MARIANI’S
January 12, 2004
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: What's New in Atlanta? by
Suzanne Wright
New York Corner: La Caravelle by John Mariani
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WHAT'S
NEW IN ATLANTA?
By Suzanne
Wright
Mitra (818 Juniper
Street; 404-875-5515)
Bouncy
Latin music greets you upon entering the two-story building (left), a
retrofit of an old home—urban chic infused
with Mediterranean flair. In the upstairs dining room (below) the rubbed
tangelo and persimmon walls pop with oversized studies of Botero’s
voluptuous
men and women. Furniture includes
granite-topped
tables and chairs upholstered in a swirly, blood-red and gold pattern. The handsome, dark beamed exposed ceiling is
hung with a wrought iron chandelier dubbed “Medusa,” with numerous,
many-pointed
opaque glass stars. Downstairs is a cozy
bar and a patio with iron hieroglyphic sculptures where it will be
great fun to
sip and nosh come spring. The
staff is uniformly friendly, knowledgeable and genuinely interested in
your
feedback. How refreshing, especially
in
a neighborhood where chi-chi attitude too often rules.
If asked to rank
the appetizers, I’d give a
blue ribbon to the plump, flash-fired, briny oysters in a whisper-light
corn
flour, spiked with Anaheim garlic escabeche
on top. A close second was the
exquisitely flavored roasted lamb, served in crisp, finger-sized red
tacos with
an almond-raisin relish and a topping of cabrales blue cheese. Scallop ceviche was delicate, and quail with a
ragù of white beans, cranberries and wild mushrooms was earthy
and perfect for a
chilly night. 
Our
main courses included thin, perfectly cooked slices of chimichurri
skirt steak
nestled on a whipped bed of cayenne maple sweet potatoes. Masa harina
herb-roasted mahi-mahi with grilled vegetable enchiladas was similarly
well-executed, the fish juicy and flaky, with tomatillo adding a bit of
heat.
Brown-sugar roasted chicken with oregano potatoes and wild mushroom jus
was admirably succulent. And here’s
something
noteworthy: not once did we see sides
repeated; all were distinctive and conceived to flatter each dish.
My Achilles heel is dessert, so I was thrilled to
see pastry chef
Ann
Marie Kenney’s finales (without a crème brûlée in
sight!). We opted for the cinnamon
chocolate lava
cake, coffee flan and roasted pear cranberry strüdel.
I adored the flan (which was more like a pot
de crème served in a coffee cup) paired with a terrific cornmeal
sugar cookie. A
glass of Don PX sherry is a lush accompaniment, and Anita LaRaia has
pieced
together a great wine and spirits list, along with sherry and
tequila tastings.
Entrees at Mitra top out at $21.
Perhaps you’ve seen it
as you whizzed by on
Spring Street, with a backward glance for a better look:
the sight of a two-and-a-half ton bronzed
gold tamarind is arresting. So
is the exceptionally beautiful and
accomplished restaurant inside, Nan
(1350 Spring St. NW; 404-870-9933),
The
food is similarly impressive. Chef Joey
Riley has brought French techniques to
the enterprise. We ordered
the yum pla ka pong, crispy
filet of red snapper with green mango salad, the fish delicately fried
and the
flavors nuanced; a martini glass filled with crushed ice and a side of
raw
green beans, carrots, celery and basil. Next
we tucked into kanom jeeb,
chicken and shrimp dumplings with mushroom vinegar and dry roasted
chili, each pink-tinted
package presented on white porcelain spoons. Poh
pia sod, steamed basil rolls with
yellow pepper sauce are filled with flaked crab and a bracing sauce in
a yellow
puddle studded with pomegranate seeds. Moochoo
chee, grilled pork tenderloin with a light roasted red curry and
kaffir
lime leaves, was perfectly cooked, with a rich, coconut-based flavor. Gaht yang are tender barbecued lamb
chops with green papaya salad and sticky rice cakes.
But our favorite was the gan khew whan pla
ka pong or Thai-style whole sizzling fish with dry green curry. The head and tail are reassembled with chunks
of the filet and coils of rice noodles on the side.
All presentations are luxe with a single
flower or a radish carved into a rose on every plate.
For dessert, we cooed over a breathtaking
lemongrass pot de crème and a scoop of distinctive lychee sorbet.
Get
ready, I’m gonna gush: I predict Alex
Kinjo’s knockout new upscale Vietnamese eatery in the Midtown Promenade
will be a smashing success. Nam (931 Monroe
Drive; 404-541-9997 ) has a trendy,
ravishing interior,
helpful staff and memorably delectable—but not dumbed-down—food. There’s a precedent for my optimism: Alex and his brother Chris are the force
behind the wildly successful MFSushi, just up the road on Ponce de Leon. Alex lavished nearly five months on his
vision, supervising everything with an attention to details you’d find
at
Seeger’s or Bacchanalia; the results are splendid without being
contrived. His
sister Linh is the hostess and his mother Anh, who
hails from Hue,
is the chef.
Less
aggressively seasoned than Thai food, true
gourmet Vietnamese cooking is distinctive and subtle, its complexity
unfolding
with each layered—and healthful—bite. The
menu, tucked into a dark wooden holder, is
intelligently organized
into appetizers, salads, soups, meats, noodles, seafood and vegetables. There’s tremendous variety, but it’s all well
edited.
Doty, formerly of
Mumbo Jumbo, has
fashioned a very appealing bistro menu at his groovy new digs, located
in an office building near Pershing Point. The
sleek, yet warm space features high ceilings and snappy, earth-tone
colors
of
terra-cotta, rust and dark gray in the upholstery and leather
banquettes (above). Dark wood floors and tables play against the
white ceiling fans, ceiling and walls, with a bank of windows fronting
There
are 16 hors d’oeuvres, so hop scotching through them can make for a
fulfilling
meal. I was crazy about the
bright green fava beans and pecorino cheese and the bread salad with
salty
Serrano ham. The fried risotto balls
with marinara are less inspired, as is the sweet/sour eggplant caponata.
But my unabashed favorite starter was the Sardinian flatbread, a thin
and
crispy round topped with peppery arugula and Moroccan oil.
The perfect accompaniments? Silky
pink slices of prosciutto and a carafe
of sprightly Tocai Friulano. I was
less
fond of the gazpacho and asparagus Flemish-style, which I found a bit
too subtle.
The nutmeg-spiked lasagna
Bolognese for two is toothsome, but I balk at its $28 price tag, the
most
expensive dish on the menu. Better to go
for the hanger steak frites—succulent medallions of beef bliss
and
perfectly prepared fries. The turbot is
a generous fillet glistening with a delicious caper and brown butter
sauce and
served with spinach and fingerling potatoes.
Do
save room for desserts. There are 13
choices (not including the cheese course) and several will appeal to
the kid in
you—or with you. The doughnut holes with
three sauces (white chocolate, chocolate and caramel) are giant cream
filled,
fried balls of joy that will have you smiling. Ditto
the homemade Kit Kat bar, a silky nougat finale.
LA CARAVELLE by John
Mariani
33
West 55th
Street
212-586-4252
www.lacaravelle.com
Once
upon a time in New
York there were dozens of French restaurants whose style and
menus were all derived
from the legendary Le Pavillon, which began as the restaurant at the
French
Pavilion at the 1939 World’s Fair. Le
Pavillon's imperious owner, Henri Soulé, set the mould—which
became far too restricting—for just about
every
French restaurant in America after World War II. In NYC the French
brigade was full of former Le Pavillon staff and cooks--Le
Chambertin, Château
Henri IV, Le Chanteclair, Le Cheval Blanc, Clos Normand, Le Cygne,
Georges Rey,
Laurent, Le Madrigal, Le Marmiton, La Petite Marmite, Le
Provençal,
Le Quercy, Quo Vadis, and La Caravelle. All,
save this last, are long gone, victims of various
fates—retirement
of the owner, dwindling of older clientele, and the simple passage of
time and
style.
That La Caravelle, which opened in 1960,
has survived and still thrives under what has been only two principal
owners,
is remarkable enough; that it remains in the
forefront of
French cuisine—both classic and moderne—is testament to the
determination of
owners Rita and André Jammet, caretakers since
1988, having bought the place from the original owners Robert Meyzen,
Fred
Decré, and
Roger Fessaguet. Once a hang-out for the Kennedy clan and
other notables who liked their filet mignon well done and their whiskey
stiff, when lunch cost $8.50 and dinner $13.75, the menu toed the Le
Pavillon line to a fault--smoked trout with horseradish cream, roast
duck with orange sauce, and chocolate mousse.
André Jammet’s family
once owned the Bristol hotel in Paris, so he comes from a line of
refined
hospitaliers, and with his ebullient wife Rita and a veteran
staff La Caravelle remains as a totem of
discreet, good
taste. Well aware of the restaurant's legendary past, they have
kept its style while bringing everything up to date, the way First
Ladies, to varying degrees, update the White House while the CIA and
FBI update its techtonics.
The restaurant was
itself designed in the Le Pavillon
style, with a corridor of tables leading from the canopied front door
to the main
dining room.
Once these corridors were kept for the most favored guests sat, so that
they could
see and be seen by everyone arriving. Nowadays
such seating is of no consequence, and there’s
not a bad table
in the place. The banquettes, once lipstick red, are now pink, with the
principal flourish of
color from the famous Jean Pages pastel murals of Paris (above and left), which are as fresh
as the
day he painted them and as evocative as the Christy murals at Cafe des
Artistes.
The winelist is one of
the very best in the city, with 12,000 bottles and about 750
selections, strongest
in French holdings; things can get pricey, but there are sufficient
good
bottlings under $50 too. There is also a
Since the Jammets took
over, La Caravelle has had a slew of superb chefs, including Michael
Romano (now
at Union Square Café), Tadashi Ono (now at Matsuri), and
currently Troy Dupuy,
who had been trained at classic kitchens like La Côte Basque and
Le Cirque
before becoming sous-chef at Lespinasse under Gray Kunz, who sent him
to be chef
de cuisine at Lespinasse’s Washington DC branch. Dupuy is an eclectic
chef as
easily adept at maintaining La Caravelle’s classic French cuisine
as he is
innovating on a seasonal basis, and he is never complex when simplicity
is to
be preferred. For those who wish to
renew familiarity with the grand cuisine of the Le Pavillon era, Dupuy
does
splendid renditions of grilled Dover sole, roast breast and confit of
duck
with
cranberries, and the restaurant's signature quenelles of pike with a
lobster cream sauce. Move around the menu,
however, and you find
vivid new concepts like marinated tuna and gravlax with seaweed salad
and mango
vinaigrette, and sautéed foie gras with Cape gooseberries and
pistachios. His terrine of foie gras shows
his impeccable
technique in garde-manger, here with a Sauternes gelée and
marinated turnips.
Dupuy has fallen in
thrall to the trendy conceit of foaming sauces, which is fine for one
dish but not for so many: at least three of the dishes we ordered
were
foamed, when sometimes a beautifully rich, satiny reduction is
preferable to
these
bubbly lightweight broths and sauces. It
certainly worked nicely, however, with poached artichoke heart with
chickpeas,
endive and sumac.
Pan-seared cod roulade
came with generous black truffles and Romaine lettuce, while
pan-roasted
lobster was accompanied by quinoa and watercress.
There is a selection
of cheese kept in good condition on a cart, but you should never pass
up a
soufflé here, for they are textbook examples of what a
soufflé should be,
neither eggy nor too liquid, but slightly runny and full of the chosen
flavor,
in our case Grand Marnier. We also
enjoyed a delicate millefeuille
of chocolate with a Brazil nut
nougatine, white
chocolate pot de crème and
rum-raisin ice cream, and there was a pleasing
coconut custard with pineapple gelée.
At lunchtime, there is a $42 three-course meal,
along
with "Caravelle Lunch Bites"--two
courses consisting of hors d'oeuvres from the cart,
followed by a soup of the day or dessert,
at $30.
Their pre-theater dinner is
$48, and dinner is priced at $72 (with far too many supplements on a
not
very extensive menu), with a 7-course tasting menu at $110.
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NOTES FROM THE WINE CELLAR:
by John Mariani
Two weeks ago, I
noted how more and more California Cabernets are blends of various
grapes, along the guidelines of the Meritage Association, founded in
1988 by a group
of California vintners with the intent of developing wines that
mimicked the
traditional blends of Bordeaux wines: Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot,
Cabernet Franc, Petit Verdot, Malbec, Gros Verdot and Carmeniére
for reds; Sauvignon Blanc, Sémillon, and Muscadelle for
whites. The impetus was their belief that California varietals
would be more complex and finer wines if blending was performed rather
than depend on a single varietal to give many California wines their
big, sometimes massive style--even though federal wine regulations as
of 1983 permitted wines to be labeled as a single varietal as
long as the bottle contained a minimum of 75% of that varietal.
At the beginning many California vintners sniffed at
the Meritage idea, especially those who believed the strength and image
of California wines was built on big, bold, single varietals like
Cabernet Sauvignon.
Thus, it was with considerable curiosity that
I opened a bottle of Clos du Bois
Briarcrest Vineyard 1989 the other evening to see what an
old-style 100%
California Cab tastes like after fourteen years of
aging. Clos du Bois is a Sonoma Valley winery, with 925 acres in
vineyards, one of which is Briarcrest. The winery, began in 1974
by Frank Woods and investors, is now owned by Allied Domecq, and today
produces about 900,000 cases of varying quality, sourcing more than 200
growers in the Valley.
The Briarcrest Vineyard designation has always been
100% Cabernet (other Clos du Bois cabs are blends), and according to
their website ( www.closdubois.com
), this is their smallest vineyard, with silty clay soil that inhibits
root penetration. Extended maceration is said to provide
texture and smoothness, and it is aged two years in oak. I
found the '89's tannins very much softened after fourteen years, with
plenty of fruit still showing, and the massive inkiness that once might
have characterized such a 100% varietal had dropped away without losing
any of that varietal flavor. I detected none of the awkward, big
oak
flavors that once characterized such wines.
Still, I thought the
wine (which we drank with leg of lamb) was one-dimensional, and that
the addition of other varietals in a blend might have made this a far
more interesting wine. I am, however, happy to have opened it,
reminding me of those days when California Cabs ranged from oaky grape
juice to so-called "monster wines" that often blew more complex but
subtler wines off judging panels in the same way that a California
chick like Pamela Anderson could walk into a room and grab all the
attention for reasons too obvious to mention. And remember, they
like 'em young in California, so finding a 1989 is not easy.
I don't have many of these wines down my
cellar--perhaps a few from the mid-'70s and one or two from the '80s,
but this Briarcrest gave me a nostalgic delight, while realizing that
such wines become rarities after years when it took California vintners
to come around to what the Meritage Association was getting at. I'm
glad they still make them the old fashioned way. If you
would like to taste a current Briarcrest (winemaker Erik Olsen's
notes for 1995-99 are on the website), the '99 is currently selling for
about $40.
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. . . AS TRANSLATED
FROM AN OBSCURE FINNISH DIALECT
“Beyond the clinking of
crystal and the clop of waiters
rushing by, a new power restaurant was being born, a beehive of
activity alive
with preening and catty conversation: the timeless habits of a certain
Manhattan. They poured in that night
from the fashion shows, three-piece suits beside leggy blondes, working
their
way, through Martinis and bubbly, into boldface type in the morning
papers.”—Jay Cheshes, from a review of NYC’s Lever House Restaurant, Gourmet
(December 2003).
Having
run up a bill for $15.90 for two
pitchers of beer at Papa Bears Raw Bar in Greenacres, FL, Paul Hyslope
found he
hadn’t enough money to pay, so he walked across the street to the local
bank,
threw a garbage can through the glass door, and started empyting the
cash
drawers—all in full view of the restaurant manager who immediately
called the
police and had him arrested. (From the
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*
On Jan. 22 Chef David Jones of Log Haven Restaurant (www.log-haven.com) in Millcreek Canyon, Utah, presents the
Winter Installment of Four
Chefs Four Seasons, hosting chefs Todd Gardner of Snowbird Resort, Zane
Holmquist of Stein Eriksen Lodge, and Jean-Louis Montecot of the Goldener Hirsch Inn. The
$65 pp evening includes discussion with
the chefs and 4-course dinner. Call 801-272-8255; or loghaven@aol.com.
* From Jan.
25-30
parking for $8 at more than
40 participating lots and garages from
* On
Jan. 30 NYC's The Four Seasons
Restaurant will celebrate the wines of Piedmont with a tasting and
dinner at $175 pp. Call 212-754-9494.
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MARIANI'S VIRTUAL
GOURMET NEWSLETTER is
published weekly. Editor/Publisher: John
Mariani.
Contributing Writers: Robert Mariani. Naomi
Kooker, Kirsten Skogerson, Edward Brivio,
Robert Mariani, Mort Hochstein. Contributing Photographers: Galina
Stepanoff-Dargery,
Bobby Pirillo. Technical Advisor: Gerry
McLoughlin.
copyright John Mariani 2003