might come in at 8 a.m. for a
Dixie Cannonball cheddar and scallion biscuit, or
even baked oat porridge with stewed fruits and
salted nuts. Or you might take a coffee break with a
pain au
chocolat or a buttermilk scone. At lunch
there’s lentil soup with garlic bread and a beef and
chorizo chili with cornbread.
Or you might splurge at any time
on the gorgeous dessert pastries like perfectly
flakey millefeuille
with peanut butter mousse, caramel cream, and
caramel peanuts, or an orange “Creamsicle” tart on
brown butter cake with vanilla mousse and almond
shortbread.
These are
not the kinds of delectables easily found anywhere,
unless the devotion of the patissîers is unflinching
and their appreciation of the local tastes guides
their hand.It
all works well at Lucette Grace; it would be a very
special place anywhere, but as a catalyst to
downtown Raleigh it’s a real prize.
❖❖❖
NEW
YORK CORNER
ONE BIG, ONE SMALL--TWO
(MORE) NEW STEAKHOUSES
By John
Mariani
Empire Steakhouse
A quick count of
new, high-end steakhouses to open in Manhattan
just in the past eighteen months comes to 16,
added to the dozens more dotting the island
and the other boroughs.And
in NYC, whose real old-timers like Peter Luger
and Palm were the first to serve USDA Prime
beef straight from the meat packing district,
that the competition to get the best quality
beef is at its most fierce. Such quality is
never cheap. Menus at these new steakhouses don’t
differ radically, though some are more
ambitious than others, but, despite the many
clichés of décor still flourishing, the spaces
and designs have changed very much.Two new
entries do it with size, style, and sizzle.
EMPIRE STEAKHOUSE
151 East 50th Street (near Third
Avenue)
212-582-6900 empire.com
The
new Empire Steakhouse (the first is on West 54th
Street) has taken over the historic premises of
what was once a 1920s East Side opera house,
then a famous and lavish nightclub called
Versailles, where chanteuse Edith Piaf performed
in the late 1940s and which also played host to
the Desi Arnaz Orchestra, Bob Hope, Dean Martin,
Jerry Lewis and many other top bananas of the
1950s. Back then you could even have your
fortune read by Doris the Palmist.
Just a few months ago this
was an admirable Turkish restaurant named Ibis,
which retained much of the trappings of the old
nightclub, as have the new owners, the Sinanaj
brothers, who also run Ben &
Jack’s. The new bar (left) is
spacious and well-lighted but beyond it is a
room of daunting size—450 seats—with tall,
tufted booths, a winding staircase, cathedral
dome, a railed mezzanine, a splendid wall of
back-lighted wines, and a main floor that was
once clearly meant for dancing the night away.
I’m not old enough to remember any of that
history, but, upon entering, I took in a good
sense off what the room must have been like back
then, and I’m glad the current owners have
maintained some of that art déco swank.
The 20-seat wine room is,
however, new, with a huge glass wall of bottles
stunningly lighted, with more than 400 selections, as well as a Single
Malt Scotch list with over 100 selections.But I
do wish the bar was more committed to making
classic cocktails correctly: It botched both a
daiquiri and a whiskey sour by not using freshly
squeezed citrus juice.
I have no
quibbles though about the very rich, caramelized
onion soup, thick with a gratin of cheese
($8.95) or about the bright red tuna tartare
($18.95) and jumbo crab cocktail ($21.95). The
sizzling Canadian bacon ($5.25) is as wonderful
as it sounds when it hits the plate.
The featured item at Empire
is the tomahawk ribeye steak ($64.95), a
hatchet-shaped, massive piece of fat-marbled
beef that can easily feed two people.The
double rack of American lamb chops ($54.95) has
both the heft and the richness of the best lamb,
right down to its charred bones.I
ordered a four-pound lobster (market price),
impeccably steamed and tender as one could wish,
its carcass cracked, the meat kept warm.
Accompaniments included good creamed spinach
($10.95), fried onions rings ($9.95) and
truffled mac and cheese ($15.95), though a large
platter of steak fries ($10.95) were, at least
that evening, limp.
For
dessert go with the cheesecake or the Key lime
pie, and maybe, in the spirit of the old
Versailles, a glass of Cognac to finish off,
with a toast to Edith Piaf.
Open
for lunch and dinner daily
FOUR
CUT STEAKHOUSE NY
1076 1st Avenue (near 58th
Street)
212-204-0008
fourcutsny.com
The
opposite of Empire in size is the intimate and
ingratiating new Four Cuts NY on First Avenue,
which, ironically, also took over a Middle
Eastern restaurant. Executive
Chef Christopher Miller, previously at Bobby
Van’s and Ben Benson’s, knows every aspect of
cooking a great piece of beef, and he calls this
a “boutique steakhouse” in Sutton Place for its
size and cozy charm.I would use the rarely
cited word “smart” for its walnut designer
chairs, a garden wall, white tablecloths,excellent
lighting, wall of faux books, and its cheery
striped banquettes. This is not the typical,
raucously loud steakhouse found so easily
elsewhere, and all-around manager, captain, wine
advisor and raconteur Gregory Edgehill is as
congenial a fellow as you’ll meet in a NYC
restaurant.
A shrimp cocktail ($19.95)
was generous but the Jumbo lump crabmeat
cocktail ($18.95) really seemed more the even
larger Colossal grade, the sweet, briny lumps as
large as figs and of superb texture.Some
of that same lump crab went into the two
good-sized crab cakes ($19.95), though there was
a good deal more shredded crab and filler in
them than I’d hope for.
The porterhouse for two
($46.95 per person) and the NY sirloin ($49.95)
were juicy, resilient examples of Prime beef,
said to be dry aged in
Four Cuts’ own off-premises locker. They put the
perfect char on the outside while keeping the
perfect temperature on the inside. They were out
of lobsters that night, so I ordered Dover sole,
which was of good size though it had a slightly
chewy texture and bland flavor.
The crisp home fries ($6.95)
and giant baked potato ($5.95) are bargains, and
I could easily make a meal of the latter.Onion
rings ($7.95) were crisp and sweet, and steamed
asparagus ($11.95) were spring-like in flavor.
Only a single dessert is made
on the premises, a lack that should be addressed
by Chef Miller, who gives such personal
attention to cooking quality ingredients so
seriously.
So, if
you are daunted by very large, very loud
NYC steakhouses, Four Cuts, fitting quite
snuggly into this tony neighborhood,may
be just the civilized boutique alternative
you’re looking for.
Open for
lunch and dinner Tues.-Fri, for dinner
Sat.-Mon.
❖❖❖
AND WHILE YOU'RE AT IT, LORD,
GET RID OF GORDON RAMSAY'S "HELL'S
KITCHEN"
One Million Moms, a group of conservative mothers, says
that Olive Garden is "supporting
sympathy towards the devil and glorifying Satan" by
sponsoring the Fox network TV show Lucifer,
demanding Olive
Garden pull its ads to prove it isn't or face the
wrath of a boycott. In the show Lucifer is
portrayed as a good guy "who is bored and unhappy as the
Lord of Hell," resigns his throne in Hell and
retires to Los Angeles, where he helps out the LAPD.
FOOD WRITING 101: MENTIONING A DISEASE
IN YOUR FIRST LINE IS NOT THE OPTIMUM
WAY TO GET ANYONE TO READ FURTHER
“Newly opened
Coda Restaurant Group spot SRV may sound like a new
class of vehicle or a disease you don’t want to catch,
but in reality pays homage to the Serene Republic of
Venice.”—Debra Furst, “Venice Comes to Boston,” Boston Globe
(1/28/16).
❖❖❖
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:
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.