MARIANI’S
October 13,
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, as well as at The Grumpy Gourmet at
http://www.grumpygourmetusa.com/links.html
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Cover Story: Esquire's Best
New Restaurants of the Year by John Mariani
New York Corner: Mix by John Mariani
The Case of
Musso & Frank's :When an
Oldie Is Not Such a Goodie by John Mariani
Quick
Bytes
NOW
IT CAN BE TOLD!
Esquire magazine’s
annual Best New Restaurants of the Year 2003, as chosen by yours truly,
appears in the November issue (on the stands this week).
Here are
this year’s winners—in alphabetical order.
-Bastide,
-Bourbon House,
-Capitale, NYC, NY: Chef
Franklin Becker left the restaurant before the award
announcement.
-Crustacean,
-
-
-Jasper’s,
-LaCroix at the Rittenhouse,
-Market,
-Medici
Café & Terrace,
-Monsoon,
-Opera,
-Pampano,
NYC, NY: Chef
-Piperade,
-Simon
Kitchen & Bar,
-Studio,
-Suilan,
-Three Birds,
-Upstairs at 21, NYC, NY: Chef
Erik Blauberg
NEW YORK CORNER by John Mariani
MIX
68 West 58th Street
212-583-0300
The
peripatetic Alain Ducasse, who now runs “a
global restaurant group stretching from the
Mauritius in the Indian
Ocean to
Hong Kong,” has, with restaurant developer Jeffrey Chodorow (China
Grill,
Tuscan, Rocco’s on 22), opened a new dining venue called Mix, just down
the
block from his
deluxe Alain Ducasse NY, and the differences are striking.
If his namesake restaurant (in the Essex
House) is a reverie of haute French décor, cuisine and pomp, Mix
is 180
degrees in the other direction—a very cool, very casual,
sort-of-American style
restaurant with no tablecloths, orange china, and a “chef’s table” on
which are projected films
depicting the process of preparing the food. Parisian designer Patrick Jouin has given Mix a stainless steel curtain for a façade without a name on it (there’s a doorman who nods to you that, yes, yes, this is the place) and a TV monitor that gives you a view of the kitchen at work. The translucent bar changes color throughout the evening, like those panels in stretch limos. There’s something called a “seating module” that goes by the name le bateau, and the white brick walls are covered with clear rose-colored panels (above). Lighting is by a French fellow who lighted the “Mona Lisa” at the Louvre. (Wow!) And the rest rooms are fitted with “classic Louis XV chair/toilets made of Corian.” (Note to National Enquirer for possible Elvis sightings.)
The naked tables have all sorts of neat little items on them, including a spatula spoon butter tray and bread holder, “made-for-children” dessert flatware, and maple-handled steak knives. (No choice of seven knives as in the early days of ADNY.) The unremarkable staff uniforms were designed by Joseph Abboud; even the butcher aprons get credited to Bragard (who is not a couturier but a restaurant uniform company).
And so to begin. You start off here with ramekins of peanut butter and
jelly--the best you're ever likely to have stick to the roof of your
mouth--to spread on grain bread, which is a bit dry. Several of the starters are served in glass
jars (below, right), like
mini-salads, and they are tasty—one with a confit of tuna, cucumber,
citrus and olive sauce, another that glazed shrimp mentioned above,
another
duck, ham, corn and chorizo with a cèpe-walnut
marmalade. The only one that shows no
improvement over
the 1960’s versions in hippie communes is a salad of beans and bean
sprouts with tomato,
radish and lemon.
New England clam chowder with crackers is
first-rate, creamy and delicious, though a few more clams would have
been
nice. The real disappointment on my
visit was a watery, insipid bouillabaisse—one dish you’d think a French
kitchen
would do to perfection. In fact, Ducasse gives all due credit
to chef de cuisine Douglas Psaltis (at this point in his
entrepreneurial career
Ducasse prides himself on no longer even boiling water in a kitchen),
who's worked
with him in NY and Monaco. Ducasse is already off opening up another restaurant in his
ever-expanding empire.
In the Must of
Mix category the elbow
macaroni with ham, butter and a truffle jus
was a very French way to treat pasta, and in the Second of Mix (you
still with
me?) medallions of lobster in a savory gratin was very savory indeed. Among the meat
courses BISON were good pork cooked
in a cast-iron skillet with bitter lettuce, barbecue sauce and corn
bread,
though it’s not likely to win any prizes in North Carolina. Spit-roasted beef “L-steak” was delectable
within a thin
crust of pepper
condiment, with a side of nice rich mac-and-cheese.
Desserts, by
Franck Labasse, also come in glass jars,
including a heart of
chocolate mix cake (left) that
sounds funny but is really good, and a chocolate pizza with little puff
pastry “caramel and
salted butter religieuse." Profiteroles—that
irresistible bistro classic of puff pastry, ice cream and chocolate
sauce—was indeed
irresistible. Also recommendable is
the
compote of autumn fruits with cheesecake ice cream, a homage to
A jaunty young sommelier named
Bertrand Despinoy has collected a fascinating number of regional French
wines
you’re unlikely to find anywhere else in town, with lots of good and
lovable
Bandols, Alsatian rieslings, Côtes du Luberon, and Fronsac
selections. Prices, however, are for the
most part very high. In
comparing Mix’s list with
And
therein lies Mix’s potential problem as a more casual restaurant
concept. Ducasse’s grand dining room up
the block
charges the highest price in
One must therefore factor in whether the Mix
experience—Corian commodes
and all—is really worth the extra money. The
food’s very good, the place is hip, and the vibes
are good for the moment. But it’s going
to cost you plenty.
The Sad Case of MUSSO & FRANK’S GRILL
by John Mariani
Funny
how nostalgia can warp otherwise solid critical taste, the case in
point being
L.A.’s oldest restaurant, the venerable, much praised evergreen named Musso & Frank’s Grill (6667
Hollywood Boulevard; 323-467-7788) in Hollywood, opened in
1919. So many people over the years have
spilled so much effusive ink on the raffish, tarnished look of the
place, with
its big dark brown booths and antiquated appointments that it’s
difficult to
see things in perspective. Food writers
who would otherwise turn up their educated noses at a restaurant whose
menu
serves Iceberg lettuce, American cheese sandwiches, and scores of items
elsewhere
retired about the time Raymond Chandler cashed in his chips still go
into
swoons about M&F’s, the way they do about Peter Luger’s Steakhouse
in
Brooklyn, where the only sure thing is the nonpareil sliced porterhouse.
True, M&F’s has an Old Hollywood look nostalgia buffs
stand in awe of, except so much of the decor has been re-done over the
years
(including some hideously worn wallpaper depicting a curious English
countryside full of peacocks) and a lot of fixtures of no period
distinction
whatever. The crowd here, once said to
include studio big wigs and major stars (I did spot “Matrix”
A waiter, for
whom English is a secondary form of
communication, slaps a paper menu on your table and asks if you want
drinks.
You consider the dismal offering of wines, and
he takes your order without a word. You
begin to peruse a menu that seems composed of every dish ever created
in
outmoded continental dining rooms, bars and grills, luncheonettes and
has
houses, which would include Tadich Grill and Sam’s Grill in San
Francisco,
Gene & Georgetti’s in
Chicago, and Bookbinder’s in
I spent a good long
time looking over the menu, amazed at seeing items I hadn’t for
decades, none
of them sounding promising. Following
the advice of foodie colleagues and media, I opted for “Frank’s
Special”
seafood salad--a serious abundance of pretty good crab, lobster and
shrimp
sitting ice cold atop shredded Iceberg lettuce and dotted with equally
ice
cold, tasteless asparagus spears and pitted black olives apparently
straight
from a can. You get a monkey dish of
bright
orange French dressing and a choice of another; I chose blue cheese, of
some
indeterminate provenance and heavy on the binder. The dish runs $27,
although
it’s easily split for two.
The safest course here seems to go
simple, so I ordered a halibut steak “meuniére” (funny how the
old
French-continental items live on in such places) but what came to the
table was
an overcooked, dried out piece of fish with another monkey dish of
tartare
sauce, with no signs of the browned butter that makes “meuniére”
what it is.
The local press has for decades raved about
M&F’s
“prime cuts of meat” (you can read all the raves in framed reviews
dotting the
walls near the rest rooms). So I ordered a club steak, which I assumed would
be Prime beef. Instead is was a chunk of extremely chewy, flavorless
beef
(ordered medium-rare, delivered medium-gray) sitting in a moat of the
kind of
beef sauce that used to be called “au jus” when I was a kid.
The only saving note of the meal was a platter of
artfully
arranged cottage fried potatoes that were crisp, hot and delicious. Just to give M&F’s another chance at
proving itself something above the level of a diner, I considered
dessert and
coffee, but, without my asking for it, our waiter slapped a check on
our table
as if to suggest he wanted lunch service over pronto so he could have a
new
gold tooth put in. The bill was not
cheap: My tip was.
M&F’s has a lot going for it as a museum.
Indeed, if
you ripped out all the crappy decorative additions from the last 80
years and
restored the place to its original look circa 1935, you could probably
ship it
lock, stock, and booth to the Smithsonion. Better
yet, let some rich movie tycoon buy the place,
clean it out, get
some decent cooks and waiters in there, hire a maître d’ willing
to acknowledge
people, and make it an icon worth eating at rather than an insult to
prole
food.
MAYBE THEY DIDN’T COOK IT ENOUGH
"The fish was so exquisite I could
actually taste fresh cold water
and
mountain
air.”
TOUCH MY REFRIGERATOR AND
I’LL SLAM THE DOOR ON YOUR DAMN HAND
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
QUICK
BYTES
*On Oct. 17 NYC’s Oscar’s at the Waldorf-Astoria (50th &
* From Oct. 17-24 NYC’s Brasserie Les Halles Downtown (
* The
Borgata in
* During October Sandrine’s (
*
On Oct. 20 “BROOKLYN EATS,”
presenting
*
On Oct. 22 NYC’s Tribeca Grill (
* On Oct. 22,
18 San Francisco area chefs will prepare a
dinner
for the Tibetan Aid Project's third annual Taste
& Tribute at The Ritz-Carlton, San
Francisco (600
Stockton St.), including Jean-Pierre Dubray of the SF Ritz and Xavier
Salomon of The Ritz-Carlton Half Moon Bay; Laurent Manrique of Aqua
& Eric
Ripert of Le Bernardin; Jean Alberti of Kokkari Estiatorio & Gerald
Hirigoyen of Piperade; Traci Des Jardins of Jardinière
& Loretta Keller of Bizou; David Gingrass
of Hawthorne Lane & Jason Tallent of Globe; Laurent
Gras of
Fifth Floor & Daniel Humm of Campton Place; Tanya Holland of Le
Theatre
& Bart Hosmer of Parcel 104; Kelsie
Kerr of Chez Panisse & Dennis Leary of Rubicon; Melissa Perello of
Charles
Nob Hill & Ron Siegel of Masa's. $250 pp. Call 510- 848-4238.
*
*
* On Oct. 25 & 26 chef Marc Rasic
of La Table (3640 Sacramento St.) in San
Francisco will teach a class on a “lighter
approach” to traditional holiday
favorites, at $90 pp. . . On Nov. 20 the restaurant holds its
Beaujolais
Nouveau dinner at $32 pp. Write to marc@latablerestaurant.com.
or
visit www.latablerestaurant.com
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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