Mouthing Off

In the F&W Test Kitchen right now, we’re testing Iron Chef Masaharu Morimoto’s sushi, and we wish he were here to taste it. But Morimoto is busy right now: He’s gearing up for a big gala charity dinner on Wednesday, May 18, called Chefs Cook for Japan, to raise money for The Japan Society’s Earthquake Relief Fund. And when they say ‘Chefs’ they mean an A-list group that includes (drumroll...) Daniel Boulud, Marcus Samuelsson, Ken Oringer, Anita Lo, Jonathan Waxman, Jose Garces and, coming all the way from Las Vegas, Paul Bartolotta. Two of NYC’s top mixologists—Julie Reiner of the Clover Club and Katie Stipe of Vandaag—are mixing cocktails.
 
Now is the time to buy tickets: They're at chefscookforjapan.com.

At the risk of exposing a deep, dark secret of my marriage, I’m coming clean: I don’t care much about baseball. My husband would never know this by the enthusiasm with which I greet baseball season, but in reality, it’s the food that draws me to the ballpark. Many of F&W's past Best New Chefs are bona fide baseball fans, though, and they’re raising the bar for awesome stadium food around the country. In Houston, Bryan Caswell is serving his famous fresh-ground burgers at the Astros’ Minute Maid Park, and Seattle chef Ethan Stowell’s beer-marinated hot dogs are a huge hit at the Mariners’ Safeco Field. In San Francisco, Traci Des Jardins’ new Public House, next door to AT&T Park, serves Anchor Steam-battered fish and chips alongside local cask ales and Humphry Slocombe ice cream. Baseball food’s getting a serious makeover—and as far as my husband’s concerned, I’m even more of a die-hard fan.

Boy, is the James Beard Foundation on fire with their 27 days of pop-up dinners. Last week, Jon Shook and Vinny Dotolo from LA’s Animal got me addicted to foie-gras biscuits. And last night, Iñaki Aizpitarte, the chef of Paris’s ultra-cool Le Chateaubriand, and Christina Tosi, with her exceptional team from NYC’s Momofuku Milk Bar, stepped up and cooked. On the menu: Tosi’s chicken and lime soup dumplings and brilliant seven-minute rhubarb with black-pepper gravy (that was dessert; seven minutes is the length of time the rhubarb spent in the microwave after being cooked sous-vide with cherry puree).

It helps to eat this kind of ingenious meal with two chefs who have cooked at Copenhagen's singular Noma: If you wonder out loud where the parmesan is that’s part of Inaki’s white asparagus with finger lime, mozzarella and sorrel, they’ll say, pretty much in unison: “Granita; parmesan granita.” Likewise they can identify all the mystery pickles on Iñaki’s lamb with burnt eggplant puree (for the record, apple, turnip and and squash).

We’re in the midst of LuckyRice, the NYC festival that celebrates so many facets of Asian cooking, from a Night Market in Brooklyn's Dumbo neighborhood tonight to the big gala dinner on Saturday night, La Fête Chinoise, with Daniel Boulud and Susur Lee. (Tickets for some events are still available.) The festival more or less kicked off last night with Opening Cocktails hosted by Opening Ceremony’s Carol Lim and Humberto Leon at the Bowery Hotel. Among the 1,000-person crowd were chefs like WD-50’s Wylie Dufresne and Top Chef star Angelo Sosa, fashion dignitaries like Phillip Lim. And oh-so-many mixologists.

Me, I didn’t try anywhere near the 34 cocktails on offer, but I can vouch for Má Pêche’s Ay Hue (a mix of fried shallot vodka, lime juice and Sriracha hot sauce). I can also speak from experience about Fatty Cue’s self-serve pickleback shots, a creation of bartender Adam Schuman that involves a big bottle of Evan Williams bourbon. But LuckyRice creator Danielle Chang has me beat. Not only did she sample all 34 cocktails, she made it to the LuckyRice after-party at Theatre Bar, where Dave Chang and Inaki Aizpitarte of Paris's Le Chateaubriand were pre-partying for their week of James Beard pop-up dinners.

Where were so many of New York City’s top chefs last Thursday night? April Bloomfield, Dave Chang, Tom Colicchio, Mark Ladner and Anita Lo, among others, weren’t in their kitchens; were they en route to London to surprise Prince William and Kate Middleton? No, they had joined their friend Eric Ripert, the host chef, to cook at the Tibet Fund’s gala dinner at the Pierre Hotel to celebrate 30 years of great work for the people of Tibet. And those chefs were cooking fantastic food right at the long dinner tables. I got to sit at Bloomfield’s table—close enough that she could hand me my sublime three-bean soup with spring vegetables (you’ll soon see it on the menu at The Breslin). If I’d sat at Ladner’s table, he would have handed me hen-and-egg braciole (and asked, “Which came first...?”); and if I’d sat at Chang’s table I would have had Momofuku’s shiitake buns.

I already felt lucky to be eating Bloomfield's just-served soup. Then one of the night’s honorees, Richard Gere, told a story about a Tibetan meal he once had that started with a two-hour prayer (he said he stopped being hungry after the first 20 minutes). I asked Ripert, who is a Buddhist, if it would be hard for him to have two-hour prayers before meals. “Maybe,” he said, laughing.

Kudos to the James Beard Foundation. They’re doing such a great job of using the about-to-be-played-out concept of pop-up restaurants to promote their big gala awards on May 9. Last week, they featured F&W Best New Chef 2002 Laurent Gras; next week comes Paris rock-star chef Inaki Aizpitarte of Le Chateaubriand. And last night I got to see Jon Shook and Vinny Dotolo, the heroes of L.A.'s Animal restaurant, serve dinner at long communal tables in a pretty room in Chelsea Market (home to all the Beard pop-ups).

Chef Tom Colicchio was in the kitchen and comedian Aziz Ansari was in the house for the night. Shook and Dotolo's menu ranged from yellowtail sashimi with garlic mojo and sunchoke chips (on the menu at their new fish spot, Son of a Gun) and an outrageous foie gras biscuit with maple sausage gravy, plus a new Animal dish, Thai BBQ quail with cashews and yogurt. (On Friday night, when they team up with another amazing chef team, Frank Falcinelli and Frank Castronova of Frankies Spuntino, the menu will be totally different.)

Speaking of pop-ups, if you’re lucky you can see Ansari doing impromptu sketches at comedy clubs around the city. And get an early look at his upcoming summer movie 30 Minutes or Less; trailers will start running in theatres this weekend.

The paper is off the windows at The Dutch! Chef Andrew Carmellini’s much-anticipated (by me and Eater.com, anyway) restaurant in Manhattan’s Soho officially started offering its late-night menu at 11 p.m. last night. The crowd included chefs like Corton’s Paul Liebrandt, Dell’anima’s Joe Campanale and Jon Shook and Vinny Dotolo, all the way from Animal in L.A. (according to Carmellini, he did 150 covers that first hour). Word has it The Dutch will start serving its regular dinner menu very, very soon. Lunch is coming after that, breakfast and brunch after that, and one day, look for a breakfast take-away counter at the Prince Street entrance. Meanwhile, a few observations:
 
* The place to sit in the front room is the long wood table, aka "the playpen" (speaking from experience, more than a dozen people is very tight fit). In the swanky back room, the black leather banquettes are especially cool.
 
* The regular menu isn’t so different than the late-night menu—no matter what time you're eating, you can and should have the scrumptious fried-oyster sandwiches, eggplant dip with potato chips and smoked-ricotta ravioli and fried chicken with ridiculously good biscuits. Go earlier, and you can also have rabbit potpie and assorted steaks and rib chops; on the late-night menu, there’s a cheddar-cheese burger and something awesome called “sloppy duck.” For a side-by-side menu comparison, though, you’ll have to ask the sister of one of the owners; he allegedly made her eat the regular menu and then the late night one back-to-back.
 
* If you can’t get to The Dutch in the next little while, amuse yourself by watching the video on its website (and note that Carmellini wrote and performed the soundtrack). Right now, you can also watch a funnily absorbing pie-making video; tomorrow comes the steak video outtakes. And of course, there are the awesome recipes Carmellini did to preview The Dutch in the November 2010 issue of Food & Wine.

I always feel a bit sheepish when I tell the sommelier at a high-end restaurant that I’d prefer beer to wine. Luckily, the brilliant team at NYC’s Eleven Madison Park is determined to elevate beer’s status in the fine dining scene. My beer expert friend, writer Christian DeBenedetti, recently directed me to some news he’d read on Brooklyn Brewery’s blog about its beer collaboration with Eleven Madison Park.

The news prompted me to call Eleven Madison Park general manager Will Guidara to get the scoop. “The role of beer in fine dining needs to change,” says Guidara. “Restaurants of our caliber always focus on wine but we’re also intensely focused on cocktails, coffee, tea and right now we’re amidst a full-on beer onslaught.” Kirk Kelewae, Eleven Madison Park’s resident beer expert, along with chef Daniel Humm and Brooklyn Brewery's Garret Oliver, are creating two barrel-aged, bottle-conditioned large-format beers. Nine Pin Brown Ale is named after the game played in the story “Rip Van Winkle” (both beers will be aged in Old Rip Van Winkle bourbon barrels). Local 11 will be a barrel-aged version of Brooklyn Brewery’s popular Local 2. The designer Milton Glaser will create the labels. Guidara says the beer will be exclusive to Eleven Madison Park, with maybe a few cases going to other friends in the industry.

Both beers will make their debut at a special Eleven Madison Park beer dinner June 26, which will also feature other unique beers that Oliver has been experimenting with, like a beer aged on lees from Riesling. “We sold half the tickets within an hour of announcing the event,” says Guidara. Only about 20 tickets are left. Email beer@elevenmadisonpark.com for a seat.

 

My personal karaoke inspiration, Jon Bon Jovi, is putting his rock-star name to good use in his native New Jersey: The musician and philanthropist has plans in the works to open a community restaurant in Red Bank. Through the Jon Bon Jovi Soul Foundation, which focuses on combatting homelessness, Soul Kitchen, opening this spring, will serve low-cost or no-cost meals to diners in exchange for volunteer work at the restaurant. Inspired by the SAME (“So All May Eat”) Café in Denver, which also operates on a pay-what-you-can model, Bon Jovi hopes his restaurant will be a model for future endeavors. The community-restaurant momentum is definitely building: In Oregon, Common Table’s low-cost meals subsidize its restaurant-job training program, and in Michigan, Selma Café raises funds to build hoop-houses for local farmers. Restaurants are realizing that they can do more in their communities than just feed people—and JBJ is doing more with his star power than just rocking out.

How exciting to be in London for the big announcement of S. Pellegrino’s World’s 50 Best Restaurants. And hear that Rene Redzepi’s Copenhagen restaurant, Noma, was once again #1. And that Manhattan’s Eleven Madison Park was one of the biggest climbers, up 26 places to #24—hurray for chef Daniel Humm & team!
 
But I wasn’t in London to hear the announcement and see those crazy celebrating chefs. Instead I relied on my friend Terry Zarikian, the creative director of NYC’s Bar Basque, to tell me the highlights. Here’s what he reports:
 
Yes, for the second year in a row, Noma took first place. For me, what’s truly exciting is the brand-new #2: the splendid El Celler de Can Roca in Girona, Spain (I predict it will be #1 next year). And a new #3, also from Spain: Mugaritz in San Sebastian (Andoni Luis Aduriz deserves it after all he did to reopen after their huge fire). Another San Sebastian restaurant, Arzak, came in at #8, making SS the only city with two restaurants in the top 10. Of course I’m proud; I’ve been promoting Basque chefs for years.
 
Arzak’s owner, Juan Mari Arzak, also received this year’s Lifetime Achievement Award for being the father of modern Basque cooking (his daughter, chef Elena Arzak, presented the award to him). How did he celebrate? With plenty of gin martinis at London's Sanderson hotel, followed by fish and chips (what else would the world’s best chefs eat in London?).