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[Princeton] Elements -- November 2011 report
Very good question. Reluctant thumbs down, I'm afraid.
[Williamsburg] Frej: a Scandinavian pop-up inside Kinfolk Studios -- March 2012 report
I think what Fredrik Berselius and Richard Kuo are cooking at Frej -- a small, pop-up, three-night-a-week restaurant they run out of Kinfolk Studios in Williamsburg -- is really special. I've gone every week for the past month, taken photos and taken notes in order to put together this post. My story is below, and pictures, should you want to see them, are HERE: http://pocketfork.com/usa/frej/
The last time I felt like I made an important gastronomic discovery, I was two years old.
“Hambuhbuh… shoop shies… toke…” a tiny, curly-headed version of me would babble. I fancied myself a pioneer, a spokesman and tastemaker for gourmet toddlers worldwide. Once I learned of their collective existence, all I wanted was a hamburger, french fries and Coke — and I felt inclined to tell everyone willing to listen.
Now I’m a few more than two years old. Whether or not I still babble is debatable. But again, I feel like I’m on to something.
Or maybe I’m just on something. Coke is not involved but mushrooms keep popping up during dinner. Acid, too. At meal’s end, the effect of staring at a subtotal so unreasonably reasonable is mildly hallucinogenic.
And now I’ve picked up a bit of a habit. I go to Frej every week. Fredrik Berselius and Richard Kuo always seem to have the good stuff.
They start with small doses — snacks, let’s call them. Ah-muuuse if you’re feeling fancy. (I’m not.) These might be razor clams with pickled cabbage heart one night, or heart again on another. From a goat this time — thinly sliced, draped over nubs of celery root and hiding tiny pickled elderberries in its folds. The introductory nibbles change with each trip but always provoke and tease, using balanced little bursts of richness and acidity to make you anticipate the meal ahead without forcing you to plunge right into it.
As you might expect out of one guy born in Taipei but raised in Sydney and another hailing from Stockholm who have collectively spent nearly twenty years in New York, the chefs here cook “simple, modern Scandinavian” food using local ingredients, says the website. But don’t bother searching online for what exactly that means. Merely a month old, Frej is still nearly un-Google-able.
It’s also only open on Monday through Wednesday nights in a multi-use space in Williamsburg called Kinfolk Studios. With approximately the same square footage in my own kitchen I can barely throw together a decent grilled cheese sandwich. But these guys? They’re crafty, using the constraints of space and equipment as an impetus for creativity.
They start with smoked fish. Brook trout usually, mackerel once. They serve it with a warm egg yolk emulsion, little discs of cucumber, fried rye bread, and approximately 47 different preparations of dill (fresh, oil, powder, etc). It’s excellent.
Often that’s been followed by sunchoke, pear, elderflower and beef liver, a dish that immediately catapulted to one of my favorites at Frej. Alternating orbs of sunchoke puree and an irony beef liver sauce don crispy strips of sunchoke skin, pears pickled in elderflower vinegar, burnt hazelnuts and thyme. The combination is arresting, decidedly sweet but with rich, woodsy and bitter tinges.
Even now in the restaurant’s infancy, Fredrik and Richard’s cooking is thoughtful, confident, nuanced. Ingredients are not neglected. A plate ostensibly showcasing Maine shrimp and pickled cauliflower provides equal spotlight for fingerling potatoes, crispy on the outside and bursting with creaminess inside. Those same potatoes star in a sequel, with the sweet shrimp singing backup, while bitter flowering broccoli and a funky sprat-infused milk sauce round things out. Fine dishes, both of them.
Heartier dishes maintain that sense of balance. A soft-poached egg, oozy and satisfying, is surrounded by roasted mushrooms, pickled ramps, scallops and crispy bits of seaweed. Earl Grey tea-braised pork belly arrives with a smoked onion puree and peppery winter cress. Roasted rutabaga and apple cider lend sweetness to slices of flat-iron steak cooked in hay. Even lamb heart with smoked cheese and burnt celery root is a simultaneous display of power and finesse.
I’ve loved the desserts so far, but most of all I’ve loved their effect: to end a multi-hour, multi-course meal on a high note. It’s easy to woo the diner with sugar, to beat them into final submission with butter or chocolate. It’s considerably more exciting to be pricked with the tart sting of freeze-dried raspberries as you tuck into a cardamom parfait with hibiscus cake and walnuts. Better still to be surprised by savory seaweed shortbread crumbled around a tangy goat custard, sweet roasted pears and crispy pear skin.
The visual aesthetic of the food, for me, recalls Relæ and nods toward Noma. Maybe the ingredients have been deliberately placed there, or perhaps they’ve just fallen on the plate, amongst the same foraged garnishes that nature herself might provided. One can’t really be sure.
One thing I am sure of is that I’ve fallen for Frej. I don’t know how long the restaurant will last in this incarnation, a pop-up serving 5 or so courses to 20 or so people a night. I’d love for Fredrik and Richard to have the opportunity to share their food with people on whatever scale they see fit. They more than deserve that chance. But for right now, I’ll keep going every week until I wake up from this dream. For right now, I feel lucky to be a regular here.
Oh, and did I mention that the set menu costs just $45? Yep, basically the best dining deal in New York at the moment. You’re welcome.
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Kinfolk Studios
90 Wythe Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11211
[Princeton] Elements -- November 2011 report
I wanted to love Elements, I really did. It was all just too much. Too many ingredients in each dish. Way too much protein. I can put away a ton of food, but I felt wretched after this meal.
The gritty details are below, and the hopefully not-too-gritty photos are here... http://pocketfork.com/usa/elements/
I’m generally about as likely to visit New Jersey as I would be to meet my life partner at Tasti D-Lite. Maybe it’s the GTL presence in the former or the regrettable absence of LDL in the latter, but something about going to either place has never felt quite right.
But one day, every New Yorker wakes up feeling jaded and tired of all the restaurants by which he is surrounded. His mother comes to visit from out of state, and he wants to take her someplace nice. He is forced to think outside the boroughs.
In the past, this scenario has pointed my own compass northward to Tarrytown. But tonight my mom and I are in Princeton, and we’ve walked past leagues of ivy-covered buildings to arrive at a restaurant called Elements. Our table is situated in the kitchen — Scott Anderson’s kitchen — and my dad is here, too.
It doesn’t take me long to find the shovel with which I’ll dig our collective grave. I ask the gentleman I assume to be our server if some kind of extended menu might possibly be arranged. I assume — and acknowledge — that this will cost more than the standard tasting menu, so find myself a little frustrated to endure a stubborn sales pitch for truffles and wagyu beef. It takes literally four tries to convince him that we don’t need those supplementary flourishes. I just want to see Chef Anderson’s cooking, not his credit card statement.
Early on we see a lot of vegetables, and this being late November, they provide tastes of autumn. Sweet potato soup comes dotted with sweet little cubes of compressed apple. Hubbard squash custard points us to maple and mustard. Salt-roasted beets take a decidedly funky turn with a cheese called Shropshire Blue, a simple duo that emerges as one of my favorites of the night.
Chef Anderson’s larder also leans heavily toward Japan. Menu verbiage veers toward a vocabulary test. A finely minced tartare of hamachi, for instance, gets crowned with tonburi and yuzu zest. Foie gras fields wakame seaweed and umeboshi sorbet. Sea bass here is not just sea bass; it’s suzuki. And Anderson is as excited as any practitioner of kaiseki cuisine might be to have matsutake mushrooms in season. He’s made a consommé of them, and ladled it into a cast-iron pot brimming with fat nubs of mushroom and gossamer sheets of lardo.
The sad part is that those seasonal ‘shrooms lack sufficient salt — to my taste, at least — and a composed carrot salad does, too. There’s a lot going on in that dish: nori and smoked ricotta cheese, hazelnuts and roughly-torn shreds of Japanese brown sugar bread. It’s a band with too many instruments, the work of a writer in need of an editor.
Razor clams “casino” don’t fare much better. They’ve a chewy bounce that suggests over-cooking, and a distracting grittiness that makes me think they’ve been improperly cleaned, too. Imagine, also, my disappointment when a racquetball-sized potato, beautifully shrouded with black and white truffles, tastes and smells of nothing.
Fortunately the rest of the proteins, on balance, save the day. That suzuki I mentioned holds its own marvelously against an assertive backdrop of yogurt and black truffles, a beguiling combination. Mangalitsa pork neck is impeccably tender, perfect atop a bittersweet pecan-and-black-sesame puree. Colorado lamb tugs us unexpectedly back-and-forth between Mexico (hoja santa and green mole) and southern France (aligot re-fashioned into a fluffy steamed bread), and we’re very happy to make the journey. It’s our favorite dish of the night.
And that’s not to mention the most interesting — Scottish woodcock, in three services. The first is a “tea” brewed with its dried, smoked, and dry-aged meat in a French press. Then the heads of the roasted birds arrive, ready for us to pick their brains. My mom is, of course, giggling with delight at this point. In fact she’s so unable to control her laughter that she distractedly pushes every bit of roasted breast meat off of her plate and onto mine. My father does the same, bequeathing to me even the liver-filled porcini macarons that come with it.
Now I’ve eaten basically an entire bird, and I’m so disgustingly full that I want to kill somebody. My parents, meanwhile, wear smiles, but there’s something murderous in their eyes. I fear for my safety. Granted, none of us can move at this point, anyway. We’ve been assaulted by abundance, beaten by bounty. I’ve given up on everything sacred in this world.
Desserts — I hate to say it — are excellent. Concord grape sorbet with lemon verbena, smoked salt, and rose apple is a pretty prelude. Then we’re hit with some pumpkin cheesecake, and a chocolate/peanut butter/banana dessert that is undeniably delicious, unapologetically rich.
There’s a candle stuck in that last one. It’s my birthday, actually. And if reaching the ripe old age of 27 has taught me one bit of wisdom, it is this: the next time I go out to dinner, when the server tries to take our order, I’m just going to shut the hell up.
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Elements Restaurant
163 Bayard Lane, Princeton, NJ 08540
Forcella loosely translates to "Fried pizza now available in Manhattan". Here, one lover's report...
Sweet! Let us know how it goes.
Forcella loosely translates to "Fried pizza now available in Manhattan". Here, one lover's report...
Upscale mozzarella sticks, lol. I love the montanara, and get one nearly every visit.
Forcella loosely translates to "Fried pizza now available in Manhattan". Here, one lover's report...
I've been a regular at the Brooklyn location of Forcella for a little while now, so at last night's opening of the Manhattan flagship, I was friggin' thrilled. I think it's going to become something really special. Here's my story about why, and if you'd like to see some photos, I've got those, too: http://pocketfork.com/usa/forcella/
He looks like a jazz trumpeter, or maybe a saxophonist. The hair extending down from his chin is more thick stalactite than goatee. He’s lanky, with thick-rimmed, square-edged glasses, and he sports a type of hat that I can’t identify and certainly couldn’t wear.
Giulio Adriani makes pizza.
But right now he is making a face suggesting confusion, even concern. Why have I ordered so much, he asks? Why do I always order so much?
I make a feeble excuse that just as there are by-the-slice pizzerias, there are by-the-slice pizza eaters — but I am not one. And if my proclivity toward excess once had me in Naples eating whole pies (at least) twice a day, every day, for a week, then it stands to reason that I should order two or three at a time if I’ve had to trek to Brooklyn. Go hard or go home, I figure.
There’s also the more embarrassing excuse of the shopaholic blaming the inventory… You see, fried pizza used to be something one only found in Naples, or in beautiful dreams. I put on a staggering thirty pounds the first time I went to Italy and encountered such healthy snacks. And I’m poised to do the same now that Giulio has brought this one to New York at a place (well, two) by the name of Forcella.
The classic form of pizza fritta looks like a calzone cross-bred with a beignet. Both bubbly and porous, it emerges from the deep-fryer and it glistens. To bite through the crust is to recall Rice Krispies — it’s got snap, crackle, dare I say even pop. Probably the most typical variety — filled with tomato, smoked mozzarella, ricotta and salame — is what I have here. The smoky cheese adds necessary depth to a specimen that never sees the inside of the wood-burning oven. The salame is coarsely chopped and toothsome. Overall, the thing’s got heft but it doesn’t feel heavy.
At Forcella, there’s also the montanara, which occupies a category all its own — savory but almost sweet, fried but also baked, the love child of pizza margherita and funnel cake. Giulio fries a smallish round of dough first, punching down the center so the edges puff up but the center stays so thin as to be nearly translucent. While still warm, he spreads it with tomato sauce and dots it with mozzarella. It’s baked for slightly less time than a typical Neapolitan pizza — which is to say, not very long at all. Then I observe a moment of silence — sweet, gluttonous silence. During fried pizza consumption I am not to be disturbed.
At this point I could be a tease and stop my story right there. For me to assert that the montanara is the single best thing to order at Forcella (probably the single best Neapolitan pizzeria I’ve ever been to outside of Naples) could save you further reading. But to not tell you about the regular pizza would be more than negligent on my part. It would be borderline criminal.
Now, pizza napoletana happens to be my favorite food. And if eating more than my fair share of it all around the world has taught me anything, it’s that technique and ingredients count in equal measure in its preparation. All the “artisanal” ingredients in the world can’t guide inexperienced hands in crafting a proper crust, and no amount of pizzaiolo know-how can cover up rubbery mozzarella or insipid tomatoes. At Forcella, I’ve eaten most of the twenty or so pies you’ll find on the menu. I’ve yet to have found a flub.
The crust, properly salted and perfectly tasty on its own, has all the textural variation I could want. It’s crisp on the edges and pliant throughout, charred but not incinerated, with the occasional air pocket but enough density that it’s not floppy. Adriani’s mozzarella, which he makes fresh every single day, is exceptional — its salinity a conduit, not a cover-up, for the dairy flavor. The tomato sauce pokes at flavors both sweet and tart, and the token leaf or two of basil hints at a balancing bitterness. Together, they make the margherita. Together, they are all I could ever want or need in life.
But I wasn’t lying when I said I’ve tried the other stuff, too. I’ve gotten the requisite marinara, with the welcome addition of fresh cherry tomatoes and the welcome subtraction of overzealously applied oregano. Here there’s just enough. There’s also enough prosciutto crudo on the prosciutto-and-arugula pie that you’ll get some in every bite; enough prosciutto cotto on a pie called the Vomero that its sweetness is kept in check (it’s also got corn, mozzarella, cream, and ricotta, and it’s lovely). The margherita regina does no wrong, but why bother with buffalo mozzarella when Giulio’s cow milk mozzarella is so superb? I’ve had pies with mushrooms, pesto, figs, salame and zucchini flowers, not necessarily all together but all good. The pizza alla carbonara, too, is wonderful — eggy and rich and oh-so-pork-fatty just like the Roman pasta preparation.
They probably wouldn’t do that one in Naples. Nor would they, as I have been known to do, take a pizza as a refreshing palate cleanser before dessert. But the Fuorigrotta — a white pie piled with lemon, arugula, and pecorino — functions perfectly as such. There’s likely been more fried stuff before that healthy greenery, of course… a crispy disc of dough topped with lardo and chilies, maybe a potato croquette or a rice ball filled with molten mozzarella. And then it’s time for sweets, which means it’s time for Nutella — slathered around the inside of an otherwise naked crust like hummus in a pita, or drizzled over little nubs of fried pizza crust Giulio calls angioletti (“little angels”).
After this, it’s time for me to pay the same tab that the adjacent family of four has racked up. Hell, it’s time for me to get a life. I sent my friend a text message earlier this evening. It consisted of just three letters — “BAM”. I was not at the Brooklyn Art Museum. Nor was I channeling Emeril Lagasse. I was just a little excited, because tonight, the flagship location of Forcella had its grand opening party. Giulio said, “Let there be fried pizza in Manhattan,” and there was fried pizza. And Giulio saw the fried pizza. And it was good.
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Forcella
334 Bowery, New York, NY 10012
Le Grand Fooding New York 2011: Kobe Desramaults dinner -- a report
Agreed completely. I really wish I could read the cookbook, too -- it's beautiful!
Le Grand Fooding New York 2011: Kobe Desramaults dinner -- a report
With 13 chefs from all over the place in town for Le Fooding's 52-hour pop-up restaurant, choosing which one to go to was not easy. I'd seen Kobe Desramaults present at another food festival before, though, and he was awesome. So we decided to give this one a shot. And I'm so glad we did. Check out the full story below, and the pictures (if you're into that kind of thing) are here: http://pocketfork.com/events/le-fooding-ny-2011/
I’ve just turned to page 44 in a book I can’t read, written by a chef whose last name I can’t pronounce. Pictured is a bird I can’t believe he got onto US soil. And while his restaurant is one I can’t wait to visit, for now this cookbook and this dinner will have to do.
At the moment, it’s somewhere between one and four in the morning, and it’s awfully damn hot in here. Could it be the abundance of candles? Or is it my displeasure that we are seated across from frat row, young finance types taking turns making fools of themselves? Twice in the last five minutes, their champagne corks have hit the ceiling. Why were these people even born?
Disconcerted, I find comfort in a pig’s head. Kobe Desramaults and company have made a dark, gelatinous broth of the cranium; brittle, herb-flecked crackers of the ears. Kobe is the chef, by the way. He’s from Belgium, which I know only because I actually saw him there back in March of this year.
But I’d still not tasted his food, which is why I jumped to book this, the second of thirteen consecutive services in a ’round-the-clock pop-up restaurant by Le Grand Fooding. I’m feeling quite grand, indeed, eating the creamiest of oysters — poached in whey, adorned with cabbage and hazelnuts, and plopped in front of me without explanation.
There’s not much service to speak of, in fact. But talking with Anna Polonsky, half of the Brooklyn-by-way-of-Paris duo that organized this irreverent shindig, I get the sense that they want the experience to be about presence, not pretense; deliciousness, not decorum.
Salted West Flemish beef is the first dish I haven’t been crazy about. I love the texture of the meat — somewhere between roast beef and a young prosciutto — but have no meaningful feelings for its flavor, with or without the fermented carrots keeping it company. I just want to be friends.
And actually I’ve just made friends. It turns out that the two women to my immediate left work for the same restaurant group I do. A conversation sparked by salsify has brought this fact to light — roasted salsify, with a dollop of burnt bay leaf cream and gratings of an over-cured ham. These sweet, bitter, and salty elements show themselves like a spinning top, wildly dynamic but ultimately balanced. Each bite is a game, and I want nothing more than to keep playing.
Kobe, meanwhile, has snuck off into a corner. He’s elbow-deep in smoldering hay, cooking plump little pigeons over an electric flat-top stove in this New York City loft — visual dichotomy at its finest.
He stuffed and smoked those birds with the same hay over which he is now roasting them. It’s the same hay he infused into the butter that glistens on each slice he’s plated for us. Aged for a total of five weeks, the birds taste of minerals and red meat, of bacteria and barnyard. The FDA would frown on this kind of funk.
Meanwhile the crowd is all smiles. Free-flowing champagne all night has not hurt. The lone dessert — variations on goat’s milk — certainly hasn’t either. As the room empties out, a dude in a yellow t-shirt walks up to me: “Are you a blogger? Are you… Aaron?” He smiles, and nods towards a stack of cookbooks somebody has forgotten to distribute; cookbooks for In De Wulf, Kobe’s restaurant in Dranouter, Belgium. I flip to page 44. Yes, I definitely cannot read this. But I leave with a happy feeling — a feeling that at least I understand it just a little bit better now.
[Paris] Le Dauphin -- March 2011 report
On our trip to Paris several months ago, we ended up trying to Le Dauphin two days in a row. First, for a somewhat average lunch, and then for a very good dinner. Read the story of both below, and check out the pictures, if you wish, here: http://pocketfork.com/france/le-dauphin/
I am not a morning person, and Le Dauphin is, perhaps, not an afternoon restaurant. Better to go at night, when the experience mimics that of a dinner party squeezed into a newly-renovated bathroom — all cacophony and clean white marble. You might end up, as we have, at a small table near the huge front windows. The challenge here is distinguishing between the nearby figures having a smoke to take a break from the meal and those having a meal to take a break from smoking. I am not French enough to discern the difference.
Our server, somehow, is the chef. I drag my finger along the menu, stopping ten times. Sadly, he speaks French far too well to understand what the hell I’m mumbling. He drops his notepad and a pen on the table, and walks away coolly. I like his style.
At lunch yesterday, we didn’t see him. But as we sipped an apéritif earlier this evening at the Paris restaurant industry’s watering hole of the moment, we did. Yes, I definitely like his style.
Yesterday we had what the French call a formula, a short set menu. The choices were between some sardine croquettes I liked and a cold shellfish soup I didn’t quite. A perfectly fine fillet of sea bream and a vapid veal stew that both wore cress, carrots and raw button mushrooms (which Parisian chefs seem inexplicably fond of). Tiramisù with a bright accent of passionfruit, and a piece of cheese far too perfect to have come from anywhere outside France.
On the whole, that meal didn’t necessarily provide what I had wanted, or at least what I expected. But last night’s meal at Le Chateaubriand – Dauphin’s older sibling — dazzled. So much so that we tried to go back there earlier tonight. Unfortunately so did the entire populace of the 11th arrondissement. The obvious Plan B is just down the block. The obvious Plan B is right here.
So like a total creep, a total jerk, or a totally creepy jerk, I just got through standing silently in the same spot for what must have been an hour. The migratory herd with which we arrived did its best to behave its worst — yelling, cursing, even crying. My girlfriend seemed to quietly question her life choices. The waitstaff regarded me with a healthy mix of pity and disdain.
I guess the former won out, though, because now we’re sitting with too many plates on our table. We’re drinking a Loire white called the Magic of Juju, and there might indeed be something to that name.
A simple salad of endive and pickled onion with tamarind powder on top is a study in reds — tart and beautifully bitter in turns. Ceviche benefits greatly from cucumber water, and I benefit greatly from eating it. I don’t pay much attention to what’s in the beef tartare, but I’m loving the chew of the rough-chopped meat, and there’s a masterful mix of salt and acid in its seasoning.
There’s a touch of chill in the air tonight, so eating only cold dishes seems ill-advised. Things warm up with a mushroom-and-sunchoke velouté and an exceptional squid ink risotto, the latter dusted with a bit of lime zest. A succulent strip of roasted Ibérico pork, essentially the derrière if my research is accurate, arrives with a bunch of vinegary things, tempering the richness. Smashed vitelotte potatoes show up nearly naked. Almost indigo in color, they have a controlled sweetness and considerable depth of flavor for, well, potatoes. They need nothing.
We need dessert, and three seems just right. Buttermilk ice cream is savored with olive oil and tiny leaves of fresh thyme. Ricotta with honey and almonds pleases even the Italian girl sitting across from me. But it is a red-wine-poached pear with fat financier crumbs and dehydrated flecks of black olive that really stands out from the pack.
We finally stand up from the table. A firm elbow to the ribs nudges me into motion. I feel loved. She feels, apparently, like we should go.
I glance one last time around the room, thinking that this restaurant was born around the same time that trending became a word that people actually use, which is to say, not long ago. And for better or worse, it has already become a bit trendy. Perhaps more Brooklyn rooftop party than suburban dinner soirée. I hesitate for an instant in the doorway. If I stand here for another hour, do you think we’ll get invited to the after-party?
[Paris] Le Chateaubriand -- March 2011 report
Ordering is super easy, a set menu at 50E per person.
[Paris] Le Chateaubriand -- March 2011 report
After watching the place and reading about it for what seems like as long as I can remember, I finally visited Le Chateaubriand on my most recent trip to Paris in March. Somewhat surprisingly, it proved to be the best meal of our trip. My story about that night is below, and my pictures, should you want to see those, too, are here: http://pocketfork.com/france/le-chateaubriand/
Sometimes I argue with the man in the mirror. I’m smart enough to know that he can be stupid, and I delight in proving him wrong. So in more ways than one, Le Chateaubriand was delightful.
I had to go there on this most recent Paris trip, precisely because I didn’t think I’d like it. I’d read the menu scores of times, seen pictures and reviews by friends whose opinions I really value. But a frustrating dichotomy was at work, the words “best” and “worst” uttered too frequently in the same breath.
I figured if I were going to investigate the matter for myself, a thorough approach was in order. First my girlfriend and I would visit Le Dauphin, the newer, arguably cooler little brother to Chateaubriand that’s down the block. Unfortunately after lunch there we learned that our date with the older sibling that evening was not, in fact, in the computer. By “computer,” of course, I mean the scribbled, folded, wine-dotted papyrus peeking out of our server’s pocket. Who, he asked, was our friend who’d made the booking for us, and what time would this hypothetical meal take place? Inquiring minds wanted to know.
After a little horse-trading and a lot of eyelash-batting from my girlfriend, the dapper young dude conceded that we could sit at the bar. In the meantime we explored the city for a while before circling back to Aux Deux Amis for an apéritif with one of the most prominent Parisian gastronomes around. Who should we bump into there but Iñaki Aizpitarte, the chef whose food we’d eaten just hours before and would eat again just hours later. There was definitely grape juice in his glass. I can’t speak to whether or not it was fermented. But I can say I found him to be in rather good spirits.
We were, too, when we slid up to the bar at Chateaubriand to find that our server was Urik, the same guy who had helped us sort out the booking earlier. This is not a bar designed to eat at, I should mention. Or not designed for humans with legs, anyway. Fortunately all we needed were our hands for the first snacks — gougéres, avocado in tiger’s milk, and duck hearts coated with coriander and sesame. My love of coriander seed notwithstanding, my favorite of the small bites were thumb-sized sweetbreads served with asparagus and finger lime. The taste was simple, clear and harmonic. A restorative celery root broth came shortly thereafter. With all this we drank a natural sparkler from Anjou — Jean-Christophe Garnier’s Brut Nature — that stood its ground beautifully with the spices and the innards.
Fish and chips meant tempura pollock and potatoes two ways. Chips dusted with tamarind powder made sense to me, a touch of tartness to liven things up. I was less convinced by burnt fingerlings, a technique surely already mastered by many a distracted home cook. Yet my main gripe with this dish was its lack of a sauce, a dip, a cream, something to bring more moisture to the (albeit expertly fried) fish.
But lemon sole smoothed everything over. It was the dish of the night, of the trip, hell, of the year. A sauteed fillet sat on a raw one, each bite bringing contrasting textures and temperatures. Chives and leeks made up most of the garnishing greenery. The overall effect was deceptively simple, but this dish more than any other showed me the clouds in which Aizpitarte can fly.
I was riding a certain high myself, still smiling about the sole as I slid my knife through slow-roasted pork. Crab jus and a sea urchin sauce were good company, a touch of iodine to counteract the fatty meat. Pickled daikon, beet and onion had much the same effect. Then a trio of hyphenated cheeses – Ossau-Iraty, Sainte-Maure, and Brillat-Savarin — segued toward the sweets.
Desserts here don’t change daily like the savory stuff, but as far as I’m concerned, our first one fully earned a consistent spot in the rotation. Orange sorbet came flanked by roasted endive, dusted with a crumbly powder of chicory and dried black olive. It was a pinball machine, slamming my taste buds against sweet, bitter and savory elements in rapid succession. I loved it.
A chocolate finale, meanwhile, was just fine, with bittersweet cocoa powder and little shards of feuilletine mounded over celery root ice cream. Fresh mango pieces coated in fennel seeds — some candied, some not — ended things on a fresh note. I consulted no wine list that night, choosing instead to work my way through all four sparkling wines on the chalkboard to our left. And with this lineup, I was perfectly happy.
We were both so happy with everything, in fact, that we tried to come back the very next night. A Saturday night. Hell Night for dining out. Aizpitarte’s sous-chef and right-hand man, Laurent Cabut, saw us near the end of the interminable queue outside. ”I’m going to run out of food, guys. Zis eez horrible! I’m sorry. I’m sorry…” He pulled out his cell phone, calling friends from other restaurants he might, in good conscience, send us to instead. For this incredibly generous gesture there was no need. Waiting it out stubbornly, our hope for a good meal whittled down to almost nothing, we ended up with a table at Le Dauphin. Now the next time we’re back in Paris, you can bet that we’ll end up back at Le Chateaubriand.
[Paris] Saturne -- March 2011 report
Thanks, Nancy! Assuming/hoping I can get around to writing about some of them, most notable meals on this trip were Rino, Chateaubriand, and Dauphin (twice). Also, more visits to Patisserie des Reves more times than I care to admit.
[Paris] Saturne -- March 2011 report
Not too long ago, my girlfriend and I took a little trip to Paris and we checked out Saturne. The story is below and my photos, if you can put up with not-very-good ones, are here: http://pocketfork.com/france/saturne/
For better or worse, there’s a bit of Henry Ford in me, an uncompromising spirit in the compromises I make. His customers could have any color car they wanted, as long as it was black. Likewise my girlfriend and I could vacation anywhere, I stubbornly told her, as long as it was a city with exciting restaurants.
I’m not only stubborn but also rather stupid for objecting initially when she proposed Paris. Jaded by meals too staid and too expensive there in the past, I thought it a boring choice. Nothing, restaurant-wise, seemed to be moving there. Nothing seemed to be happening.
But truth be told, I had not checked in on Paris in over two years. I was increasingly emotionally distant. Our relationship had deteriorated, beaten down by my illicit flings with other cities, one-night stands with far-flung restaurants I might now call my favorites.
Saturne helped us hug and make up.
Here both the furniture and the font nodded toward the Nordic, a fixation of mine since our trip to Copenhagen last year. The wines that sommelier Ewen Lemoigne chose conjured dreams of living in the Loire valley and summering in Sicily. And the food — realized by a chef two years younger than I — led me to think that… well, I should get my act together professionally.
His name is Sven Chartier, and his first plate looked like somebody dragged a weedwhacker through a flower garden, leaves and petals turned to confetti in its wake. Somewhere down there were raw scallops from Cancale and sea urchins from Galicia. Which components were garnish and which were the intended stars of the dish was a point subject to debate. But salad and seafood both kept me happy. So why discriminate at all?
Infinitely simpler and inarguably more focused were rings of squid, charred and snappy around the edges. Each piece had bounce and vigor, a texture somehow both yielding and not at the same time. Wild rocket and toasted bread crumbs tossed with squid ink provided punctuation. Each statement was clear and effective.
A roasted filet of fish — one you might label meagre, drum, corvina, or any other number of names depending on where you live — washed up on a smoked potato puree, buried under nettles. It was impeccably cooked, with skin so crackly I first assumed it still wore scales. Roasted chicken was no less technically sound, moist and tender, a bird from Landes properly respected. Grilled pencil leeks propped up the poultry, with vinegary mustard seeds peppered around, a swatch of butternut squash puree to sweeten the deal. But my girlfriend looked unconvinced. She looked, actually, rather bored.
I pushed forward, endeavoring to either lift her spirits with cheese or funnel enough wine into her glass that the whole world, particularly her cheeks, would look rosy. In both pursuits, I think I was successful.
The cheese was Comté, one of my favorites, aged 31 months and sliced extra thin. The accompanying bread, too, deserves mention here. It was rustic, with a loose crumb and a thick, violently crunchy exterior. They get it from a guy named Cristophe Vasseur and it’s called “pain des amis,” because he makes it, I am told, just for his friends. Thus there may or may not be requests from me pending for every person of that name on Facebook. I need that bread in my life.
Wine, of which we had three bottles, was a smashing success. The bracing acidity of a Loire Valley chenin blanc primed us for the oxidized, non ouillée funk of an Alsatian pinot gris. But nothing primed us for the super-easy-drinking “Contadino 7″ from Frank Cornelissen, a Belgian who fled south to Sicily to make the kind of wine he wanted to. At the base of the Mt. Etna, he grows obscure grapes like nerello mascalese and ferments the juice in amphora. The results speak for themselves.
For these choices, I take no credit. The first two were suggestions of the very capable sommelier, while the third was an old favorite of our host, LV, himself a Belgian ex-pat. It was he who made the reservation for us, he who put Saturne and several other spots we visited this trip on my radar in the first place. For this, I owe him no small thanks.
The three of us lingered over dessert, discussing meals past and future. To the present one, there were two happy endings. The first tasted of spring, a season faster approaching here in Paris than back home in New York. Sorbets of sorrel and violet chilled under a foamy grapefruit cream, marble-sized mounds of meringue and a tangy goat cheese powder. In turn came a tiramisu of sorts made with sunchokes and Ethiopian green coffee. Both gracefully tip-toed the line between sweet and savory.
And so it is with my relationship with my girlfriend, an unendingly sweet girl that fell for an unsavory character like me. Up to this point in our trip, Saturne had provided my favorite meal. And while I’m not sure she agreed, after the meal she slinked back into her seat on the metro with a quiet, satisfied smile. She’d been right all along about this trip. Paris, I’ve always loved you, but I think I’m falling back in love with you.
uhockey reviews Chef Carlo Mirarchi's Tasting Menu at Roberta's
Thanks a lot, Mike, I appreciate it! As you might recall from one of my old blog posts, Keste is my favorite. But I've tried basically every notable pizzeria in the five boroughs, and there's a whole lot of good pizza to be had here.
uhockey reviews Chef Carlo Mirarchi's Tasting Menu at Roberta's
It's very difficult to compare such different styles of pizza, I think. Overall rankings like that are very tough.
What about Paulie Gee's did you feel was superior to Roberta's, if I might ask?
And have you been to Keste? Do you like it?
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Paulie Gee's
60 Greenpoint Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11222
The Flemish Primitives (Ostend, Belgium) -- March 2011 report
Thanks, Nancy. I'm really looking forward to trying In de Wulf myself.
The Flemish Primitives (Ostend, Belgium) -- March 2011 report
I was lucky enough to be one of the very few Americans in attendance at last month's The Flemish Primitives food festival in Ostend, Belgium. Chefs from all over the world came together to share with one another and with us their ideas, concepts, techniques, successes and failures. Belgian chefs showcased what's happening in gastronomy in their neck of the woods right now. Overall it was an awesome event. My experience there is below. My pictures are here: http://pocketfork.com/events/the-flemish-primitives-2011/
“You owe me, bigtime.”
Those four words appear frequently in conversations between my girlfriend and I. By pure coincidence, I’m always on the receiving end.
Her eyes alone shouted them at me now. Some curious little man, cracked out on Spanish ham and Russian caviar, had just swiped an Italian sparkling water bottle from her hands and flashed it before the Danish gentleman standing next to us while his curious little friend photographed the crime.
The guy next to us was René Redzepi. And those two sneaky bastards were either chef groupies or desperate PR reps, maybe both. This was my poor girlfriend’s introduction to The Flemish Primitives, a food festival held last month in Ostend, Belgium. It was my introduction to the doghouse.
She and I found ourselves there on the invitation of a very gracious buddy of mine. A smooth talker, he’d managed to convince somebody that we both deserved press placards, which meant full access to everything. The first afternoon held back-to-back Master Classes, each with a different topic and different teachers. Consistent with the festival’s concept this year — Exchanging, Engaging, Exploring — the lessons were collaborative efforts. Jack O’Shea, meat maven from London, was slicing a cured beef “ham” from Flanders as we walked into the first session. The sizzle and smoke of roasting flesh floated up from the grill and griddle on either side of him. Here butchers would meet chefs would meet us, the carnivorous public. This was Meat: Aging, Preparation, and Cooking Techniques.
More reminiscent of prosciutto than bresaola, that ham had a mineral tang, a certain sweetness, and fat that melted into an instant of happiness. I enjoyed four such happy moments. Such are the advantages of sending a pretty girl to ask for the samples.
Equally exceptional was a côte de boeuf dotted with olive oil from chef Giorgio Nava, whose cattle (and olives) came from Italy via South Africa. The grass and wild plants they eat on his ranch lent the meat a complex flavor I could neither pin down nor get enough of. Meanwhile from every direction came more treats — Kobe beef cheeks cooked for 70 hours at 70 °C and finished on the plancha, oxtail rillettes, veal crudo served with octopus, a fillet flipped every 15 seconds as it was cooked on the (dubious) premise that its moisture would be better-retained. It was pretty wonderful, all this “learning” we were doing.
Seeking further snackage education, we took a cursory glance in the other classes. Spectacularly boring, they were, apart from a mille-feuille of ice cream the Passion Pâtisserie guys were making. All the classes were small enough to encourage questions and interaction, large enough that we secured seats early for the second session: Fermentation and Pickling.
Here Sang-Hoon Degeimbre of Belgium gave a fascinating (if confusing) run-down of the various fermented soybean products from Korea and how he utilizes them in his kitchen. So if you ever want to have a heart-to-heart about the differences between gochujang, doenjang, cheonggukjang… well, ask him, because I didn’t quite absorb the intricacies.
Now there I was, innocently eating some excellent pineapple-gochujang sorbet. I looked over and what did I see, but my girlfriend checking out a blond dude across the room! He had eighty-five different pickled things in front of him, and she wanted them. A vinegar fiend, she had spotted her next fix. Her dealer was Magnus Nilsson of Faviken in Sweden.
With humility and reluctance, he admitted that he originally hadn’t wanted to do this class. He was no expert, he thought. Like breathing, pickling is a necessity in his neck of the woods. But like singing, he treats it as a satisfying pursuit in and of itself, a way to be more in tune with the changing seasons. This made him, of course, exactly the right man for the job, and we both decided we should pay him a visit in the near future.
After a cursory glance at the rest of the second-session classes — the coolest of which was a Pascal Barbot solo — chance brought us to a press conference with René Redzepi. The grace with which that man fields asinine questions (“Do you drive a Porsche?”) and the wit with which he answers them (drawing brilliant parallels between Lady Gaga and Michel Bras, for example) are exemplary, I must say.
From there, it was off to the Gala Dinner, a mash-up of some of the top toques in Belgium, a fifteen-course affair that ran into the wee hours. So how was the food? Well, the company was excellent. Oh, and the desserts. The desserts were very good. Right. Moving along…
Day two was the main event, but from the groggy faces in the room early that morning, you wouldn’t have known it. Chefs and scientists from all over the world presented in pairs and trios, sometimes with a common link between them, sometimes with no apparent connection at all. Naturally, some of these collaborations were more successful than others.
To my mind they saved the best for last, when Brazil met Belgium. Alex Atala blew our minds with raw ants (wildly flavorful! like sansho pepper, lemongrass, ginger, eucalyptus…) and a native Amazonian fruit called cupuassu. He pureed the pulp with whiskey and curry powder and made a paste from the roasted pods, creating a delicious mock chocolate. For show-and-tell he brought the tongue bone of the biggest Amazon fish, an indigenous people’s grater, and some yellow-fleshed cassava. Highly toxic in its raw state, Amazon cooks have learned that by boiling the root for literally a day, it becomes a highly effective food preservative. Meanwhile Dominique Persoone, Belgian chocolatier, provided accompaniment and surprise — with chocolate “sausage” after Atala’s blood sausage, and a “poisonous” chocolate frog laced with an anesthetic drug (“a mild one, I promise!”) to rub on our lips before consumption.
On the breaks throughout the day we were assailed with food samples of every size, shape, and variety. Boiled baby shrimp, every kind of Italian prosciutto and Spanish jamón, cheese, chocolate, caviar, cookies, coffee… It was excessive in a way I fully support. We ate well that afternoon.
The most star-studded session of the day was also the most challenging to watch — photographers, cameramen, and the hopelessly obnoxious stuck their backsides in the face of the crowd as René Redzepi, Michel Bras, and Sergio Herman took the stage together to talk about several dishes they’re working on right now. My girlfriend decided to take matters (and her press pass) into her own hands and join the mêlée. I was just so proud of the ladylike grace with which she threw elbows up there and snapped some great photos. It was a special moment.
As for the rest of the day, I can only say that it was overwhelming, but in a good way. Kobe Desramaults, Alexandre Gauthier, and Massimo Bottura all piqued my interest. Chris Young gave us a slideshow overview of his and Nathan Myhrvold’s tome, Modernist Cuisine. A scientist showed us heat transfer maps for single- and double-fried potatoes. And a band of Belgians shared the stage for an hour, teaching us about the state of gastronomy in their neck of the woods. I only wish they’d gotten more time, and more attention.
But time, and my girlfriend’s patience, were about up. I think the chef groupies – and their more demented brethren, roadies — we’d encountered had taken their toll on her. The caloric onslaught those two days had probably done the same. But if we’d earned a few grey hairs and packed on a few kilos, it was all for a good cause. I was honored to have been invited, so very pleased to have met so many great new friends in so short a time. To Exchanging, Engaging, and Exploring, I would add Enriching — to me, The Flemish Primitives was exactly that. I drove back to Paris with a satisfied smile on my face.
Roberta's -- February 2011 (tasting menu!) report
I emailed the chef for this one. If you call the restaurant, I'm sure they can make it happen, though.
Roberta's -- February 2011 (tasting menu!) report
There is a lot more to this place than meets the eye. Great pizza, great brunch, and unbelievable.... tasting menu? Yep. Caviar, truffles, dry-aged beef, wild game -- it's all there. The photos are all here -- http://pocketfork.com/usa/robertas/. And here's the story...
I’m not cool enough to lead the life I do.
I step into a coffee shop and in no time they pop the question: “So, do you live around here?” No, I don’t. I actually took the train for forty-five minutes (two transfers!) to get here because I love your single-origin espresso. Not cool.
After I down my macchiato in shame, I go to work for a restaurant group that exudes unmistakable machismo and a devil-may-care attitude toward customers and non-customers alike. Meanwhile I keep an Excel spreadsheet of my earnings there. A friggin’ spreadsheet! So not cool.
I’m also embarrassed that there is not a single outfit in my wardrobe that lets me blend in at Roberta’s, currently my favorite restaurant in New York. My girlfriend, meanwhile, can only wear her one plaid shirt so many times. I think they are beginning to catch on.
She and I went the first time because I’d heard rumors of a great brunch. We’ve since gone back again and again because the rumors were true.
Navigating past the pizza oven as you step in the door, there’s no indication of exceptional fried chicken, no promise of unforgettable pancakes. But that crackly-crusted bird glistens next to a fluffy biscuit and Bibb lettuce with a tangy buttermilk dressing. Those pancakes change with the weather — sliced pears sneak their way into the batter one month while macerated strawberries or plums might climb on top the next — but their texture wavers not. There’s always an ultra-thin outside layer browned until almost crisp, an interior so light and airy that you clear the plate before your stomach knows any better.
The wood-fired pizza here is charred, bubbly, and pliable, catapulting Roberta’s to salutatorian of the Neapolitan-style class in NY, just a half-step behind Kesté in my grade book. Toppings come in playful combinations with clever names like Millennium Falco and Greens, Eggs, and Hams, though sticking to the basic and beautiful margherita tends to be the most rewarding choice.
Now if you disregard everything I just told you, you’ll see that the tasting menu at Roberta’s is where you really want to be. Carlo Mirarchi is the man you’re after. He’s the chef in charge of the non-pizza, non-brunch stuff. And he was in charge of what we ate one night not long ago.
To start, there were small tastes of the sea: oysters with Calabrian chilies, fried shrimp heads with meyer lemon granita, raw glass shrimp with blood orange and poppy seeds. He brought us slowly ashore with sea urchin and stracciatella, caviar and pistachio. That tasted even better than it sounds, a simultaneous exercise in excess and restraint.
Charred strips of cuttlefish disguised as noodles wore a hearty pork trotter ragu, and linguine luxuriated in creamy Hokkaido uni. I had tried Carlo’s sea urchin pasta before, but relished this reminder that his is the best I’ve encountered anywhere. Finally trofie with duck heart and liver primed us for a progression of protein the likes of which I could not have imagined.
First was lamb breast, with a thin, crispy exterior that shattered when I cut it, and a gloriously fatty interior that melted like custard in my mouth. Then squab was roasted and presented — feet and all — with mascarpone, chestnut and kumquat. A beautiful côte de boeuf, aged over 50 days, had all the mineral funkiness one can ever ask for in a steak.
Then Carlo came over with a wild Normandy duck. Heads turned. People freaked out. He had roasted it whole, and presented it to us that way in all its lacquered splendor. As we plowed quite contentedly through a serving of breast meat, he brought us the legs. They had a toffee sauce. In the future I’d like all the duck legs I eat to come with toffee sauce.
Carlo asked me if we wanted to gnaw on the carcass, and you and I both know how I answered that. Let’s just say my lifetime duck fat quota has now been met. Things got pretty ugly.
In a way, I felt like we were stealing. My restaurant sells comparably dry-aged steaks for the same price we each paid for this entire tasting menu at Roberta’s. And where else in New York would we have been able to find such well-prepared game birds on the menu at all? Any one of these treats alone would’ve made an exceptional centerpiece to a great meal. Eaten in succession, there was something almost evil about what was happening — this was truly Lucullan feasting.
Now my only fear is that I’ve misrepresented Carlo’s cuisine. His is not a heavy hand, and there is a graceful balance at work here. Vegetables (many are which are grown in the garden adjacent to the restaurant) are treated with as much care as the meat; condiment and pasta are given equal love. A simple, sauteed treviso dish, the savory intermezzo between pasta and meat courses, was actually one of my favorites of the meal. It was topped with bottarga and an egg yolk-and-white balsamic vinegar emulsion. Who knew radicchio could sing like that?
I did no justice to the pasta, expertly cooked and dressed, and leagues better than what you’ll find at even the most lauded places in Manhattan that charge $10-15 more for a plate of it. I failed to mention the cheese course, the dessert, or the pizza Carlo graciously supplemented at my gluttonous request (a thick-crusted “Working Man’s Slice” to start, and a “Cheeses Christ” pie to prolong that cheese course).
I neglected to elaborate on the equilibrium he achieved in every dish — a touch of acid here, or a dash of sweetness there, to temper the richness of the protein parade. And worst of all, I’m not even sure how to explain the warm feeling of welcome that permeated the entire evening. I can only say that Carlo, in addition to being a wildly talented chef, is a humble, gracious, and hospitable host.
But honestly I kind of wanted to keep all this to myself anyway. The existence of this tasting menu isn’t exactly widely advertised at the moment, but I’m going back for it again tomorrow night. The problem is, it’s way too good for me to keep quiet about. And keeping this particular secret just wouldn’t be cool.
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Roberta's
261 Moore St, Brooklyn, NY 11206
Awesome a la carte meal at Recette, can't wait to try tasting menu
Visited Recette for the first time earlier this week. We both came in with reasonably high expectations -- based on recommendations from friends and reviews from different critics -- and I have to say it exceeded them.
We had about a dozen dishes, which they broke up into five courses for us -- raw dishes, hot snacks, pasta, protein, and dessert. WIth a bottle of wine and tip for 2, it was about $250, just about what we'd have paid for the 5-course tasting and we were able to try many more dishes. I would, and will, gladly go back. The Mondays with Jesse dinners they do on the 2nd Monday of each month is definitely on my radar now.
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Recette
328 West 12th Street, New York, NY 10014
[CPH] noma -- November 2010 double-report
Thanks so much, that's incredibly kind of you. I'm very happy you enjoyed it!
[CPH] noma -- November 2010 double-report
I finally got around to finishing the story of my noma experience, and I'm excited to share it with you all. Pictures (and video) are here -- http://pocketfork.com/denmark/noma/ -- if you don't want to read!
Love, like an American supermarket, is a fascinating and scary thing. To walk its aisles is to struggle to distinguish what you want from what you need. To fully understand its intricacies is to know too much. In a frustratingly beautiful way, its true nature can seem inscrutable.
Danish supermarkets aren’t much easier so far. This is the fifth one we’ve been to in Copenhagen tonight. My girlfriend and I have just eaten lunch — two days in a row — at noma, the restaurant some rank above every other one on the planet, and she is agonizing over which gummy candies to have for dinner. It turns out that she is to gelatin and sugar what Robert Parker is to wine or Roger Ebert to movies, a connoisseur of the highest ilk, an unequivocal arbiter of quality.
I poke fun, but it’s actually quite fetching. I’ve always had a thing for Sour Patch Kids, so the match was meant to be.
I also think she and I were meant to experience noma together. It’s been probably three years since René Redzepi popped up on my radar, thanks in no small part to a girl named Trine and a guy named David. But back then I couldn’t have pointed to Denmark on a world map. A neophyte in the world of fine dining, I was stupid and near-sighted.
Fast-forward to a year ago and we were at el Bulli, eating hare brains and sea anemone while our friends and family gorged themselves on turkey to celebrate the most gluttonous American holiday. To this day I don’t have a clue how I snagged that reservation, but it set the bar awfully high for our future dates.
So, too, did the live fjord shrimp we were served the first day at noma. My girlfriend shuddered and looked away in disgust, a sure sign that the date was going well. Otherwise she’d have shuddered, got up, and left.
But there were many reasons to stay — thirty-five of them, including all the different snacks surrounding both twelve-course menus. I regret that I’ll only be able to tell you about the most compelling of them.
Fruit leathers made with a crazy sour Scandinavian berry called sea-buckthorn made me think of my four-year-old niece. As a baby she would ask me for “froo yeh-yers” every time she came over, and I’d gladly comply. That’s love, too, isn’t it? We devoured these in her honor.
Redzepi taught us about æbleskiver (“apple slices”) when he brought two over. Traditionally these balls of dough are pan-fried in cast-iron molds and eaten as a sweet snack in Denmark around Christmastime. But did I know of takoyaki, he asked? Noma’s are savory like that – with tiny smoked-and-pickled fish from Finland called muikko swimming through the center – but interestingly the Danish treat predates the Japanese version altogether.
Deep-fried reindeer moss was easily the most obscure of the snacks. But with a sprinkle of porcini powder and a careful dip in crème frâiche, it was enticing, even familiar. Within the walls of noma, esoterica seemed to dissolve.
It’s all so open and comfortable, the dialogue here between diner and chef. It is, to my mind at least, just about perfect. Redzepi and his clan of sous chefs deliver and explain the food. They’ve foraged for much of it, studied and then rewritten its history, and poured themselves into its preparation. It’s written all over their faces — they believe in what they serve.
The first day — when Redzepi was not in the kitchen but instead in noma’s houseboat/research lab — brought a more protein-centric progression, and a smattering of noma classics. Day two held more flora than fauna, more restraint, and, for me, more intrigue.
It was on day one that a razor clam wearing a sleeve of parsley gel got rained and then snowed on by clarified mussel juices and a frozen fluff of buttermilk and horseradish. The snow melted on my tongue and left a sour, lingering heat in its wake. Combined with the masked mollusk, its effect was to push the reset button on my taste buds.
There is something truly primal about noma’s beef tartare. Cut by hand, it is eaten with the hands. We dragged the bright red meat through juniper powder and a tarragon emulsion. Wood sorrel and horseradish punctuated with a pop.
Succulent Danish langoustines washed up on huge stones in front of us. Dotted around them, an emulsion of raw oysters, seawater, and parsley, like mayonnaise on a mean streak. Again using our fingers we dabbed the crustaceans in the sauce and then through powdered söl, an Icelandic seaweed.
These last two were paired with pine juice a.k.a. liquid Christmas tree. We had the juice pairing both days at noma, and enjoyed it immensely. The progressions were different but the lineup the same: sea buckthorn, lingonberry, pine, elderflower, pear-verbena, beet, cucumber, and carrot, all made in-house and, it goes without saying, with local ingredients.
The opening move on day two was raw squid with crispy rye bread, white currant granité, and dill oil. The texture of the squid was not to be believed — firm but yielding, scraped perfectly smooth and diced into uniform little cubes — a testament to both the freshness of the product and the meticulousness of those who prepared it. Each mouthful of this dish played out a most exciting crescendo and decrescendo — sour and herbal for an instant, but fading off smoothly with the touch of cream at the base of the plate. I was enraptured.
From there, subtle flavors seesawed with more assertive ones — shaved fresh chestnut with bleak roe and thyme, slowly caramelized cauliflower with spruce and horseradish whipped cream. These both reflected a graceful balance which belied the list of ingredients.
So did the pickles, which, of course, weren’t just pickles. They were a kaleidoscope of ten different vegetables, each prepared in a different brine. Smoked bone marrow and an unctuous pork sauce provided garnish for the vegetables, not vice versa.
Desserts are the domain of Rosio Sanchez, and they’re so seamlessly integrated into the noma ethos that it’s hard to believe she’s been there for just over one year. Her pine “parfait”, as they called it (I called it a half-frozen sponge with personality), might not have worked anyplace but here. Beer and bread, as wonderful as they both may be individually, may not have snuggled into the same bowl together with such amazing results. And an edible snowman probably would have seemed downright silly had it not been for the blizzard blanketing the city twenty four hours a day since our arrival.
In trying to tell you everything about noma I have told you nothing. I neglected to mention the edible branches hidden in our table’s plant arrangement, the fabulous sourdough bread, or the fact that I now have a not-insignificant fondness for elderberry “capers” (i.e. the pickled unripe berries). But the truth is that no amount of detail can do justice to the comprehensive effect that noma had on me. It would be futile for me to exalt just one dish or one meal, impossible to explain why if I don’t get involved with a place like this at some point in my career, I will have considered it a failure. I can only say that noma is the best restaurant I have yet been to by a margin so great as to be immeasurable.
In the end I can only say I loved it, and thank goodness, my girlfriend loved her gummy candies.
[CPH] Relae -- November 2010 report
Not open for lunch but their casual spot (Manfred's) across the street is. Check out their website.
[CPH] Fiskebaren -- November 2010 report
Fiskebaren was recommended to us by some folks at noma, and it was a great idea for us the night before lunch at noma. The prices (unlike much of Copenhagen) are fairly reasonable, it's run by noma alumni so the food is definitely interesting, and the place just has a good feel. Below is the story of how we (finally) made it to the restaurant, and what happened when we got there. If you'd like to see some pictures, they're all here: http://pocketfork.com/denmark/fiskebaren/. Enjoy...
My hands are frozen, my lips are cracked, my ears glow a fluorescent red, and I’ve lost feeling in my feet for some time now. Vaguely skeletal objects occasionally impede our steps. They might be bicycles, but I can’t see anything, so who knows.
Though it kind of feels like it, we are not climbing Everest. We’re trudging through the snowy streets of Copenhagen looking for a restaurant.
Unfortunately our maps provide an insufficient level of detail. We haven’t seen a taxi in about an hour. And even if we found one, we’d be unable to direct the driver anywhere. I want to curse but am frustrated by my inability to do so. Why is Danish so impossible?
And why, my girlfriend asks, don’t we just stop someplace else? We’ve passed hundreds of places to eat, and we’re scouring a neighborhood called Meat Town for a restaurant whose name sounds a lot like Fish Bar.
It’s called Kødbyens Fiskebar, or more familiarly, Fiskebaren. It’s a favorite among the noma staff, run by noma alumni, and Rene Redzepi’s lovely wife had told me we had to go. That was pretty much all I needed to know.
We finally find it, in an industrial park we’ve walked by three times. We sit at the bar and begin to defrost. We are an hour early to our reservation. We suck.
Inside it looks like a vodka commercial: porcelain-skinned blonde women with high cheek bones and low-cut dresses, halfway scruffy guys with high salaries and low body fat. After twenty or thirty minutes of awkwardly sipping hot tea, one of those scruffy guys — many of whom work here — shows us to our table.
It’s the smaller plates that most catch our collective eye, so we order five of them. Trout tartare is first. It’s got capers, onions, crunchy little mustard seeds, and a tuft of greenery on top. I like it.
The tiniest scallops I’ve ever seen come after that. Thimble-sized at best, they’ve got little globules of freeze-dried raspberry on top, and a dab or two or walnut oil. Some kind of green leaves are cut into circles and placed on each scallop. Everything is cut into circles in Copenhagen’s restaurants, as far as I can tell. Every little scallop here is sweet and super-tart for an instant, then nutty and rich on the finish. We want eighty more servings, but instead we eat two loaves of bread during the downtime. They’re hearty and they’re hot. So far I’m finding the restaurant bread in this city to be of surprisingly high quality.
My girlfriend gets fish and chips, made with smoked haddock from the Baltic Sea. The English translation of the menu claims it’s been lightly smoked, but I wonder if the Danish version says the same thing, because to my American palate there’s not much light about it. The fish has a lovely texture — moist and flaky within, crackly without– but it’s too salty for her to finish. It’s hard not to love the fried capers they’ve used to season the chips, though. I content myself with stealing those from her plate as frequently as possible.
Meanwhile I’ve dropped my camera into my cauliflower. There’s other stuff on the plate, too, but it’s the mangled cauliflower I’m most embarrassed by. It was a little ball of the stalk that got blanched and rolled in squid ink-stained bread crumbs. It was dotted with truffle oil and was supposed to look, I guess, like a small truffle, but now it just looks like I’m a jackass. This dish is king crab, by the way — an exquisite and delicious long piece of it. Slices of Gotland truffle — cut into circles, of course — keep it company, as do little mounds of Jerusalem artichoke puree. Dried cauliflower looks almost like broken coral on the plate, and the crab wades in a verdant parsley-and-cockle sauce. The combination of all of this is quite harmonious. It’s the best dish we’ve had tonight.
Dessert is granité. Actually, it seems that dessert in Copenhagen is always granité — we’ve had it every single day. This one’s made with sea-buckthorn from Sweden. It tastes like some perfected permutation of passionfruit. It’s amazing. More of the fruit has made its way into round little gels, as has some lemon. A white chocolate and tonka bean cream is at the base, with little cookie crumbles hidden between it and the granité. It’s a lovely range of different textures, and the overall flavor is so sour as to be nearly astringent. Refreshing and bright, it’s been the perfect end. Only hesitantly do we not order a second.
As we step outside, we stop to warm ourselves by the fire on the sidewalk. I’ll dress more warmly tomorrow, I think to myself. Tomorrow, we’re going to noma. That’s the reason we’re here in Copenhagen, and, in a way, the reason we’re here, on this sidewalk, desperately trying to put our extremities as close to the fire as possible before we set off into the dark, cold night. Thanks for the recommendation, Nadine. Tomorrow, I’ll try not to drop my camera onto René’s food.
noma: 2 meals in 4 minutes, 6 seconds
My girlfriend and I were lucky enough to visit noma 2 days in a row this Thanksgiving weekend. The experience was unforgettable, and I'm still struggling to put it into words. We did a different 12-course menu each day, with about a dozen "snacks" to start out. Everything about the restaurant is just so right. And while I work on writing about it, my girlfriend put together a video of our experiences there and I wanted to share it with you all: http://www.vimeo.com/17495427. Hope you enjoy it.
[CPH] Relae -- November 2010 report
Thanks, Nancy. I've heard good things about AOC, and that was almost on our list this time around, but we had only a few days to work with. We were happy with Fiskebaren and Relae on our non-noma days.
