September 15, 2008 |
Short Order
Todd English and his new partner Sam Hazen have made an offer on a 16,000 sq.ft. building in the Meatpacking district across from Pastis. “It would be a total gut buildup, the rooftop, the whole thing,” says Hazen, who left TaoRue 57 after years of no partnership with Marc Packer. The duo are thinking a Middle Eastern theme. He and English are already working on Cha, an Asian concept in the Donovan House in Washington DC, four blocks from the White House. The veteran whisks met in the 80’s when Hazen, not long out of the CIA, started lobbying Jean Jacques Rachou for a place in La Côte Basque kitchen alongside Charlie Palmer, Rick Moonen and English. It was an era when most grand French kitchens were closed to American chefs. When English moved on, Hazen finally got his dream job on Rachou’s line – “I just wanted to be like Charlie Palmer,” he says.
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