January 1, 1965 |
Vintage Insatiable
Vintage Insatiable Critic
As George Eliot observed while waiting for dessert, "It is hard to live up to our own eloquence, and keep pace with our winged words, while we are treading the solid earth and are liable to heavy dining." Still I hope vintage readers of the Insatiable Critic in New York might be amused to see these vintage reviews. And perhaps newly arrived gourmands might be amused to discover our early obsessions. Many of the restaurants I loved or skewered or had high hopes for are gone. These older reviews are here for nostalgia or visitors in search of history.
If you have a favorite ancient critique you would like to see here email me.
1963-1969:
A VOTE AGAINST MOTHERHOOD
January 26, 1963
I don’t want to have any children. Motherhood is only a part of marriage…
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BEHIND THE SCENES AT LE PAVILLON
April 1, 1964
There is a tiny kingdom where rivers flow champagne, where the mountains are made of caviar, where always it is spring and roses are forbidden to wilt. Reigning over this understandably smug monarchy is a shy, tense, stubborn and uncompromising Frenchman named Henri Soulé… more
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PAPA SOULÉ LOVES YOU
June 13, 1965
La Côte Basque Countdown: cinq, quatre, trios, deux…What a mess! In quenelles-de-brochet-eating circles, it was like the return to the concert stage of Vladimir Horowitz. Henry Soulé was making his historic comeback to La Côte Basque. Showman, snob, perfectionist, martinet, conman, wooer and wooed master of haute cuisine… more
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PALEY'S PRESERVE: THE GROUND FLOOR
November 11, 1968
The Ground Floor is appropriately grand. It is slick, rich, calculating, spare, intimidating. It is Contemporary Wasp…the perfect place to end an affair... more
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THE QUINTESSENTIAL SOULÉ FOOD
November 25, 1968
At La Côte Basque the spirit of Henri Soulé still hovers: in the food and the wine, and in the air. Electricity! Drama!... more
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THE MENU RAP AND HOW TO BEAT IT
January 6, 1969
It takes cunning, discipline, poise and unjellied chutzpah to make a dent in the cost of haute dining, but it can be done…more
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STEAK AND BREW: PREMISSIVE GLUTTONY
Januray 27, 1969
The inexhaustible groaning board is a fine old American tradition...more
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THE MAFIA GUIDE TO DINING OUT
April 7, 1969
What is good for the Mafia is good for gourmet country. The Mafia is widely advanced as “the Michelin Guide for Italian Restaurants,” and a three-star police raid is... a tribute to the excellence of the kitchen... more
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AND NOT A DROP TO DRINK
May 5, 1969
I mourn the needless prolonged neglect of a fine American dining traditions: water...more
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LA CARAVELLE: INSULT à LA CARTE
May 19, 1969
Someday a gourmet anthropologist will do a thesis on the Manhattan culture's painful rites of passage. It will be called, "Coming of Age on West 55th Street..." more
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BROOKLYN COME HUNGRY
July 14, 1969
Eating in Brooklyn restoreth the soul. You can go home again. No matter how long and determined your exile, no matter how homogenized your diction, no matter how alienated your spirit. If you were born in Brooklyn or married into it, certain tastes instantly restoreth... more
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LA SEINE: THE RISEN PHOENIX BUILDS HER SPICY NEST
July 21, 1969
On the Ides of March, La Seine was born."They gave us a dead horse and told us to bring it into the Preakness," says maitre d' Martin Decre…” Everyone's fighting to get into La Seine. The names are dizzying: Parley, Roosevelt, Fairbanks, Burden, Loeb, Ribicoff, Mellon, Hoover (as in J. Edgar), the Duke and Duchess (one needn't ask which D&D)… more
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CAFE CHAUVERON AS LOVE OBJECT
September 22, 1969
Cafe Chauveron has long been the love object of my unadulterated great food passion. Great food alone, isolated from chic, ego indulgence, pampering or masochism... more
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FAR EAST BANQUET ON UPPER WEST
October 5, 1969
The taste of shark fin is not extraordinary…Still, you have to admire the artist who can make edible something so unpromising... more
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PLAYING THE CELEBRITY LUNCH GAME
November 10, 1969
"I don’t care who they are,” pooh-poohed M. Jacques Tiffeau, leering cozily at the dazzling frozen-in-silicone blonde two banquettes south...more
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THE CELLAR: THE HIGH-RISE HUNGRY
December 1, 1969
We’re the first stop for all the Beautiful People from Harlem on their way downtown…everyone stands around talking to everyone and feeling very liberal... more
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NOT SO QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT
December 1, 1969
At last our home turf, the West Side, is breaking out with restaurant where we play our own minor-league status games... more
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HAUTE-MEAL FOR PAMELA
December 22, 1969
I determined to borrow a sheltered, unformed, narrow-minded American child and transform her into an incurable gourmand… more
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