MARIANI’S
Virtual
Gourmet
❖❖❖
THIS WEEK A TALE OF TWO BOTINS By Gerry Dawes NEW YORK CORNER FELICE PORT CHESTER By John Mariani HÔTEL ALLEMAGNE CHAPTER EIGHT By John Mariani NOTES FROM THE WINE CELLAR A MISCELLANY OF NEW ITALIAN WINES By John Mariani ❖❖❖
![]() AN ANNOUNCEMENT: There will be no issue of Mariani's Virtual Gourmet Newsletter next week because Mariani will be eating and drinking his way around Spain. Next issue will be June 15. ❖❖❖
A TALE OF TWO BOTINS
A Luncheon Epiphany: Botín and The Mythology of the Legendary Last Roast Pig Meal in The Sun Also Rises Part One By Gerry Dawes "We
lunched upstairs at Botin’s. It
is one of the best restaurants in the
world.
We had roast young suckling pig and drank rioja alta.
Brett did not eat much. She never
ate much. I ate a very big meal and drank
three bottles of rioja alta."—Jake Barnes,
the lead character in Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises (1926).
![]() Madrid’s Restaurante Sobrino de
Botín is one of the most famous
restaurants in the world. Known
and revered simply as “Botín” by every aficionado of Ernest Hemingway’s defining first novel The Sun Also Rises,
Hemingway devotees think the famous winey lunch between Jake Barnes and Lady Brett Ashley
was set in this restaurant on Calle de Cuchilleros 17.
My own
experiences at Sobrino de Botín, date to
1970, when my first lunch there was the
catalyst for a series of events that would
have a profound impact on my life. After
having taken my U. S. Navy discharge in
Spain in October 1969, by January 6, was
down to just 600 pesetas in cash (about $5
back then), barely enough to get by on a
standup breakfast and a few meager tapas for
lunch and dinner. I
did have an $100 American Express Travelers
Cheque left from the $500 I had when I left
the Navy in Rota, but all the banks were
closed, because it was the Epiphany, so I
couldn’t cash it until the next day.
I took Ed to
Sobrino de Botín, so this was my first
visit, forever engraved in my memory. We
passed through an old-fashioned doorway with
polished brass handles and crossed the small
ground-floor tiled dining room with
patina-layered vintage artwork on the walls. I
saw an opening in the wall
just beyond the reservations station. Inside was
the source of that roast-pig redolence,
which wafted from a domed stone oven
decorated with azulejos,
colorful ceramics tiles. The smell of cochinillo
(suckling pig) roasting that emanated
from this hole-in-the-wall The man working
the oven used a wooden paddle at the end of a long pole
to slide in,
position and remove the deep-dish pottery
platters of pig from the oven, with four
rows of wooden shelves holding dozens of
pigs, their
chins
resting on the edge of the platter, their
mouths slightly open and their unseeing eyes
gazing somewhat disconcertingly in your
direction.
We feasted that
day on white asparagus with
mahonesa
(mayonnaise), then the cochinillo with
potatoes roasted in its juices. Just
as Jake Barnes did in The Sun
Also Rises, we drank
a Rioja Alta red wine. For dessert we
had out-of-season strawberries with whipped
cream.
Photo: Gerry
Dawes Afterwards
Ed thanked me for showing him a wonderful
time then
invited me to go to Sevilla
as his guide and handed me an envelope
that contained my plane ticket
as well as $300 in pesetas and a check with
a note from Leona saying she was going to
send me a monthly stipend of $30 a month,
which at the time would have been about half
the monthly rent for an apartment. That lunch with
Ed at Sobrino de Botín ignited a firecracker
string of events that would change my life
dramatically; thus, my fondness for this emblematic restaurant has endured for 55 years. The
money he and Leona gave me allowed me to prolong my stay in Spain. On
the ticket they had purchased for me, I flew
to Barcelona and got the job as an extra on
the movie The
Great White Hope, spending four weeks
in the city.
Though
Restaurante Botín is mentioned only briefly
near the end of The Sun Also Rises, the notion that it was the real-life setting for the
book’s
alcohol-fueled, angst-laden lunch has been promoted by
the owners, the González family, for
decades, and the legend has largely been
accepted without question by generations of
Hemingway fans. For nearly five decades I
also thought it was “pretty to think so”
that Sobrino de Botín was indeed the setting for one of the most famous scenes
in 20th century
American
literature. Now comes the fly
in that vino or, better put, the
fly on the roast suckling pig. The
González family’s claim that Hemingway was a
frequent customer over many decades is based
on many family-generated anecdotes about the
author. But
Botín may not be the
restaurant that Hemingway wrote about.
Miguel Izu (right),
a Pamplona lawyer and
author of Hemingway in Pamplona and debunker of Hemingway myths, in his
unpublished 26-page treatise, Quevedo,
Velázquez, Goya y Hemingway en Botín. Así se escriben las leyendas (Quevedo, Velázquez, Goya and
Hemingway at Botin’s. How a legend is written, offered the following
discoveries attesting to the popularity of
La Antigua Casa Botín during the period when
Hemingway was writing The Sun
Also Rises.
Photo: Iban Aguinaga
Also from Izu: "Miss Alberta Clarke, of Los
Angeles, California, sends us the following
interesting 1923 account of a Thanksgiving
feast in Spain: ‘Tucked away
in a side street of Madrid, at the Plaza de
Herradores, not far from the Puerta del Sol,
is a little old tavern known as El Botin,
favorite haunt of all lovers of things
typically Spanish, and long famed, not only
for its delectable dishes .’” Before
Hemingway’s first trip to Spain in 1923,
American artist Henry “Mike” Strater, who
had traveled extensively in Spain, drew a
map of the country on
the back of a menu from the Paris restaurant
Strix and wrote down a restaurant
recommendation—Botín—in Madrid, which then
would have referred to La Antigua Casa
Botín, not Sobrino de Botín (below). Soon to be
Hemingway’s good friend, John Dos Passos, in
his 1922
book of poetry, A Push
Cart at the Curb, in the poem “Phases of the Moon,”
signs off the sixth stanza as written on “New Year’s Day–Casa de ‘Bottin’––which he never learned to spell correctly––but
nowhere
in
his writing does he mention Sobrino de Botín or Sobrino
de Bottin.
The Puertas
son-in-law and partner Cándido Remis quarreled,
and the disgruntled Remis left the original Botín in la Plaza de
Herradores and started his own restaurant “Cándido Remis - Sobrino de
Botín” at Calle de Cuchilleros 17 in It is highly unlikely that Mike Strater would have recommended Pastelería Cándido Remis--Sobrino de Botín, whose entire name was prominently painted on the front of the restaurant. Significantly, by the mid-1920s, at the time Hemingway was writing The Sun Also Rises, the restaurant at Calle de Cuchilleros 17 was not even called Sobrino de Botín, it was named Restaurant (sic) Remis. Less than four months after the October 22, 1926, publication of The Sun Also Rises, on February 7, 1927 there was a classified advertisement in Madrid’s El Noticiero del Lunes for Restaurant Remis, Calle de Cuchilleros 17.
After several
lawsuits
over the course of a century,
the last of them ruled in favor of the
original,
so that only La Antigua Casa Botín in Plaza de
Herradores could call itself
“Botín.” Legally, so that the Cándido Remis offshoot at
Calle de Cuchilleros 17 could only use the
name Sobrino de Botín.
Miguel Izu also
noted that in 1924, writer-and-intellectual
Ramón Gómez de la Serna wrote, "(Plaza de Herradores Antigua Casa) Botín seems to have always existed and
that Adam and Eve ate the first piglet that was cooked in the world there. . . ” and
he “complained about
the agglomeration of all kinds of visitors at Botín de Herradores, locals and
tourists, rogues and careerists.” During this same period, Gómez De la Serna also wrote about Sobrino
de
Botín, where he would go when he couldn’t
get a table at La Antigua Casa Botín, writing,
“What all the Botín snobs don't know is that there
is another Botín, which I prefer those days when you have to be waiting for
someone
to
finish to find a table; a quieter Botín, lost in a more typical
street, and as much Botín's sobrino (nephew) as the more famous one. In
the other
Botín on the old Cuchilleros
street,
de cochinillo asado is also good.”
About Hemingway
visits to Sobrino de Botín during the 1950s,
why are there no verifiable
dates or
photographs with the González family, and no prensa tosa (celebrity gossip press)
reports
in
such Spanish publications as Blanco y Negro and ¡Hola!?
However, Allen
Josephs, a retired professor, author of
books on Spain, on Hemingway in
Investigation of the existence and former
prominence of La Antigua Casa de Botín as
the probable setting for the scenes in The Sun
Also Rises is certainly not in the
best interests of Sobrino de Botín. This
invites speculation about Grandfather Emilio
González’s veracity, which includes the
upstairs corner table shown to inquiring
tourists as “Hemingway’s table.” Virtually
none of the books and articles mentioning
Hemingway at Sobrino de Botín acknowledges
the existence of the original La Antigua
Casa de Botín in Plaza de Herradores. Very
few of these writers even interviewed
members of the González family. Those
who
did repeated what they were told. Some even
enhanced the family stories with their own
imagined twists such as those about
Hemingway escaping down hidden back
stairways into tunnels to avoid star
worshipers. “Mid-twenties,”
said Antonio. “I was just a boy. Ernesto told my father he had a novel that
was probably going to be published, in which
the last scene would be set at Botin. This must have been Fiesta—what you call The Sun Also Rises in
English—but
my father never knew this. He did not read
books.” Huh? The father Emilio González didn’t read books and didn’t know
about The Sun Also Rises, yet he made “eyewitness” claims
that
Hemingway wrote part of the book in a
restaurant in the mid-1920s. Such anecdotes
as those told to Edward Stanton provide the
basis for part of the legend, but this story
about Hemingway in Sobrino de Botin in the
1920s contains serious problems of
verisimilitude. Adding to this
sieve-like fable, Antonio González Martín's
parents, Emilio González Sánchez and Amparo
Martin did not begin running tbe
restaurant until 1930, four years after The
Sun Also Rises was published. There
simply is no firm proof or evidence
that Ernest Hemingway ever visited either
La Antigua Casa Botín or Sobrino de Botín in
the 1950s. But as the last line of the novel
says, "Isn't it pretty to think so?"
❖❖❖
NEW YORK CORNER FELICE PORT CHESTER
55 Abendroth Avenue Port
Chester, NY ![]()
Restaurant
chains are of three kinds: There are the garish
global fast food chains where everything is
always the same, good and bad; then there are
the global high-end restaurants owned or
contracted by celebrity chefs that rarely
sustain the quality of the original; the third,
like SA Hospitality Group, is able to maintain a
consistent chain of fine restaurants that
acquire a distinct chic about them wherever they
open. Menus are pretty much the
same at each, and all maintain a kind of cooking
and stylistic flair that draw packed houses of
regulars.
The newest in the chain is Felice Port
Chester, located in what had been a vast 7,600
square foot warehouse dating to 1903, in recent
years converted into a steak house, then a seafood
restaurant. Little needed to be done to an
extraordinary interior with its high ceiling hung
with wide chandeliers, brick walls, patterned
carpets, leather booths and banquettes,
The menu is large, and although SA promotes
the idea that they feature Tuscan cuisine, there
is actually very little that derives from that
region. Instead there are items from Rome,
Florence, Naples,
Sicily and other cuisines throughout, beginning
with starters like the pizzette, which are
small and fairly flat,
Among the pastas I most enjoyed was the
hearty fresh ravioli della casa filled
with spinach and simply dressed with butter and
sage and Parmigiano-Reggiano. A hefty serving of
pappardelle with sweet Italian sausages took
on nuances from braised endive, porcini,
herbs and a truffle sauce, while potato gnocchi
were treated to
a springtime pesto and the
surprise of creamy
burrata. Disappointing, though, was
a dish of spaghetti al vongole that did
not use small vongole verace clams but
instead larger, pulpy New Zealand clams, a
mis-step Falai told me would be remedied in the
future. It was good to see a
sumptuous, deeply flavorful duck confit on the
menu as a special rarely encountered on Italian
menus. Tagliata
di manzo was twelve ounces of medium-rare
sirloin with roasted potatoes, at a reasonable
price tag of $53.
Where Felice does play its
Tuscan hand is in the excellent wine list with all
the best labels and quite a few unfamiliar ones,
with seven whites and eight reds by the glass. Who knows how far SA
Hospitality will carry the Felice brand? What will
be crucial is their ability to find the
professional kitchen and dining room staff to
maintain what it has been so successful doing up
until now. In Port Chester, they most certainly
are. Open for dinner
nightly; brunch Sat. & Sun. ❖❖❖
HÔTEL ALLEMAGNE By John Mariani ![]() CHAPTER FOURTEEN
© John Mariani, 2024 ❖❖❖ NOTES FROM THE WINE CELLAR
A
MISCELLANY OF NEW
![]()
With summer on
the wing, one yearns for
outdoor dining and perhaps a bit more adventurous
spirit when it comes to
drinking wines. Here are several Italian wines I
like very much and give good
bang for the buck.
FAMIGLIA
COTARELLA
FERENANO BIANCO LAZIO
2119
($25). Named after the ancient Etruscan
town of Ferento in Lazio,
this 100% Roscetto (similar to Trebbiano and Greco)
uses grapes from planting averaging
17 years of age. Vinified in stainless steel and oak
tanks after an eight-hour cryomaceration,
it then spends four months in French oak and six
months aging. It emerges at an
alcohol level of 12.7%, making it an easy to drink
wine with lots of tropical
fruit notes, very good with dishes like salmon,
branzino and Gorgonzola cheese.
LIVIO
FELLUGA FRIULANO SIGAR ($63). Long
among the finest producers of Italy, Livio Felluga ![]() ❖❖❖ ![]() WORK JUST THROW A BREAD ROLL AT HIS HEAD “When you
want service, call for it. Don’t sit there like a
lemon hoping they’ll come by, because they won’t.
They’ll be over at some Russian’s table, grovelling
like spaniels. Michael Winner’s thing was to wave
his napkin furiously in the air, but those were the
days of big, white linen napkins that could really
be seen across a busy room. These days, likely as
not, you’ll have a tiny scrap of hessian that won’t
work at all. This leaves only the finger snap, which
not everyone can do, or my personal favourite, the
double handclap, high above your left shoulder, like
a Sultan summoning the belly dancers, à la Bernard
Bresslaw in Carry
On Up the Khyber. Until recently, the rarity
of such a move commanded instant attention, but with
the arrival of Gulf money in Notting Hill, a busy night in Dorian can
sound like a roomful of people playing the
maracas.”––Giles Coran, “Want to Be a Star Diner?
Use My Etiquette Menu,” The Times (3/25) ❖❖❖ Any of John Mariani's books below may be ordered from amazon.com. ![]() WATCH THE VIDEO! “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. ❖❖❖
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
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