MARIANI’S
September 1, 2003
NEWSLETTER
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EDITOR'S NOTE: This newsletter is
also available on the very
comprehensive food site www.sautewednesday.com
, which has dozens of other links to food articles
from
around the world.
COVER STORY: Two Gems: Salt in Philadelphia and Jean-Louis in Greenwich by John Mariani
NEW YORK CORNER: Jefferson by John Mariani
Of Venice, Nigella, and the NYTimes by John Mariani
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TWO GEMS: Salt and Jean-Louis
by John Mariani
Good things truly do come in small boxes. (I'm thinking particularly of engagement rings and white truffles.) Two prime examples are a well-established French restaurant in Greenwich, CT, and a spare new place near Philadelphia's Rittenhouse Square. Both are diminutive in size, unpretentious in decor, and extremely congenial towards guests, most of whom on any given night, are probably regulars. And both are owned by fiercely committed people who choose not to do or serve the obvious.
A French chef transferred to the U.S. once told me that the salient difference between running a restaurant in Europe and one here is, "In Europe, the clientele comes to eat the food of the chef; in America, the chef must cook whatever the clientele expects." It is a very telling comment, for how many serious chefs in the U.S. bash their heads against the kitchen wall when yet another order comes in for "salmon--no sauce" or "salad--no oil or garlic"? It is unnerving, unless you are a restaurateur solely in it for the money. (Somewhere in between lie reasonable expectations on both sides of the kitchen door.)
In the case of Salt (253 S. 20th St.; 215-545-1990) in Philadelphia and Jean-Louis (61 Lewis Street; 203-622-8450; www.restaurantjeanlouis.com ) in Greenwich, the owners and chefs cannot do other than what they believe in, although they may sigh and give in to the occasional dweeb who wants nothing but a plate of beets for dinner. But to want to go to Salt or Jean-Louis is to want to eat the particular cuisine served there, which in the case of the older restaurant, is an ever evolving, very personalized French cooking of Jean-Louis Gérin, who took over this little jewel of a dining room 18 years ago from Guy Savoy of Paris, where Gérin had been sous-chef.
The small dining room (right),
seemingly
doubled in size by a
mirrored wall,
is extremely pretty, re-done over the years with fresh new colors and
lighting, so that now it has the look of a Provençal
auberge, neither too rustic nor too posh, simply relaxing and
smart.
Service, under maître d' Amar, is very attentive (it should be in a
room with only 40 seats).With his wife Linda, Jean-Louis engages guests in conversation from the moment they enter, and although you can bank on Jean-Louis to be cooking or overseeing everything that comes out of his minuscule kitchen, he seems to be everywhere at once. If you ask him what's good for the evening, he'll shrug and say gleefully, "Look over the menu, choose what you think you'd like, and then I'll cook what I want you to have anyway." And you'll be delighted with the results. I certainly was on my most recent visit, beginning with a glass of crisp, green Lucien Crochet '02 Sancerre as we nibbled on an intense little amuse bouche of tomato bavarois and garlic tuile. A first course of tenderly cooked vegetables in a green pea emulsion with nubbins of lobster with citrus and herbs had all the elements of summer on one plate. The fish course was a "drunken" red snapper cooked in white wine, with lukewarm fingerling potato salad and a parsley sorbet whose coldness clicked with the other temperatures, the mild flavor of parsley interfering no further. Wholly complimentary was a Guigal La Doriane Condrieu '01, whose viognier character added yet another dimension to the dish.
I suspect the reason few restaurants serve consommé any more is because most chefs can't make a decent one to save their careers. But classically trained Jean-Louis knows exactly what he's about when he makes his cassolette of double oxtail consommé with scallions and summer truffles. The ruddy, crystal clear consommé had a deep intensity, which the scallions added to, though the ever bland summer truffles did not. Crispy sweetbreads followed, with sautéed artichokes on leaves of arugula with an emulsion made from the cooking juices and terrine de foie gras with slivers of fresh foie gras still cooking on the hot plate when it reaches your table--a brilliant idea and one of the very best dishes I've had all year. For a while Jean-Louis had gone through a cut-the-fat culinary period, and I wasn't wholly pleased about his robbing food of certain flavors only butter or oil can impart. Fortunately I think he's over that, and a dish like the sweetbreads shows how wonderful a little fat can be. With this dish we enjoyed a Chorey Côte de Beaune Domaine Tollot Beaut '99, followed by a magnificently structured Château Sociando Mallet '86 with the final meat course of lamb tenderloin with a double-baked vegetable compote, a green olive and fresh mint salsa, and roasted red pepper goutelette (good, but a little heavy on the herbs) and a superb filet mignon with a perfectly made sauce bordelaise.
Jean-Louis always carries an array of good cheeses. The desserts we had that night included a buttery raspberry crumble, a textbook crème brûlée, a chocolate petit pot, a warm apple tart of fine crispness, and good old-fashioned chocolate mousse.
The wine list itself has exceptional breadth and impressive depth (it has a Best of Award of Excellence from Wine Spectator), with about 550 selections, including a roster of Bordeaux and Burgundies from the '70s and '80s at prices Jean-lOuis hasn't changed in a decade. Menu options include a 5-course tasting menu at $69, a vegetarian menu at $55, and à la carte appetizers $15-$29, entrees $38-$41.
Salt (below) is the
simple monosyllabic name for a
restaurant of many dimensions, even if the room is in a monotone color
scheme, with a tiny bar up front, small fireplace,
and well-set tables placed
amicably so you don't feel cramped. Votive candles set the gentle
mood
here, and although it can get loud in these small quarters, music is
kept to a bearable level. Owner David Fields, a photographer who
once moonlighted as restaurant
reviewer for Philadelphia
Magazine, put his money and heart into this project, and the results
have paid off, at least in terms of the number of guests he has each
night and the critical raves Salt has received (including, yes, Philadelphia Magazine).
Chef Vernon Morales, Nicaraguan by
birth, has serious credentials that include stints at NYC's Daniel and
Spain's controversial El Bulli, where he picked up an unfortunate
infatuation with chef Ferran Adria's foam mania. No big deal
really: He's too fine a chef with his own ideas to allow momentary
faddishness to stick to him for long.
Salt's wine list is very
user friendly, printed on the same fold-out page as the menu and
therefore easy to glance at when you're choosing a bottle to go with
Morales' food. Fields buys his wines a case at a time, which
means you may not find that lovely Slovenian white you had this time,
next time, but there'll be something just as interesting too.
Fields also annotates each wine, which gives you something
to read if
you run low on conversation. I applaud the eclectic nature
of the list, with plenty of options under $40. Pennsylvania's
disgraceful state-controlled wine and liquor board forces wine prices
up for every shop and restaurant in the state, and restaurateurs
have to be savvy in order to offer good value, so it's hard to assess
just what the mark-up might be on certain wines here. From what I
can figure out, wines seem marked up about double retail plus a few
bucks--which in Pennsylvania is a steal. Glassware is of good
quality.
With one exception, all my notes from the
night I dined at Salt were very positive, including a couple of
outstanding dishes, like Morales' warm rabbit escabeche with roasted
asparagus that had some real flavor, morels, and an intriguing
licorice-scented mushroom emulsion. In the same ranking I'd put
his crayfish and zucchini blossom risotto with baby zucchini and a
tempered basil jus. You
can see the El Bulli influence
in a dish of sea urchin and scallop
ceviche with a cucumber sorbet, lemon oil, espelette pepper and
radish, a reasonable rendering nowhere near the craziness of El Bulli,
Adrian
practices, where shock value too often overrides good taste.
Simply roasted razor clams with garlic and oil
and a squeeze of lemon juice made far more common sense, but a terrine
of chicken, foie gras, summer truffles (let's ban these tasteless
spores!), butter lettuce, tomato, chives and marjoram salad with
truffle dressing was a whole lot of stuff that didn't add up to much
flavor.
Among the main courses, I liked most a Florida
pompano--a species of fish that for some reason doesn't travel well
north of the Mason-Dixon line, but Morales has a feel for the fish and
does it impeccably, with stir-fried bok choi tips, scallions, lychees,
and a spicy tomato-ginger water and tapioca pearls. Also very
good is his organic chicken (specified to be "young" on the menu), with
spring peas, carrots, soft polenta and a chicken jus flavored with
hyssop. Red snapper with crispy rice crust, fresh hearts of palm (where
does he get these fresh?), a citrus salad and French beans came
together harmoniously, and there was nothing to criticize a saddle of
lamb with pistachio-lemon crust, artichoke purée, baby fennel,
roasted
artichokes, tomato and fig marmalade except for the one thing that
pushed it over the edge into a conceit--vanilla jus. 
Despite its size, Salt packs a good selection
of cheeses, served with a quince purée and a selection of Ports
and
Madeiras. There are four dessert wines each night to go with sweets
like a delicious tapioca pudding with cherries marinated
in Sangria, with something called a "crème brûlée
foam." Yogurt panna cotta with honey and orange blossom gelée
tasted an awful lot like your regulation plastic cup of yogurt, and a
brown butter financier cake with hazelnut praline and chocolate sorbet
was very good, if a tad dry that evening.
Appetizers at Salt run $9-$18, main courses $21-$28.
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NEW YORK CORNER: Jefferson by John Mariani
The West
Village eating scene has not gotten the kind of attention the East
Village's and Lower East Side's have, though the opening of Jefferson
(left),
across from the Jefferson Market Library, can give the former bragging
rights over much that is new in the latter. Unlike the owners of
so many other
downtown restaurants that trade on their supposed hip-ness (dark
rooms, blistering noise, style over substance on the plate) and the
ability to catch a trend about three weeks after it's crested
elsewhere, Jefferson's chef-owner Simpson Wong appears
to have his feet planted firmly on West 10th Street and plans to be
around for a while. Those feet have legs.For one thing the dining room, which has an ideal 65 seats, has been designed by Philip Wu with an eye towards the ear, that is, a careful use of surfaces that catch light rather than rebound sound, so that conversation is marvelously possible. Good recessed lighting, bright flowering plants. and wood floors soften the whiteness of tile and glass walls, and it's nice to see a waitstaff south of 14th Street wearing spanking white shirts and pale-colored neckties rather than the usual black t-shirt and jeans. The staff is also exceptionally pleasant, without attitude and full of cordially imparted knowledge about a menu that invites inquiries.
The crowd is a pleasingly diverse bunch, and while there's no need to dress up here, most people were dressed appropriate to going out to a serious restaurant, even on a very hot August evening in Greenwich Village.
Wong, who also runs Cafe Asean two doors away, is of Malaysian and Chinese roots, so he has every right to invest his cooking with Pacific flavors, and he does so lightly, without lashing the plates with sweet and hot herbs, chilies and jams that destroy one's palate after two bites. His sous-chef, Masahito Uno, adds further ballast to this, one of the most sensible fusion-style menus in New York right now.
The wine list is nothing so special (a mere two pages) that it will get in the way of the food.
.
Wine prices are
another thing--they are mostly high. For instance, Brancott Pinot Noir
Reserve ''00 sells in NYC wine shops for $15; at Jefferson, it's
$42; Penfolds Shiraz Bin 138 '99 goes for $19, here $48; Claude
Marechal Ladoix Rouge '00, $19 versus $54 respectively; Melville
Chardonnay '01 is pretty fair, at $53, and Veuve-Clicquot Yellow Label
at $86, if you're so inclined.I found the appetizers most convincing (and my caveat is that I'm judging this solely on one visit with my wife, not a thorough run-through of every item on the menu, as I'd prefer to do), beginning with some primally fresh yellowtail sashimi with Asian pear, preserved lemon, capers and a dash of olive oil--all done with the restraint they require to merge harmoniously. I could have scarfed down two or three plates of the black edamame ravioli with gingko nuts and mascarpone cheese--but frankly even without the edamame I would have loved this dish because it was floating in a sauce of butter and cream . Sea scallops were rolled in rice flakes and served with braised endive and a white miso-tangerine sauce--lovely, delicate, very fine.
The entrees did not come quite up to the appetizers, though I certainly enjoyed a flavorful organic "black silky chicken," raised in Brooklyn apparently, served with red Asian wine lees and Malabar spinach--quite an international melange indeed. Potato noodle -crusted halibut came with a pleasing roasted tomato, zucchini ribbon, curry Béarnaise and mint yogurt,
I have rarely found Asian-fusion desserts tantalizing (I'm a sucker for those cloyingly sweet indian cheese desserts), and I could have done without the chrysanthemum flavoring in the panna cotta, which came with a delicious pear-lemon compote. Goat's cheese potstickers were a clever idea, served with a caramel liquor sauce and vanilla ice cream, but someday someone must tell me what's so terrific about Fuji apples, which I find pretty bland.
Appetizers at Jefferson run $9-$19, entrees $20-$28, which is very fair for this quality of food and service in this neck of the wood.
NEW YORK TIMES
VENDETTA STRIKES VENICE YET AGAIN!
. . . And Nigella Misses the Boat
In a
recent article (“From Your Own Rialto, the Refreshing Taste of Venice,”
June 9,
2003), New York Times Anglo-voluptuary
food writer Nigella Lawson
writes, “It is pitifully easy to eat badly in
What is it with Times foodies
versus
Venice—a city with superb restaurants from the
trattorias like Corte Sconta up through fine ristoranti
like Al Graspo de Ua? It would be
difficult to find better seafood
in Italy than in the fish markets that supply the restaurants in this
magical
city. But when Ms. Lawson gripes that
she has “never been lucky in finding bigoli, the only authentically
whole-wheat
pasta in Italy,” lamenting that one of the classic Venetian dishes,
bigoli in a salsa of anchovies and onions is
impossible to find on a Venice menu, one must question her motives. Had she done even a minimum of research on the
subject—even consulting
the
chauvinistic French Michelin Guide
or, God forbid, perhaps asking a fishmonger in the Rialto market—she
would have
found the dish in profusion, beginning with the restaurant Venetian
food
authority Marcella Hazan calls the best in the city, the beautiful Da
Fiore in
the San Polo district, where they’ve had it on the menu for ages.
But
if one goes to a town with one’s prejudices already in place, you will
never
come across what you don’t wish to find in the first place. But what can one expect from Lawson when she
goes on to give a recipe for bigoli in
salsa made with butter and makes a bellini (invented at Harry’s Bar
in
Venice, where it is made with peach juice)
by tossing a bunch of peaches into a blender?
But
I am nothing if not big hearted. Next time Nigella
is in Venice, I’d be happy to squire her around, buy her a
bellini at Harry's, and bring her to places where the bigoli
in salsa, risotto con seppie, fegato
alla veneziana, peverade, and true scampi
are prepared to perfection. And I promise not to push her in the way of
an
oncoming vaporetto.
---J.M.
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QUICK
BYTES
* 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. 10 Bayard's Restaurant (One Hanover Sq.) in NYC will be
holding
their first "Heirloom Tomato Festival" on Stone Street.
The tomatoes for the festival will all come from the
10,000
plants that Eberhard Müller (Executive Chef at Bayard’s and a
partner in the
restaurant) and his wife, Paulette Satur have grown at Satur Farms on
Long
Island. The outdoor Festival will include a buffet of savory and sweet
dishes,
as well as beverages made with some of the 30 kinds of heirloom
tomatoes. Tix
are $5, and will be sold on site the day of the event. All buffet items
and
drinks will be $5. For info check www.bayards.com
.
* On Sept. 10 there will be an educational, sit-down tasting of
Auchentoshan (Lowlands), Glen Garioch (Highlands) and Bowmore (Islay)
single malts led by whisky expert Fergus Hartley of Morison Bowmore
Distillers from Scotland fromt NYC's Park Avenue Liquors. at the Union
League Club in Manattan. For tickets ($45) call Warren Radford,
212-685-2442.
* On Sept. 13 Chef/owner
Jim
Solomon of The Fireplace (1634 Beacon St.) in Brookline. MA, will
begin his
“Fireside Chat series,” held every other Saturday afternoon from
September
through June, featuring guest speakers such as vintners, master brewers
and
farmers. The cost of each tasting is an
average of $25 per person including light food. Reservations
are recommended but not necessary. For
reservations, call
617-975-1900.
* On Sept. 16,
thirty of NYC’s
chefs, including Scott
Conant (L’IMPERO), Terrance Brennan (ARTISANAL CHEESE
CENTER), Richard Sandoval (PAMPANO),
Jonathan Waxman (WASHINGTON PARK), Wylie Dufresne (WD-50), Tom
Colicchio (‘WICHCRAFT), and Geoffrey Zakarian (TOWN)
will feature
samples from their menus a walk-around the
Bon Appétit Wine
and Spirits Focus Grand
Tasting to benefit The Make-A-Wish Foundation®. A
silent auction of wines, travel packages, and plates designed by
celebrities will be held. The event will be held at the New York
Marriott Marquis (1535 Broadway). To order tickets call 888-34-.FOCUS or go to www.bonappetit.com/promo.
$115 for
orders received on or before
* On Sept. 23 Susan Samson, owner of Sakonnet Vineyards, will host a walking
tour of the vineyard followed by a wine tasting and luncheon, at the
winery at
162 West Main Rd. in Little Compton, RI. The cost is $5 for WCR
Members
& Students, and $10 for Non-Members.
* On Sept. 17 Chicago’s Avenues (The
Peninsula, 108
E. Superior St.; avenues.pch@peninsula.com
) will present a Friends of James Beard benefit dinner in honor of the
100th
birthday of James Beard, with some of Chicago's most renowned chefs
preparing a
7-course meal paired with wines from Stag's Leap Wine Cellars and Dom
Pérignon. Avenues Chef de Cuisine David Hayden will be
joined by Grant Achatz
(Trio), Matthias Merges (Charlie Trotter's), Shawn McClain (Spring),
Bryan
Colvig (MOD), Carrie Nahabedian (Naha) and Richard Chen (Shanghai
Terrace).
$200 pp for members of the James Beard Foundation, $250 pp for guests. Call 312- 573-6754.
* From Sept.
18-22 The Martha’s Vineyard Classic
will showcase local chefs in a series of cooking demos, beer and wine
tastings. There will be winery dinners
and a comedy night. Check www.mvculinaryclassic.com for info.
copyright John
Mariani 2003