October 14, 2008 |
Short Order
Is Michael Eisner planning to launch a new food network? That’s what I hear. My historically reliable source tells me Eisner is working with a power from earliest Food Network days. “I know nothing about a new food network, although I just had breakfast,” Eisner responds to my morning email (and job application). “There must be confusion with someone else.” “Of course I am deeply disappointed,” I respond. “Maybe you should start a new food network, cable and on the net... it would be fun. And after all, you just had breakfast. And you will again tomorrow.”
His final email is signed with a smiley face. “Someday” is his reply.
Could he? Should he? After all, he did buy Topps for $385 million (milk shake money). Isn’t food hotter than bubble gum? 1-14-08
***
Taillevent was the legendary Paris restaurant where I always sent friends for pampering. From the doorman’s warm greeting outside the 19th century townhouse to the instant recognition at the front desk, I knew they would feel as if they belonged (not necessarily a given in Parisian temples of haute dining then or now). That no matter how pitiful or even nonexistent their French, how green or ripe their cuisinary knowledge, they would be welcomed by elegant, omnipresent Jean-Claude Vrinat, the consummate host and a passionate wine lover. Vrinat died Monday at the age of 71.
In the three decades that he was the owner and director of Taillevent in the dark-wood panelled hôtel particuler at 15 Rue Lamennais, M. Vrinat set a tone other restaurants would aspire to and captured Michelin’s highest rating. His loss of a third star a year ago must have been devastating, but he vowed to win it back.
For regulars, Vrinat’s enthusiasm made each dinner a homecoming. One oenophile friend recalls taking special care choosing a wine only to have Vrinat insist: “I have something you’ll like even better. It’s not on the list.” And he would send a bottle, clearly more expensive, but charge the price of the wine my friend had selected. Another New York pal told of arriving tieless in a leather jacket without a reservation and with two children in tow, amazed to be embraced by Vrinat and placed at a table just off the dining room.
I remember the inevitable savory cheese puffs…a river of cream and butter, the shock and pleasure of first tasting the food of a new chef de cuisine, Philippe Legendre, in 1996…a “let-them-eat cake sausage of pig’s foot buried in truffle dust.”
For all the meals…for the seductive evenings on his Louis quelquechose chairs…but most of all, I am grateful for all the many dinners with special privileges he gave as auction items for Citymeals-on-Wheels. I still remember the evening of the Citymeals benefit where he recreated Taillevent in New York, his delight in recognizing so many Taillevent clients in the room. That shy smile. 1-9-08
|
|
|
Jean Claude Vrinat was the consummate host of Taillevent for three decades.
Photo: Owen Franken.
|
* * *
Five of the odd couplings planning to bid on the expiring lease for Tavern on the Green, with or without the right to use that name, have already tried to enlist David Rockwell as the designer. Among them, of course, are Penny and Peter Glazier, who reportedly are walking down the aisle with Donald Trump on this deal. It was Rockwell and his team who came up with the wild red and black design with photos of old time burlesque stars for the Glaziers’ Strip House chain as well as the gorgeous 40’s look that gave Monkey Bar its early glamour. In fact, he’s been dreaming up the fantasy of Glazier restaurants since Bridgewaters opened at the South Street Seaport, with boats hanging from the ceiling. By the way, Peter Glazier has his doubts about whether Jennifer LeRoy owns the Tavern name as she claims (even though she’s opened a Tavern-on-the-Green near Palm Beach.) “We own the name Monkey Bar in 49 states," he said, "but we lease it in New York. It remains to be seen who owns the name.”1-8-08
***
“Can ingesting food cooked in liquid nitrogen, as in molecular cooking, harm the body?” a reader asks. “How about eating in a restaurant that uses liquid nitrogen, Alinea for example?” Who better to answer then the author of On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen, Harold McGee.
He responds reassuringly: “About 70% of the air we breathe is nitrogen. All that liquid nitrogen does is make a piece of food very cold very quickly. Then it just evaporates back into the air from which it came. Nitrogen gas isn't bad for us or good for us, it's just there. The real test is what the restaurant does with it. I'm ready, nay eager to taste anything that Grant Achatz comes up with, nitrogenized or not!" 1-7-08
* * *
Celebrated chef wrangler Elizabeth Blau has been called in from private practice to refocus the dining image at Encore, the grandiloquent add-on to Wynn, Las Vegas, scheduled to open in December 2008 as casino legend Steve Wynn’s Ultra–all bells, all whistles, all premium suites property.
Since recruiting a constellation of stars for Wynn’s splashy opening in 2005, Blau has been running her own consulting firm and opening restaurants with partner Kerry Simon, most recently the new Simon Kitchen and Bar at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino. But as Blau notes, “the Wynns are family for me. ” So when star chefs weren’t falling out of the sky and restaurant machinations struck rock, she was called in.
Wynn’s expectation that Paul Bartolotta would sign on as the fine dining centerpiece dissolved when the two couldn’t agree on Bartolotta’s dream of a super upscale Italian restaurant. Bartolotta’s astounding Italian fish house has been the jewel of Wynn dining from the day it opened with meals easily costing $300 to $500 for two, depending on how thirsty you are…perhaps upscale of that ilk seemed dicey in the current economy.
Blau meets with the Wynn team tomorrow to take their temperature and see what they want. Blueprints sent over to her before Christmas showed everything changed from the last time she saw them – locations and sizes of restaurtants all revised. The trick will be to get major star chefs who are willing to movie to Vegas, as Steve Wynn requires.
“A lot of young chefs are eager to move to Las Vegas,” she insists. “It was not difficult to get Alex Strata or Bartolotta to move,” she recalls. It all depends on where the chef is stuck. But Minneapolis, the suburbs of Detroit and Milwaukee are not New York. 1-7-08
* * *
Busy booking parties at her new baby, Tavern-on-the-Green in West Palm Beach, Warner LeRoy’s chosen heir, 29 now, seven years at the helm, feels the heat of all those hard-breathing suitors lusting after her expiring license. But she is also heir to Warner’s unquenchable optimism and tenacity and is primed for the battle, bubbling with confidence... more 1-4-08
Postcard from London: Drew Nieporent on Alain Ducasse at the Dorchester Hotel. "Had the egg, the pigeon and the truffled langoustines - all phenomenal.” Clearly, Drew is not a meticulous restaurant critic. What he ate at Alain Ducasse’s Dorchester restaurant: Soft-boiled organic egg, crayfish and wild mushrooms with Nantua sauce. Steamed langoustines. Artichokes, truffled “parmentier” jus (supplement 10 pounds). Roasted pigeon, Tuscan crostini, salmis jus. (By the way, the menu features a 35 pound three course lunch.) Drew encloses a 1998 photo taken at a Masters of Food and Wine dinner at the Highlands Inn. That’s Ducasse with a beard in the days when he actually cooked, Jean Louis Palladin to his right, a pile of minced black truffles on the chopping board, next to Michel Richard and Drew at the end. Highlands chef Brian Whitmer peers over Palladin’s shoulder. 1-3-08.