Superstar Eleven Madison Park chef Daniel Humm (also an F&W Best New Chef 2005) doesn't just recommend New Jersey restaurants in Hackensack and Hoboken (covered yesterday in Mouthing Off). In fact, he likes so many in Montclair, the town in which he lives, that today we'll devote the whole blog to Montclair restaurants.

Raymond’s
A great brunch place. The French toast and the pancakes are delicious. It's always busy; more often than not there is a bit of a wait. 28 Church St.; 973-744-9263 or raymondsnj.com.

Corso 98
It's an Italian restaurant, but the best part is that they sell their homemade ravioli, meatballs and stuffed peppers every Saturday from a little store right next door: You can see the whole family making the ravioli. 98 Walnut St.; 973-746-0789.

Applegate Farm
Awesome ice cream. So many flavors and toppings; also chocolate-covered frozen bananas. 17 Church St.; applegatefarm.com.

Beyond Pita
This is the restaurant that inspired the black truffle beignet on our menu! All the ingredients here are really fresh, and the falafel has great flavor from all the herbs they use. 82 Church St.; 973-744-2115.

Beyond the Bagel
This place makes their bagels in-house. When I go there, here's what I always order: an everything bagel, toasted, with sausage and cheddar cheese. 219 Bellevue Ave.; 973-655-1199.

Daniel Humm's NJ Restaurant Hot List - Part I

A few weeks ago, I was blown away by a black truffle beignet that Daniel Humm (an F&W Best New Chef 2005) made at his outstanding Manhattan restaurant Eleven Madison Park. Then I found out it was inspired by a falafel he had in New Jersey (where he now lives). Wow. And, Humm said, he'd found a bunch of New Jersey places he would recommend. And then he was cool enough to do just that. Here's part 1 of his list, and his mini reviews. Check back tomorrow for the rest of Humm’s list, and more on that falafel.

White Manna, Hackensack
The place is tiny! It has only about 12 seats, and there's usually a line (but it's worth the wait). The burgers are slider-size, served on mini potato rolls. Expect good fries and milk shakes, too. 358 River St.; 201-342-0914.

Wondee’s Fine Thai Food and Noodles, Hackensack
The best Thai food I've had on the East Coast. Try the green papaya salad or the red curry with coconut. The pad thai is really good as well. 296 Main St.; 201-883-1700 or wondeenj.com.

Dino & Harry’s Steakhouse, Hoboken
This is a historic restaurant [it's in a late-1800s building that was once a longshoremen's bar] that's also fun. They've got excellent porterhouse steaks and sides. 163 14th St.; 201-659-6202 or dinoandharrys.com.

La Isla Restaurant, Hoboken
Their Cuban sandwich is one of the best I've ever had! The place is pretty small, but there's a cozy seating area outside. 104 Washington St.; 201-659-8197 or laislarestaurant.com.

 

For the last few days (and very late nights), I found myself restaurant-and-bar-hopping around Berlin with Mario Grünfelder, the star mixologist of the city’s coolest bar, Tausend. F&W’s European correspondent, Gisela Williams, had been telling me about a number of ambitious projects the Swiss-born spirits genius been working on. He already co-owns Tausend, along with W Imbiss and the superhip Café 103 (which he says will be transforming into something even cooler very soon). Mario is good buddies with the brilliant, semi-maniacal chef Christian Lohse, so we met for lunch at Lohse’s Michelin-starred seafood-centric Fischers Fritz to talk about potential collaborations, which included talk of a 24-hour bar-hopping bus.

Later, Mario invited us to Cantina, the new restaurant in a room behind the bar at Tausend. The former chef of Berlin’s popular Shiro I Shiro is turning out casual Latin-Asian dishes like Peruvian tiradito, tuna tataki wrapped in foie and Momofuku-rivaling pork buns. Over a second round of the stellar pork buns, Mario shared his newest passion, making his own spirits, including an unbelievably smooth wheat-based vodka he’s named Greenfield and Harter 73 (Greenfield being an Americanized version of his last name; 73 referring to his date of birth; and Harter the last name of Tausend co-owner Til Harter). I’m hoping we’ll see bottles stateside soon.

When Tausend gets too crowded late at night, Mario heads to his newest bar project at the chic, affordable new Hotel Amano in the Mitte neighborhood. The low-lit lounge serves late-night snacks and Mario’s cocktails, like the Grischenko (Xoriguer gin, cordial lime juice and Limettensaft bitters) until 4 a.m. The prolific spirits obsessive is now off to Barcelona. Maybe he’ll be opening his first project outside of Germany soon.

Food & Wine’s super-plugged-in European correspondent, Gisela Williams, is based in Berlin and has been taking me to all the hottest new spots in town. Here, a quick rundown:

Wahllokal is in a somewhat awkward location between the business and tourist sections of Berlin’s Mitte neighborhood. Everything about the space is playful, from the tasting menu (divided into Beforehand, Right in the Middle and Thereafter) to the bleacher-esque, stadium-style seating and the wacky basement bathrooms (with showers instead of sinks for washing hands). The food, however, is more straightforward and very well-priced. Highlights were an ever-so-lightly breaded codfish with ox-muzzle salad and Thai asparagus and the watercress risotto with coconut and pomelo honey.

Raffaele Sorrentino, the miracle-working concierge at the Hotel Adlon Kempinski, recently opened two Italian spots side-by-side. The more casual Antica Lasagneria specializes in huge slices of lasagna from a classic meat-and-cheese to a spicy-sausage-and-broccoli. The dining room feels like a wine store with great Italian bottles literally from floor to ceiling. Il Punto is a Berlin favorite that Raffaele reopened in a new location in June serving stellar Italian classics and top Italian wines.

Daniel Achilles is the incredibly young chef everyone is talking about since he was recently awarded a Michelin star for his cooking at the new Reinstoff. Achilles has designed two tasting menus: "Quite Near" is more classic (calf's tail ravioli) while "Far Away" is much more experimental (scallop tartare with brussels sprouts and oyster emulsion). The wine list highlights Spanish and German producers.

Our February story on Park City, Utah, was fun to research—but the best part was heading out there last month and experiencing it for myself. One moment I've been reliving in my head is stopping by the St. Regis Deer Crest Resort after a long day skiing. The property, which you can enter via gondola or on skis, overlooks the slopes of pristine Deer Valley. The views were breathtaking as I sat outside, a steaming peppermint tea in my hand, watching as kids in the heated pool below had a serious snowball fight and skiers completed their last runs of the day. The Terrace Café menu (done by Jean-Georges Vongerichten) also had tempting choices like Snake River beef chili and Valrhona chocolate pudding, but next time I go I'll step inside for his Asian burgers at the resort's J&G Grill—or I'll try making them at home with the recipe from our February issue. 

Until very recently, most visitors to Park City, Utah (me included) could only get a passing glimpse at the luxurious world of Talisker. Created by a high-end real-estate developer, Talisker is made up of three private communities whose members enjoy exclusive access to clubhouses at many of the area's ski resorts. But that all changed earlier this year with the opening of Talisker on Main, a new restaurant that's open to everyone. I visited the place recently and found it a sophisticated alternative to downtown's many rustic spots, with pressed-tin ceilings, crystal chandeliers and sheepskin chairs. Chef John Murcko, a 15-year Park City veteran, has some outstanding meats on his menu, like seared Utah elk served over glazed yams, but even though I'm a carnivore, my hands-down favorite dish was the salad of thinly sliced, roasted brussels sprouts with toasted hazelnuts and a touch of Jerez sherry vinegar. I only wish I had been there a few weeks earlier, during the Sundance festival, when I could have spotted Adrian Grenier, Paris Hilton and Joan Rivers.

I’m in Berlin this week, and in between business meetings I’ve had some extraordinary meals. One surprise: In a city I normally associate with Wiener schnitzel and currywurst, tons of restaurants are offering really interesting vegetarian options. Chef Michael Hoffman of the Michelin-starred restaurant Restaurant Margaux is perhaps the city’s biggest vegetable champion; he even has a cookbook dedicated entirely to cooking with herbs (an English version is in the works) and a second vegetable-centric cookbook in the pipeline. He and his lovely wife, Kathrin, who runs the front of the house at Margaux, recently planted gardens in nearby greenhouses so they can source vegetables and herbs year round. Hoffman promotes his seven-course vegetarian tasting menu with equal, if not greater, enthusiasm than his regular tasting menu. I was truly impressed with dishes like a seaweed salad with candied lemon and ginger, jus of pumpkin and lime and a savory baked “sushi” of pumpkin and couscous (pumpkin and couscous wrapped sushi-style in a superthin layer of phyllo dough). And his sommelier was up to the tricky challenge of finding perfect vegetable-friendly wines (the remarkable 600-plus-bottle wine list is nearly 70-percent German) with choices like the 2006 Weingut Bernhard Eifel Barriques Weisser Burgunder from the Mosel.

Brooklyn assemblyman Felix Ortiz thinks that New Yorkers are ingesting too much salt. So, as a favor to us, he's proposed a bill that would ban the use of all salt in the preparation of food at restaurants. (Even Mayor Bloomberg is only aiming for a 25 percent reduction over the next five years, as Eater reminded us.) Now, even the most salt-happy among us—and I put myself in that group—recognize that some restaurants consistently serve over-salted food. But, if Mr. Ortiz has his way, we can all say goodbye to some now-quintessential NYC foods: the sweet-salty City Bakery chocolate chip cookie, Locanda Verde's creamy ricotta finished with flecks of sea salt, even street-vendor pretzels. While I am certain restaurant-goers would be shocked at the amount of salt that goes into their food, I cannot imagine a world without these dishes. Can you? I hereby declare this bill utterly ridiculous. Who is with me?

Here, F&W recipes that celebrate the power of salt:

Salt Cod Croquettes

Salt-Baked Trout

Salt-Roasted Shrimp

Smoky Pork Pappardelle

While attending one of Serenbe's Southern Chefs Series workshops, writer Danny Bonvissuto spoke to guest chef Kevin Gillespie about his next restaurant project. Here's the scoop:

Thanks to Top Chef, Gillespie’s farm-to-table restaurant, Woodfire Grill, is often booked six weeks out. Gillespie’s next project: a barbecue joint just a few blocks away in an old auto repair shop. Due to open in November, the spot – which he says will be named with Atlanta in mind – will have no menu; he’ll roast two Berkshire hogs a day, rotate side dishes, and when the food’s gone, it’s gone.

I thought things couldn't get much better than lunch at Torrisi Italian Specialties, the terrific new deli in Manhattan’s Little Italy. And then they opened for dinner. The genius of Torrisi, for those who haven't been, is that chefs Rich Torrisi and Mario Carbone meticulously source only made-in-America Italian ingredients. They won't use balsamic vinegar or Parmigiano-Reggiano (instead, they make a Late Harvest Zinfandel vinegar and buy a nutty hard cow’s milk cheese from Wisconsin). They started experimenting with Worcestershire sauce until they found out it was from England (“Get that out of here,” said Carbone).  Now they’ve staked out a couple of caper bushes in California and have anchovies and olives curing in their cellar.

But let’s talk about that dinner, which is a $45, five-course deal. The Torrisi chefs are doing brilliant things, like topping perfectly greasy and garlicky bread with tomato powder, then serving it with warm mozzarella. They also make Ravioli Caruso, filled with chicken liver and named for the famed tenor who backed the epic NYC restaurant Mamma Leone’s (Torrisi and Carbone cite Mamma Leone as an inspiration alongside Thomas Keller and Joël Robuchon in a video they made about themselves). For dessert, Torrisi offers Italian ices inspired by the Lemon Ice King of Corona in Queens—made here with grapefruit and served in little paper pill cups—and a cookie plate that includes a stellar homemade version of those tri-color ones that, for once, taste as good and as fun as they look.