MARIANI’S
September 29,
2003
NEWSLETTER
The kitchen
crew at a San Francisco restaurant, circa 1900
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.
New York Corner: The
Biltmore Room by John Mariani
UP
AND DOWN THE AMALFI COAST
by John Mariani
Photo by Galina Stepanoff-Dargery
I suppose some people actually go to
the Amalfi Coast for the beaches and
others for the thrill of careering around hairpin turns you'd
think would cause horrifying accidents on a daily basis. Yet the
beaches are
I go for the sheer beauty of it all and for food
that ranks with the most exuberant and delicious in Italy, a cuisine
not unlike what you'll find in most Italian-American restaurants,
whose cooking derives from the millions of Southern Italian immigrants
who came to the U.S. at the turn of the last century. The region
has very few fine dining restaurants (the best, Don Alfonso 1890 in
Sant'Agata was profiled in this newsletter last week (link to:
http://pages.prodigy.net/johnmariani/030922/ ) and a plethora of
tourist-driven trattorias and pizzerias that
are not as good as they should be but a lot better than they need to
be. In so many cases the setting enhances the eating and drinking
to such a powerful extent that you can simply fall under the spell of
the place and love it out of all proportion to its true quality.
Nonetheless I had little trouble dining well over a recent ten-day trip
that included a stay in the region's most spectacularly situated
hotel, Santa Caterina (S.S. Amalfitana, Amalfi;
011-39-089-87-1012: www.hotelsantacaterina.it) just up
the road from the town of Amalfi itself.
This romantic prospect over the sea (above) is but one of the hotel's
charms, the rest being impeccable service, beginning with a warm
greeting and beautifully appointed rooms, 40 standard and deluxe rooms
and 13 suites in the main building and 9 in an annex., all with a/c (which you need these days in
Italy), PC outlet, and some with Jacuzzis. Unfortunately
they are also appointed with mosquitoes when
the window
is open, and I must have swatted a score or more during a sleepless
night. Rates this fall run €250-€600 (approx. $280-$680,
higher in peak season. The restaurant too has a breathtaking
overlook, and in the evening there's no better example of what al
fresco dining can mean than a table on the terrace. I wish I
could get more excited about the cooking here, which is good, even
inventive but not quite up to the standards of taste in the rest
of
Santa Caterina, although the wine list certainly is. The menu
resists being localized, though there are a few Amalfi-style items
here, but the attempts at a more international style don't come to
much--except a great deal of money. There are some pleasing
dishes like ravioli with zucchini and buffalo mozzarella in lemon
sauce, and pumpkin gnocchi with a julienne of fried green
peppers. Sea bass with balsamic vinegar, prawns and almonds was a
bit excessive, but the real flavors of the region come through in beef
medallions in a "pizzaiola"
tomato sauce with eggplant.
Il Buco ( Il Rampa Marina Piccola 5;
081-878-2354; www.ilbucoristorante.it ) in Sorrento, which is
the largest town after Naples before starting down the Amalfi
Coast. I can't say we were thrilled at the prospect of
another lunch, but as soon as we met the owner, Peppe Averga, we knew
we could refuse him nothing. The restaurant itself (which he's
owned for five years) is set several steps down from the Piazza San
Antonio in a former monastery building that dates to 700 A.D., remnants
of which you can see in the arched, brickwork ceiling (left). This is
not a formal place but it's well above the trattoria level, with fine
damask linens, and excellent silverware and wineglasses to go with
Signore Averga's superb wine list, which is especially rich in the
regional bottlings.like Aglianico, Falanghina, Fiano di
Avellino, Greco di Tufo, and Taurasi.
Chef De Leo chose a meal we will long remember,
because it shared the local traditions of cookery and advanced them
into the 21st century with great finesse, starting with fried zucchini
flowers stuffed with mozzarella and followed by a fillet of rana
pescatrice (monkfish) steamed lightly and served with a
purée
of
avocado and lime, and a carpaccio of artichokes. Fat, rosy triglie (red mullet)
crusted with pistachios came with morsels of
grapefruit, green beans and ricotta baked with herbs drizzled with a
sea urchins sauce, and then came two pastas--pappardelle with telline (cockles) that were as
delicious as any I've ever had, and paccheri
(big rigatoni)
with tuna,
squash, red pepper and mint. Then came polpetti (tiny octopus, below) simply done with oil,
garlic and lemon. 
We ended with
a meaty fish in Italy
called gallinella (gurnard),
which was cooked simply with olive oil,
whipped potatoes, capers and greens perfumed with lemon and
tarragon.
For dessert all we could manage was a tart little
lemon sorbetto, yet oddly
enough we didn't feel overwhelmed by the food of
the day and left Il Buco knowing we'd tasted what modern Southern
Italian cuisine should taste
like when the commitment of an entire
restaurant is so focused. Amazingly, prices are remarkably low at
Il Buco, with antipasti and pastas averaging about $14 and main courses
$19, with a generous 6-course dinner at $52 and 5 course at $46.
The next day we drove to the hilltop town of
Ravello, which is not
nearly as overrun with busloads of tourists as those towns smack by the
seaside like Amalfi and Positano. Indeed, Ravello's quiet was
what attracted so many European artists here, including Wagner, who
came for the peacefulness found the inspiration to write--heavens knows
why--Parsifal while staying at
the Villa Rufolo here (open to the public). Ravello is not
prime restaurant territory, dotted with a few
humble trattorias like 
Cumpà
Cosimo (Via Roma 42-4;
089-85-7156 ), once a wine shop (left). It's set
along the
pretty Via
Roma, lined with ceramincs and art shops, and you can smell the aromas
of the tomato and meats twenty yards
before you get to the modest facade of this trattoria., whose interior
looks
like a million others in Italy--tile floors, wooden latticework chairs,
and off-white walls. The menu is typical of the region and
everything
we had was delicious, from crespellini
alla Campa Cosimo, which were
rolls of pasta with cheese and ham in a nutmeg-laced cream sauce, to
the gnocchi alla sorrentina
baked in a casserole with tomato and
eggplant. Rabbit alla
cacciatore was a terrific dish simply
because of the flavor of the rabbit itself, and a dentice (dentex) was
a firm fleshed fish simply grilled and dressed with olive oil and
lemon. A mixed salad, as usual, was boringly basic. Our
meal, with a carafe of white wine, tax, and
service came to about $90.
While in Italy I met a vivacious American woman named Rebecca
Brooks who lives in Capri and runs Capritime
Tours, which offers
specialty private or
small group tours on Capri and throughout Italy, as well as help with
apartment rentals in Italy. Visit her website at www.capritime.com
--J.M.
by John Mariani
290 Eighth Avenue
212-807-0111
Chelsea, the area
west of Seventh Avenue from 14th
Street up to 29th Street, has become one of New York's more appealing
middleclass residential neighborhoods, though it has not yet developed
its own character in the way, Greenwich Village or SoHo has. So,
too, it's difficult to say that the newer restaurants in the area have
distinguished themselves as destination dining venues, despite some
delightful spots like Le Madri, Red Cat, and the beloved Empire
Diner. So the introduction of a restaurant with a very grand
design indeed and a chef with a very high rep in NYC foodie circles may
be the kicker to bring more exciting restaurants to Chelsea.
The Biltmore Room (
I've long been a fan of Robins since I first enjoyed
his cuisine at Aja some years back, but since then he seemed to bounce
from place to place with such disturbing frequency (last seen
briefly at Mi) that I was
tentative about approaching The Biltmore Room until he had time to
settle in. Assured that he in fact has a piece of the action
here, I decided to visit, two weeks after the restaurant opened.
And on the basis of what I ate, I'm hoping Robins stays here for a
very long time.
His style has always been East-West fusion, but
without any of the flagrant experiments lesser chefs try to pull
off. It is perfectly clear that Robins starts with the best
ingredient he can find, then enhances them very carefully. When
spicy flavors are called for, he balances them with something cool;
when
a texture is firm or chewy, he harmonizes with something soft.
Thus we began our dinner with a perfect amuse of tuna tartare topped
with caviar and set on soy-sauced sliced cucumbers. I have almost
reached by boredom level for tuna tartares, but this one was an
exemplar of a contemporary
cliché at its very best. Now that I think of it, I
think I had my first tuna tartare at Aja when Robins was chef there
years ago.
Seared Hudson Valley foie gras was delicious, served
with a fiery mango dipping sauce, the crunch of toasted almonds, and
black Thai rice salad--very typical of Robins' careful melding of
flavors and textures. I loved his squash blossoms stuffed with
excellent Maryland crab, with mango-chili dipping sauce and a sweet
corn avocado salad. I would have loved it a lot more had the dish
been as hot as it should be. In fact, I discussed with Robins his
affection for combining a hot dish on a plate with a room-temperature
or cold one, and, while admitting the squash blossom was supposed to be
hot, he insisted that the contrasts on the other plates were
intentional. But I was hardly convinced by the cold, though
otherwise tasty, dried fig cous-cous that accompanied
Algerian-spiced rack of lamb with cold braised favas, glazed carrots,
and a
tomato eggplant chutney. So, too, a superb specimen of
miso-marinated Alaskan black cod chile-spiked japanese eggplant and
pickled lotus would, in my opinion, been even better had the
somen noodles
not been room temperature.
Giant prawns "in sarong" came off well, the prawns
hot and crisp in a wrap of fried noodles, served with morsels of red
beets in a
honey-ginger vinaigrette,
avocado tomato salad and mango mint salsa. The problem with
marjoram-scented grilled quail with corn risotto, lamb sausage and
champagne grapes was neither in the concept nor the cooking but in the
quail itself, which like all quail served in this country farm-raised
(by law) and always bland birds as a result. Lavender and honey glazed
breast of
duck,
on the other hand, had plenty of flavor, served with braised endive,
sugar snap peas, truffled cauliflower purée and Port roasted
figs whose
sweetness nicely complemented the richness of the duck and the
vegetal flavor of the cauliflower.
There's a whole slew of good desserts here, from a
raspberry napoleon with Thai basil syrup and lemon grass curd to a warm
plum tart with toasted almonds and ginger ice cream.
Another Look at
Valpolicella
by Mort Hochstein
Years later I was reminded of Valpolicella
one recent afternoon at a lunch held by a rather unsung producer, Michele
Castellani, at Scopa, a fine Italian restaurant on Madison
Avenue. Castellani is a winery young by
Italian
standards, since it was founded only in 1945. Though
their wines seem to be favorites in the region and
have won many
awards, they are relatively unknown outside of
That day, they were a revelation.
I had always thought of Valpolicella as a
beginner’s wine, easy to take, but flat and uninteresting. I had always
found
Amarone, made from dried Valpolicella grapes, dry and basically
unappealing, a
wine ever in need of more aging than I was prepared to give it because
I saw
little opportunity for improvement in those I’ve sampled over the
years. Not so with the Castellani wines. Like his fellow producers
in Tuscany and Piedmont who have made Chianti
and Barolo much more exciting than they once were, Castellani has
breathed new
life into Valpolicella, Amarone and even Soave, a white elsewhere a
bland, commodity
wine. Castellani’s ‘01 Soave Classico Colle Olivi is loaded with
mouth-filling
fruit, clean and crisp, and was a delightful accompaniment to Scopa’s vitello tonnato and airy eggplant flan.
This was
followed by two Valpolicella vintages, San
Michele ’98 and ‘00, accompanying pappardelle with a
spicy veal ragù. The older wine--my
favorite, though
still very young--gave off a sweet scent of dark berries and tar. It was concentrated and big-bodied with
a
promise of better things to come in the next few years. The ‘00 is an
in
-your-face, ready-to-drink wine with big fig and black-cherry flavors
that can
take on the most powerful dishes, and it was certainly well-mated with
the veal
ragù.
With hanger steak, rare and beautifully
presented in a rising pyre of pink to dark red slices, Castellani
presented a
trio of ‘97 Amarones—Monte Cristi, Cinque Stelle and Castei-Campo
Casalin. These were hardly dry and
overwrought, but
instead were instantly approachable, though they have a long, long life
ahead
in which they can only become even better. The Cinque Stelle explodes
with
aromas of mushrooms, chocolate, truffles and black cherries. The Castei
is a
lot more complex, smoky with flavors of cherries, plums and figs and
it, too,
is a keeper, good for another dozen years easily.
His Monte Cristi is equally loaded, more
comparable to the Stelle, but more robust and less complex. None is your usual Amarone.
We finished off with biscotti, and I
dunked mine in a pair of great, sweet Reciotos, a ‘99 Il Casale and a
’95
Castei-Campo Casalin, a more refined version of Vin Santo, but with
more nuance
and greater intensity, hardly as syrupy as the Tuscan dessert wine sometimes shows itself. My nod goes to the
deep
purple-robed Casalin, so concentrated, so rich in black fruit and earth
aromas,
a lively wine as unlike your grandfather’s Amarone as a Porsche is to a
Ford.
These Soaves and the Valpolicellas are
nicely priced, from a suggested $10.99 for the white, to $17.99 for the
reds.
Amarones are a labor intensive product, and the time and effort
involved in hand
selection and long drying are reflected in their pricing. Still, at about $42 for the Monte Christi and
about
$61 for the Casale and the Castei, they are good value when compared to
the competition.
Craig Claiborne would have loved them.
THINGS TO DO IN KANSAS
Kansas
Bill
Bunyan celebrated his 65th
birthday
by completing three
years
of
eating a hamburger in
each of
the state’s 105 counties.
QUICK
BYTES
* Chicago’s NoMi (800 N. Michigan Ave.; 312-239-4030)
chef Sandro Gamba will hold a
series of special cooking classes this fall at $60 pp. Oct. 4—Soups for
the
Soul; Nov. 8: Favorite Desserts; Dec. 13—Holiday Hors D’oeuvres.
* From Oct.
8-12 Chef Grant
Achatz of Trio (
*
On Oct. 12 a group of San Diego
chefs will gather at
The Lodge at Torrey Pines
(www.lodgetorreypines.com)
to “Celebrate
the Craft,”
a festival to demonstrate, showcase and taste premium food
products available throughout the state, featuring chefs Jeff
Jackson of A.R. Valentien at The Lodge at Torrey Pines; Trey Foshee of
George’s at The Cove; Amiko Gubbins of Parallel 33; Carl Schroeder of
Arterra; Michael
Stebner and Jack Fisher of Nine-Ten; Jeffrey Strauss of Pamplemousse
Grille; and
A.J. Voytko of Chive. Proceeds to A Local
Organic Farmland Trust.
*
On Oct. 13 Chef
Frank T. Kraemer of The Garden
Café (
* On Oct. 14 Vancouver’s C Restaurant (
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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