MARIANI’S~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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Cover Story: A Unique Scotland Retreat by John Mariani

New York Corner: Acqua Pazza by John Mariani

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UP AND WAY AWAY IN SCOTLAND
by John Mariani

               Skibo Castle

      
     In looking for a joyous observation with which to begin this story on Scotland, I was astonished to find that compendiums like the very comprehensive Dictionary of Quotations carried lines--some famous, some wholly forgettable--by authors from Shakespeare to James Barrie who seemed either to loathe the place or at best felt sorry for its poor inhabitants. None need be repeated here, except, perhaps, Pope Pius II's remark, in 1435, that "There is nothing the Scots like better to hear than the abuse of the English."
     It was of course  the English whose ill treatment of the Scots bore the chronic fruits of fear and rebellion, but it's difficult to imagine so few outsiders not responding to Scotland's haunting, if sometimes stark, beauty, from the Lowlands to the fabled Highlands.  Those who know only the legends of the great dark moors and the mysterious deep lochs  are missing a land of  salmon-rich rivers like the Tay and teeming seaport towns like Mallaig, vast stretches of valleys and yellow fields, and craggy sea-splashed isles with wondrous place names like Skye, Rum, Eigg, Muck, and Canna.  One can follow the "Whiskey Trail" of distilleries and visit the woolen  mills where the Scots' tartans are still made, and walk the cobbled streets of Glasgow and Edinburgh.  And then there are the castles, scores of them from Stirling to Balmoral, some in utter ruin, others in disrepair, and still others restored and kept open as proud museums.   None, however, possesses the carefully cultivated beauty of Skibo Castle (shown above),  located 45 minutes from Inverness and the former home of Scotsman and American steel tycoon Andrew Carnegie.  
    Spread over 7,500 acres of woodlands and moors on the Dornoch Firth, Skibo is also home to the private Carnegie Club (011 44 1862 894600; www.carnegieclubs.com) , whose well-heeled members include celebrities like knighted Scots like Sean Connery and Welsh women like Catherine Zeta Jones to New Jersey material girls like Madonna, who ante up a mere $5,000 to join (another private club in Scotland now charges $160,000) and $750 per day per double room.

    For this members get everything, and I do mean everything, from glorious accommodations and meals to full use of the kind of marble pool Agatha Christie would use for a novelette, the posh Clarins Spa, salmon and trout fishing, falconry (left), horseback riding, clay pigeon shooting, tennis and off-road 4 x 4 driving--at no extra charge. Which, when you come right down to it, is a pretty terrific deal, especially since the castle and property  are well deserving of  Carnegie's description  as “heaven on earth.” 
      Fortunately, those wondering if it is worth joining a club whose members are now the owners of the property, there is a test run available. Non-members may make a one-time, two-day minimum visit at $1,000 per day for a double room, covering accommodations, food and beverage, unlimited golf and use of most of the sporting facilities. 
    Carnegie, a dirt-poor Scots emigrant to America who became the richest man in the world,  purchased Skibo castle after his wife Louise delivered their first and only child (Carnegie was then in his 60s), and he decided that his daughter Margaret "must have a Scottish home!"   Skibo was but a good-sized estate house by the time Carnegie saw it, a thousand years later after its origins as a Viking stronghold. He plunked down £85,000 and began to turn the structure  into a magnificent castle with a grand entrance hall of carved oak, five stained glass windows, and a huge cathedral organ.  The bedrooms, done  in the puffed-up Edwardian style, were as individualized in their architecture as their amenities were state of the art. (The bathrooms are really quite amazing in their size and marble appointments.) 
    Carnegie stocked the bookshelves of the library with the rarest of bound editions and  set out a nine-hole golf course where, though an average golfer, he expected to win every game he played with his guests, who were forewarned by the staff that their beating him would prevent them from ever being invited back.
    After finishing Skibo Carnegie spent five months of each year here until his death in 1919; his wife continued summer visits till her own death in 1946, and his daughter until 1981, when she sold the castle and invested the proceeds in the Carnegie United Kingdom Trust.  
    Arriving at Skibo is a large part of the enchantment, met at the Inverness train by a staff member in a Land Rover, then winding for miles through the moors and across wide waters, with the smell of the sea in the air.  When you come to the end of Skibo's meandering driveway the sight of the castle itself  gives one pause that one has entered into a Brigadoon-like world,  with its towers and turrets, its ivied walls, and the happy greeting of a staff dressed in earth-colored tweeds and the occasional kilt.  The staff thrives on their response to meet every request with an immediate resolution. They lead you down endless hallways and up angled staircases through room after room of the most exquisite antiques and refurbished wallpapers and carpets--many original. You enter your room to marvel at its impeccable tidiness and its generous size.  You know all will go well as long as you stay here.
     I am also happy to report that Skibo has just acquired a new Managing Director, whom many--including myself-- believe is the best in Great Britain:  Peter Crome, most recently from the superb Chewton Glen Hotel in Hampshire, and prior to the Old Course Hotel at St. Andrew’s and London's Savoy.
 
      The 21 bedrooms at Skibo are each different from the next, and one can choose from stoutly masculine styles with massive bedposts to pretty, feminine salons as fine as china and lace can make them, including Margaret Carnegie's own bedroom.   The organ is played at full throttle by a kilted staff member at meal times, and each morning at 8 a.m., by Carnegie's command, a bagpiper in full Scots regalia struts in front of the castle to ensure guests that day has begin--whether you want it to or not. 
    You then dress and go down for a splendid and lavish breakfast of just plucked eggs, good Scottish bacon, tea, coffee, wheat bread, orange marmalade, and, of course, oatmeal porridge, and then the day is yours to fritter away as you see fit, which might mean going back to bed, playing golf, swimming a lap or two, learning a good deal in a short time about hawks and owls, or driving around the property in a vintage car, of which the Club maintains several.
   Dinner, preceded by a cocktail reception in the library, is a communal affair in one of two principal dining rooms.   I found that the people who come to Skibo are far more diverse than one might imagine; indeed, having plenty of money seems to be the only thing anyone has in common here.  So you'll meet American businessmen and London lords, New York socialites and nouveau riche Parisians, Swiss bankers and Hollywood movie stars.  People dress well but not stodgily, and, as wine at dinner follows the Scotch at the reception, everyone seems happy to embrace and be accepted by the rest of the crowd.

The dining room at Skibo                                                                                                                The meals are not extravaganzas, thank God--usually three courses cooked more or less in the French  and Continental manner, with Welsh chef Craig Rowland utilizing as many local  products as possible--silken salmon, freshly caught venison and grouse, lamb and the like.   One of the meals I had here began with a tomato consommé with slivered discs of
scallops and fresh  basil, accompanied by a '99 Haute Cites de Beaune, followed by a filet of beef and rösti potatoes, braised onions, and a Madeira sauce, with which we drank a Domaine du Grand Tinel Châteauneuf-du-Pape '98, then finished with a dessert of créme brûlée with roasted figs.  Rowland keeps his food simple, lightly seasoned, sauced and garnished, and the wines served are durable Bordeaux and Burgundies, with Ports served with the cheese, and all manner of brandies and Single Malt Scotches with which to finish. 
    Afterwards the options are to stroll the grounds or to retire to one's room with a good book, perhaps Sir Walter Scott's The Heart of Midlothian or some other potboiler of the 19th century, if you really want to get into the swing of things.  Tomorrow will be just like today, if you wish it to be, and it will always begin a eight to the sound of Scottish bagpipes. 
 
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NEW YORK CORNER: Acqua Pazza by John Mariani

    New York has about all the Italian restaurants it needs, from a thousand pizzerias (half of them with the name "Ray") on up to deluxe ristoranti, but it is curiously deficient in good Italian seafood house.  Of course, one assumes that many Italian restaurants do a decent job with seafood, but that simply isn't true most of the time.  Most Italian restaurants botch seafood big time, either through overcooking or by adding countless ingredients to the dish that have no place being there. You know the drill: "Tonight, signore e signori, we have a bee-yoo-tee-fool striped bass alla livornese, which the chef cooks whole with rosemary, oregano, garlic, oil, a fresh tomato sauce, some fresh clams and mussels, with a white wine sauce and a lee-tle touch of Cognac. Magnifico!"  Which would be the last thing I'd order at an Italian restaurant, fairly sure that the sea bass was some re-named species from Patagonia, the herbs from a bottle, the tomato sauce from a cauldron, the clams and mussels from a pot simmering since noontime, white wine from a jug, and the "brandy" from upper New York State.
    Which is why, when I want fine Italian seafood, I go either to the well-established Esca on Ninth Avenue or to the new Acqua Pazza, just off Fifth Avenue (36 West 52nd Street; 212-582-6900; www.acquapazzanyc.com).  A nondescript exterior hides a very handsome, quietly stylish dining room done in cool grays, browns, and whites, grounded with slate tiles, and accentuated with soft lighting falling upon modern artwork and seasonal flowers.  It is so good to enter a dining room and be cordially greeted by a well-dressed staff that is both gracious and glad that you have honored Acqua Pazza with your presence (although one staff member, who asked in a thick accent,  "How much people?" in my party, shouldn't be allowed to answer the phone). 
    The mood is obviously set by the impeccable Umberto Arpaia, who also runs Cellini and whose sister Donatella runs the estimable southern Italian-style restaurant, Bellini, on the east side, and soon to open another spot this fall near Bloomingdale's.  Their father, the veteran and very amiable restaurateur Lello Arpaia makes sure his progeny make him proud by his being around as much as possible.
    The name "Acqua Pazza" means "crazy water," referring to a southern Italian method of cooking fish in sea water.  Lacking a sluice from the Mediterranean, Arpaia falls back on cooking with salted New York water, which achieves the same results in dishes that have a delicacy rare in Italian restaurants. 
    Umberto Arpaia will cordially come to your table to ask how everything is going, while his waiters will tell you, simply and directly, the day's specials, without going into those dithyrambs about overwrought seafood dishes "weeth joost a touch of Cognac."   But the daily menu is very strong, with barely a cliché on it, and for those not in the mood for seafood, there are options like rack of lamb with braised escarole, a grilled veal chop with potatoes, and medallions of chicken with tomato and mozzarella.  But go elsewhere for those.  You come here for seafood, beginning with marinated, fresh Sardinian anchovies with charred sweet bell peppers, or perhaps a carpaccio of lovely red mullets (triglie) with ginger and baby beets.  Sea scallops are quickly seared and just as quickly dressed with olive oil, lemon and Swiss chard (the chef uses different olive oils and sea salts for different dishes).  The rich brodetto alla trapanese here is made with a gilt-head bream (orata) and accompanied by couscous.
    Pastas are all fresh, all made with organic eggs.  They may be had as full portions, running $17-$21, but appetizer portions are available. On various visits here I've enjoyed the tortelli Emiliani, pasta stuffed with lobster and broccoli di rape in a lobster broth; sedanini pasta (cigarette shaped) with eggplant, salted ricotta, and plum tomatoes; and gnocchetti with crabmeat ands tomato.   I have resisted so far trying the espresso-flavored  pasta with shrimp and porcini in seafood confit. Maybe next time.
    Of the seafood entrees, very, very good is the whole grilled Mediterranean, heads-on shrimp with sautéed spinach topped with a thin sheet of melted mozzarella.  Each day there is a whole baked Mediterranean fish--perhaps orata or branzino or San Pietro--cooked in the salted water with tomatoes, and Atlantic cod is pan-seared and served with pistachio, raisins and pignoli.  This is one place I would definitely order pesce spada (swordfish), a species usually pretty awful in restaurants of any stripe, but Mr. Arpaia, whose family hails from southern Italy, buys the finest available and does not overcook it, serving it with mushrooms and an orange-lemon rind confit that identifies this as a dish very much of the southern Mediterranean.  Mr. Arpaia sighs that he is in constant battle with his suppliers, often sending back less-than-perfect quality fish and never serving today's fish tomorrow.
    Desserts at Acqua Pazza do not take the traditional, tired Italo-American line. They are as well-composed as you'd find at stellar ristoranti around town like San Domenico, Felidia and F.illi Ponte, with fine examples of baba au rhum served with a selection of three rums, and a chocolate dome containing a luscious ganache.
    The winelist is serviceable but curiously not among the higher tiers of many other Italian restaurants in New York, with far too many red wines in the $100 + category and too few beneath $50. 
    Appetizers run a very fair $9-$11 at dinner, pastas $17-$21 (full portions), and main courses, $21-$29.

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PURPLE PROSE, JAMES JOYCE DIVISION: . . . AND YES! I SAID AFTER EATING THE HIGH, WILD MUSHROOMS--YES! I WILL, OH, YES!

 “Canyon Road court, at white-linened table, solid hand-pleasing silver, scudding clouds lit by last light, old ivy on stone walls.  Small glasses of vin santo appear, a mapley late-harvest Chianti, and large-rimmed bowls, sheltering a smooth pool of sauce, darkly glinting, hinting of tangy French butter, thyme and high, wild mushrooms, cayenne and Spanish sherry with, oh yes, sweetbreads and foie gras.  You bite, then sinking through soft to the chew of the rich meat, and this twin dissolve—the noble slide of the wine on the tongue and the interplay of viand—is a falling through and away into the purring sensual pleasure, then returning, discovering that you are fully, ecstatically alive, well, and eating.” --Judyth Hill, reviewing The Compound in Santa Fe, NM, in Pasatiempo (July 12-18. 2002).

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DEPT. OF CORRECTIONS
The name of photographer Robert Pirillo was misspelled in last week’s article on The Breakers.

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QUICK BYTES

 * The Arizona Biltmore (2400 E. Missouri; 602-955-6600’ www.arizonabiltmore.com ) in Phoenix launches its 14^th season of winemaker dinners at Wright’s restaurant via chefs Michael Cairns and Michael Goralski, with remarks by the winemaker, beginning Sept. 4 with Iron Horse Vineyards; Oct. 2: Ceago Vinegarden; Nov. 6: Far Niente; Dec 4: Schamsberg.  For the full schedule call 602-954-2507. Each dinner is $120 pp; all nine, $855.

* On Sept. 9 Chicago’s Chef Dominique Tougne of Bistro 110 (110 E. Pearson) will lead a cooking class entitled “The Gastronomy of Mushrooms,” with a demo and tasting of 3 recipes, followed by a cocktail reception. $40 pp. Call 312-266-3114; www.bistro110restaurant.com .

*On Sept. 18 NYC’s Harvest in the Square, presented by the Union Square Local Development Corp., will showcase more than 45 top-rated restaurants in  the Union Square neighborhood.  Participating chefs from Union Square Café, Gramercy Tavern, Blue Water Grill and SushiSamba 7 will feature fresh farm produce from the Union Square Greenmarket Farmers Market, paired with wines from Long Island, New York State and around the globe. $75 pp (advance purchase), $90 pp at the door (cash only). Call 212-460-1208
 

* On Sept. 21 & 22  Bay Wolf Restaurant (3853 Piedmont Ave.) in Oakland, CA, holds a dinners to celebrate its 28th anniversary.  Chef and co-owner Michael Wild has put together a special menu that includes some of his classic duck dishes as well as some new creations. Au Bon Climat winemaker Jim Clendenden will be on hand pouring a selection of his Pinot Noirs.  $42 pp.   Bay Wolf is located at Oakland, Calif.  Call 510-655-6004 or visit www.baywolf.com.

 * On Nov. 16 Spanish chefs, Ferran Adriá of El Bulli  and Juan Mari Arzak of Restaurante Arzak in San Sebastian, will be honored at The James Beard Foundation’s 17^th annual Holiday Auction and Dinner at the Essex House Hotel in NYC, featuring chefs from Spain and the U.S. who will prepare a tribute dinner: José Ramón Andrés, Jaleo and Café Atlantico,  D.C.; Julian Serrano, Picasso in Las Vegas; Teresa Barrenechea, Marichu, NYC; Enrique Sánchez, Taberna  del Alabardero,  D.C.; Bruno Oteiza, Restaurant Tezka, Mexico City, and Jordi Butrón, of Espai Sucre restaurant and cooking school.  There will also be silent and live auctions.  $350 pp for the public, $300 for Foundation members. Call 212-627-2308,  212-675-4984 or www.jamesbeard.org.

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John Mariani is a columnist for Esquire, Wine Spectator, Diversion and the Harper Collection. He is author of The Encyclopedia of American Food & Drink (Lebhar-Friedman), The Dictionary of Italian Food and Drink (Broadway), and, with his wife Galina, the award-winning new Italian-American Cookbook (Harvard Common Press).   To  purchase from amazon.com, click on the image below.

copyright John Mariani 2003